As I mentioned in previous threads, we have an
OpenSuSE/OpenSolaris/OpenOffice study group here in town. However,
after two of our key members moved to the mainland, its activity has
been pretty much dormant. Before forming this group, we have done
extensive studies of most of the major distros.
Personally, I was using Fedora since day 1 it came out (& its
predecessor RH from version 4.2). I had been religiously downloading
and testing every version of Fedora, including all the betas and RCs,
until FC4. The last straw that broke the camel's back was Red Hat's
open hostility against java, & its willingness to ignore the dire
consequences that this may result, including a seriously deprecated
Fedora-specific OpenOffice.org. Of course, this is just me, and you
don't have to listen to my BS. (The incompatibility between Fedora
repositories is another important consideration.)
As far as using Linux as a hobby is considered, most of the major Linux
distros will do everything you want, if not initially. The key is
whether that specific distro has the right repositories to allow you
easily install the packages you want, and whether there exists a good
community support. Fedora is very good in the latter aspect,
essentially every question I posted on the Fedora forum was answered,
one way or another (seems that there are quite a few Fedora consultants
wannabes).
Edward Haddock wrote:
Wayne,
Thanks for the reply. I am new to Linux and Fedora has been my Disro of
choice. I have learned on it and feels comfortable for me at this point.
I have tried Mepis a little and Ubuntu/Kubuntu and they were ok. Mostly
I have stuck with Fedora because I have gotten everything to work the
way I want it and in some respects I sort of feel obligated because I am
a member of the Docs group now. What Distro do you use if I may ask? I
love hearing of others experiences.
Mahalo,
Edward
On Sat, 2006-05-27 at 08:15 -1000, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:
Edward Haddock wrote:
Aloha,
I was wondering why you are avoiding Fedora? Curiosity mostly.
In the most recent issue of Linux Journal, Nicholas Petrely also
mentioned his displeasure with Fedora. My reason is totally different
from his. For me, the main issue is a lack of smooth transition from
"Linux as a hobby" to "Linux as an enterprise OS". Previously this was
not a problem b/c no one (myself at least) was expecting to see
proliferation of Linux desktops in the foreseeable future. But when (as
I believe) business Linux desktops are now becoming a very distinct
possibility, I want to focus on a distro that shares a common code base
between the hobby version and the enterprise version. But as Nick said
in his article, this is just me; Fedora may be the best distro for you.
Wayne
