Why Fedora ?

allix · Post by **allix** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 9:43 am

As there is a thread on why Debian is good, lets have one on Fedora?

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:05 am

I use Fedora for a couple of reasons, and let me stress that this is just my personal opinion of why I myself, use Fedora. This is not meant as a "why" other people should use it, even though I think that these are good reasons.

1. Among the well known GNU/Linux distros, I feel Fedora's dedication to free software is unmatched. Both because they strive to keep any non-free software (Except for a small amount of firmware, which is easily removed as a post-install task of mine), but also because they and Red Hat in general, contribute heavily, or start projects to fill gaps where need be. Sun has GPLed all the Java source code which they own, they can't release certain other components. To get around this, Red Hat and a few other people put together this little project called IcedTea, which takes OpenJDK, removes all the "binary plugs", inserts custom shims and a bunch of code from GNU Classpath and other free software Java projects as replacemants, and makes it buildable with GCJ.

2. I'm one of the weird people who like RPM, it works perfectly fine for me, and YUM is fine as far as I am concerned.

3. I like the way you generally configure things, the /etc/sysconfig makes things easy to find, at least for me. Also I like having some GUIs for stuff, so that I don't have to dig around more than necessary.

4. The amount of packages may not be as huge as that of other distros, but pretty much everything I have ever needed (With the exception a Qt-based MPlayer frontend, called SMPlayer) was in Fedora's repos.

5. The ability to respin Fedora to do all sorts of cool things is just awesome!

allix · Post by **allix** » Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:15 am

I agree that Red Hat have contributed more than any other company to the pursuit of free software, even if Linc does not give a damn

It would be a interesting tale if Red Hat worked on improving desktop applications, fix gimp for a start so photoshop users have something that's really a alternative.
Improve Cinerella to make two versions say to give say a real alternative to say imovie, Final Cut Pro.

I fully understand why Linc uses non-free software on the desktop, because Red Hat and other huge companies are not working on the apps full time to make them decent.

davijordan · Post by **davijordan** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:48 am

I am glad we have more than one distribution, they all compete with each other to be the best. What is special in one distribution usually gets grafted to the others. Compiz and etc is an example of this. Distros are forever changing to our benefit. I thank goodness for all of them. Till things change again I am using fc6 to write this message,

allix · Post by **allix** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 1:26 am

I use fedora 7 , apart from suspend not working its good to use, what made you stay with fc6?

mowestusa · Post by **mowestusa** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 1:28 pm

I'm a recent convert to Fedora, and I have to say I like it.

1. By default it asks you to set up a root user and regular user (I just don't get the Ubuntu way, and why that is just as secure, because in order to use the computer my family has the same password to log in and install new software that could bork the system.) I know this can be changed in Ubuntu, but I like that it is default in Fedora.

2. The community is pretty amazing. I have never had a post on Fedora Forums go beyond 24 hours before I heard something, or given some options to try. Also I think they are friendly and welcoming. For me, my favorite part about running Linux distros is the community these days. It sets Linux apart from Windows in a big way. Also, at Ohio Linux Fest, I really was impressed with the representatives of the community who were there. Also Max really seems to be pushing the community aspect of Fedora more now than ever, and I feel it is helping.

3. Yum has easy to remember commands, and it does work well. I'm not concerned about the speed at all. The repo size is smaller, but seems to be a little fresher than Ubuntu and even Debian testing. Yet, the distro is stable, at least for me. I have had to compile one program which I just love under Fedora, wyrd, but it compiled without issue, and works great.

4. They seem to put more work into the Graphics and look of the distro, more than any other distro period. No brown default, swirly background. Fedora 7 with the balloons is cool even if you aren't into balloons because they are off to the side, and produce a uniform look from start up to desktop. Also they try hard to produce a high quality, new, fresh, and unified graphic look every 6 months. How much have other distros tried to freshen their look in the last 2-3 years?

5. They seem really dedicated to making a high quality Gnome and KDE version. I have used both, like both, and found the graphics carried out in both well.

I'm still having issues with how to configure and make certain things just work, but this is an issue in every distro that I use, some more than others. Over all, I like it as my primary work desktop.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 2:05 pm

I've run Fedora since a few months after Core 1 was released. I used to run the test releases in the Core 2 to Core 5 era, but no longer have the time or spare computers. I ran it on my server up through Core 4.

Here are the big reasons:

1. I'm a Red Hat guy. I've run Red Hat 5.2, 6, 7.3, and 8. I know how RPM works and the Red Hat way, so it's comfortable.

2. It's not Ubuntu. So many people are on the Ubuntu bandwagon, I want to support the competition. I was working on the Jokosher project for a while and I was one of very few developers who didn't run Ubuntu. It's nice to have an alternative test platform.

3. Technical edge. I read the mailing lists for a few years and found the developers to be really good people who believe in doing the right thing rather than making things pretty. There have been a few problems here and there but Fedora is about as close to the cutting edge as I want to get. They gotten bad press because they introduce new stuff before most other distros and get the flack when something breaks (the shift to the 2.6 kernel comes to mind, also SELinux and GCC 4.x). For a desktop system, it's a good balance of stability and cutting edge features.

4. Community. Fedora has taken a long time to open up, but more and more the community is in control. I realize Debian is way, way better at this, but I think Red Hat is serious about letting the community control Fedora.

schotty · Post by **schotty** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:26 pm

Gomer_X wrote:I've run Fedora since a few months after Core 1 was released. I used to run the test releases in the Core 2 to Core 5 era, but no longer have the time or spare computers. I ran it on my server up through Core 4.

Here are the big reasons:

Well put. No need to snip the whole post

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:34 pm

Just read an article linked on LXer that Fedora 8 will be the first distro to ship with PulseAudio enabled by default. PulseAudio sounds very cool.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interview ... Poettering

Very good screencast demoing the features here...

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Interview ... Poettering

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:50 pm

I'd noticed that PulseAudio plugins were available for Fedora 7 (just upgraded yesterday). I wasn't sure what they were for, or if any application uses them.