Thinkpads Forum

Any pros and cons of one vs the other? I was wondering why Dell put Ubuntu on their products instead of Fedora?

Thanks.

That's like asking "Why Chevy instead of Ford?" It is just a preference.
As to why, You will have to ask Michael Dell about that.

carbon_unit wrote: As to why, You will have to ask Michael Dell about that.

I believe the Ubuntu community is the largest for support. It is also the most used Linux distro on distrowatch.com and has been for a while. I am not familiar with other versions of Linux, but I like Ubuntu and it works well with Thinkpads.

I started out using Fedora and switched to Ubuntu a couple of months later. Both put out a new version about twice a year. Fedora seem more cutting edge and somewhat less stable that Ubuntu. Both have good support forums. The Ubuntu forum is very new user friendly.

I think that it is all about personal preference.

Myself I switched from Ubuntu from Fedora just because I liked the default config more (I could customize it close to what I like quicker) but its all about preferences.

I'm sure that others find Fedora closer to what they like. If you don't like updating the software too often you should look at Ubuntu though as they come out with their Long Term Support (LTS) version everyone once and a while which they will continue to put software updates for a while longer than Fedora.

-- If you have the time, try them both out.

Regards,
Brad.

By all means try both.

I use Fedora because I got used to administering Red Hat. Fedora is good if you like to run some of the latest software, and don't mind upgrading every year (you can skip every other version easily).

If you like stability, CentOS is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and runs on ThinkPads very well. Bugfixes and security patches are maintained for SEVEN YEARS on each CentOS release (because that's how long Red Hat supports their enterprise products).

Ubuntu aims for an easy to use desktop, while Fedora is the testbed for server/enterprise use. Fedora is fast in adapting things like Xen and SElinux, which are important for server use but (almost) irrelevant for a single-user desktop. Ubuntu, on the other hand, places more emphasis on eye candy like beryl/compiz and simple installation for the binary ATI/NVIDIA drivers.

But at the end of the day they run the same gnome/kde desktop, and both come with most of the available software. From an end-user point of view there is no difference once you have set up everything to your liking.

But getting it set to your liking is the challenge. Some are by default closer to your ideal than others. The only way to know which is better for you, is to try a few of them out. Most have a live cd so you can check it out before you commit to a hard drive install. Try them both out and see which one you like the best.

Fedora uses RPMs for software.. nuff said

zverg wrote:Fedora uses RPMs for software.. nuff said

...And Ubuntu uses DEB's. RPM's have no real advantage over DEB's. They both do the same thing in a different way. Once again, it is a preference.
Personally I prefer DEB's. You prefer RPM's.

I believe Ubuntu is very easy to install compared to Fedora.... Easy learning curve. I have 7.04 on one of my T41's and the installation went very smooth. My 2 cents worth............

Ron

Been a Fedora user for a while until the Fedora 7 couldn't be installed on my VMWare, just switched to Ubuntu 7.04 last night and the installation did go easily and smoothly, however I do feel like Fedora better, hope VMWare fix it soon.

carbon_unit wrote:

zverg wrote:Fedora uses RPMs for software.. nuff said

...And Ubuntu uses DEB's. RPM's have no real advantage over DEB's. They both do the same thing in a different way. Once again, it is a preference.
Personally I prefer DEB's. You prefer RPM's.

pardon my miscommunication, when I say RPM it is with the most negative tone possible. They are hellish at best. I haven't had much of any problem with DEBs. I think half the issue I had with RPMs was that the distros I used with RPM were in the days before it was commonplace to have an integrated, supported package repository. You'd go to install the app, and then have to find locations to download 20+ dependencies, which of course some had their own extra dependencies, etc.

Writing as a long-time Fedora user, I've had no problems. "yum install <package>" adds all dependencies by default and "yum update" installs the latest version of everything. It's been very stable and very reliable in the years I've used it.

Even using packages from third-party repositories, while not exactly a breeze, isn't exactly painful either.

The following would be roughly equivalent:

Package file: .deb <-> .rpm
Individual package install/uninstall: dpkg <-> rpm
Automated dependencies download/install: apt <-> yum

Using rpm alone would be just as painful as only using dpkg. It is true that years ago apt was ready while yum was in its infancy, but that is ancient history now. Today there is no big difference.

zverg wrote:pardon my miscommunication, when I say RPM it is with the most negative tone possible.

Ahh...I see. It was hard to read your tone without any emoticons.
I guess my prejudice comes from using Debian based distros for long enough that I know where to find the config files and such. I am just more comfortable with the way the Debian filesystem is laid out. If I had spent more time with Red Hat the opposite would be true.

Back to the original question of Ubuntu vs. Fedora ...
You should try both. Both Fedora 7 and Ubuntu 7.04 come with LiveCDs that you can pop in, try them out and if you like them, install right from the LiveCD. If you've got the time and hard drive space, i'd even suggest double boot (or triple if you've got M$FT) the different distros, try them out and see which you like better. I've used redhat/Fedora since around 1997 so i'm much more comfortable with Fedora.

I switched over to Ubuntu about 4 months ago and have no reason to switch back to Fedora other than doing some RPM based development which is easily solved by having a Fedora 7 installation running in VMPlayer on Ubuntu 7.04.

P.S. both the Ubuntu 7.04 and Fedora 7 LiveCDs supported by Intel 2945 Wireless card right out of the box.

I have recently redone all of the OS's on my T41p.

I was a big SuSE guy for many years as their distro always seemed to work out of the box with little tweaking required.

I decided to try out Fedora 7. It is much faster in boot and login times (starting x, loading KDE, etc) than SuSE. I did try the latest Ubuntu (Kubuntu actually). It's quite nice and everything worked for the most part, however it booted much slower than Fedora 7. Otherwise they looked to be roughly equal to me. I decided to keep Fedora though.