Head to Head Fedora Core vs. Ubuntu vs. OpenSuse

[mowestusa]

Now everyone settle down. I don't want this to become a flame war.

Pat reviewed Fedora Core in the last show making a few comparisons with Ubuntu. I would love a fuller review either in the form of a discussion here in the forum or on next week's show. For my home machine, I am thinking I would like to make a switch to one of the above because of their commercial backing seems to bring along with it increased community support and solutions. Currently I run Kanotix which I like, but at times I have gotten unclear answers or solutions from the community. I'm not knocking Kanotix, I still think it is a great distro, but it is a little harder to get support.

For example with Fedora Core and Ubuntu there are websites which have long and detailed instructions to get Flash, DVD playback, and MP3 support, and Windows codecs to work. Ubuntu even has Automatrix and Easy Ubuntu tools to make this even easier. I haven't looked into OpenSuse, but I imagine these things are also true. When I do searches for solutions to issues I'm having often Ubuntu and Fedora pages come up even though I'm tring to find Debian or Kanotix solutions (This is avoided of course by adding Debian and Kanotix to the search string which sometimes gives me nothing in google).

I tried Ubuntu once, but it was on a slow machine, and I did not like the experience at all. I also don't like typing "sudo" all the time. How did Pat and Linc get around this, and doesn't that annoy you?

So, I guess I'm just wondering if people who have used the two or three listed above on similarly configured machines, what do you feel are the strengthes and weaknesses. I just want something at home where I can sit down, everything works, easy to update, and problems are easily solved with google searches and posts to forums. I have a Slackware workstation that I use to learn Linux and deepen my knowledge at work. At home I just want to be lazy, watch DVD's, play music, and enjoy TV shows.

I must not be alone because I notice that Linc still hasn't switched his home machine back to Slackware, and Pat talks less and less about Arch. Allan likes to play with his OSX. Dann continues the frustrating road of running Linux on the PPC, the Ubuntu flavor because it is the easiest. I won't even mention the distro love fest on LugRadio. =)

Steve
mowestusa

[Gomer_X]

I think Ubuntu vs Fedora just comes down to personal taste.

I finally upgraded to FC5 over the past couple days and I like it, but I've been a Fedora guy since FC1.

I couldn't really understand Pat's complaints about update speed in the last show. The only limiting factor to me is my internet connection speed. Of course with FC5 you don't have to use yum at all if you don't want to, as the GUI based package updater is pretty good.

Fedora Core 5 is still buggy in spots, but that mostly depends on your hardware. Getting MP3/DVD/whatever support consists of just installing an RPM from livna to add the repository and then installing a few packages. I don't think it's as easy as in Ubuntu, though.

I'd just install both and try them out. You're the only one who can decide which you like better.

Edit: I didn't comment on OpenSuSe for obvious reasons.

[Patrick]

I tried Ubuntu once, but it was on a slow machine, and I did not like the experience at all. I also don't like typing "sudo" all the time. How did Pat and Linc get around this, and doesn't that annoy you?

You can reenable "su". I agree sudo is annoying. No required root at install is a bit annoying. Not a show stopper though:
http://help.ubuntu.com/starterguide/C/f ... nistration
see section 6.2

Pat talks less and less about Arch.

That's because my hard drive with Arch took a major dump. It's for the trash.

Like I said last night I plan to purchase Suse 10.1 when it comes out in a couple of weeks. It will be my first box distro purchase since 1998? I want to show support to Novell. Whether or not I keep it as my main workstation distro remains to be seen. I will give it a fair shake though.

[Tsuroerusu]

Now everyone settle down. I don't want this to become a flame war.

Okay then, I'll try to keep it neutral then.

I haven't looked into OpenSuse, but I imagine these things are also true.

Oh man, I just don't wanna get into this!
(Psst... OpenSUSE = Community project | SUSE Linux = Linux distribution)

I tried Ubuntu once, but it was on a slow machine, and I did not like the experience at all. I also don't like typing "sudo" all the time. How did Pat and Linc get around this, and doesn't that annoy you?

You can type sudo su, and you'll be root.

So, I guess I'm just wondering if people who have used the two or three listed above on similarly configured machines,

I use SUSE Linux 10.0 on my main workstation, I run it on my storage server (Which is a piece of shit Celeron system), I run Fedora Core 5 on my Mac mini, and had a friend try it out on his main machine. I ran Ubuntu Breezy for a week last year, so I think I'm a pretty good candidate for giving you a run down of pros/cons.

what do you feel are the strengthes and weaknesses. I just want something at home where I can sit down, everything works, easy to update, and problems are easily solved with google searches and posts to forums. I have a Slackware workstation that I use to learn Linux and deepen my knowledge at work. At home I just want to be lazy, watch DVD's, play music, and enjoy TV shows.

I must not be alone because I notice that Linc still hasn't switched his home machine back to Slackware, and Pat talks less and less about Arch. Allan likes to play with his OSX. Dann continues the frustrating road of running Linux on the PPC, the Ubuntu flavor because it is the easiest. I won't even mention the distro love fest on LugRadio. =)

Steve
mowestusa

Fedora Core 5
Pros
* Long time community support, LOTS and LOTS of community RPM repositories available with thousands of RPMs.
* Great GNOME desktop, good default set up, speedy, bleeding-edge while quite stable.
* Very nice clean install
* Good and simple package management
* Large community, with the Fedora Legacy guys you have access to years and years of security fixes.
* Huge forums.
* Great PPC support

Cons
* The process of using YUM is somewhat slow, because of it's way of handling dependencies.
* A surprising high number of the community package repositores conflict/overlap
* Not the best KDE experience, exellenct GNOME experience though.
* Not the most sophisticated management tools



SUSE Linux 10.0 (<-- Still one release behind Fedora Core, so bear that in mind)
Pros
* Beautiful installer, very straight forward, and very sophisticated if wanted.
* Great KDE and GNOME support
* Good support from the community, decent forums, and OK IRC channels....
* "Controversial packages" are all in one repository (Ehmmmpackmanehmmm)
* Good centralized management tools for configuring every aspect of the system
* The choice between a completely open source distribution or one with small proprietary addons such as Flash Player, RealPlayer, Sun Java, Opera, Adobe Acrobat Reader ...
* Wonderful documentation
* Legal MP3 playback in the flavor with proprietary plugins through the Helix engine in amaroK.
* Available as a retail boxed product

Cons
* Other distros may still, be a little snappier in terms of management tools.
* Not as big community support.
* PPC support is questionable.
* Big download, 10.0 requires the download of all 5 install CDs (10.1 will only require 3 CDs, reason being that even if you install KDE, you get some GNOME libs because they are dependencies of Firefox).
* Less community documentation
* Smaller forums



Ubuntu Linux 5.10 Breezy Badger (<-- Still one release behind Fedora Core, so bear that in mind)
Pros
* Fast, 1 CD install
* Decent default package selection
* Good community support
* Huge package repositories
* Quite huge community, offers good support
* Good amount of community repositories
* Multiple flavors depending on your desktop of choice: Ubuntu (GNOME), Kubuntu (KDE), Xubuntu (XFCE), Ebuntu (Enlightenment).
* EasyUbuntu, although an understanding of it's existence is required.

Cons
* No Flash, Java (Could be a Free Java), MP3 or similar support out of the box.
* A lot of documentation requires the use of the command prompt
* No centralized-, and lack of, easy-to-use managemnt tools for configuring the system.
* Daunting installer
* Somewhat "fixed" default settings



OK, I hope I have been fair to each distro, for example I slap each with some facts that have annoyed me/that I have heard complaints about.

[Patrick]

I think Ubuntu vs Fedora just comes down to personal taste.

I totally agree, try both and see what you like better

I couldn't really understand Pat's complaints about update speed in the last show. The only limiting factor to me is my internet connection speed. Of course with FC5 you don't have to use yum at all if you don't want to, as the GUI based package updater is pretty good.

At first it seemed YUM was working great and slowed down later in the night. Perhaps it was my internet connection. I have a cable modem. Yes you don't have to use YUM if you don't want to. When I had MythTV running on FC3 I used apt4rpm and it worked great. FC5 is a nice distro but I'm definitely going to check out Suse 10.1 when it comes out. Hell I might just re-install Arch at the end of the day.

[Tsuroerusu]

At first it seemed YUM was working great and slowed down later in the night. Perhaps it was my internet connection.

I think I know what the problem is, YUM has a big mirror list that it tries randomly, and sometimes it just picks the wrong mirror, I just hit Ctrl+C and then re-execute the previous "yum update" command or just the previous yum command if update was not the action used.

When I had MythTV running on FC3 I used apt4rpm and it worked great.

Apt4rpm works the same on SUSE, I just thought I'd throw that in there.

FC5 is a nice distro but I'm definitely going to check out Suse 10.1 when it comes out.

Hehe, sounds good to me, one to remember though is that their package manager is fairly bleeding edge, RC1 is just out, and RC2 will be out next week, I don't know if I'm gonna try it out, I'll just wait for the early bug reports to see if I really wanna mess with another one

Hell I might just re-install Arch at the end of the day.

Hehe, I have a little bit of a fear that, that might be what ends up happening

[mowestusa]

Thanks for the responses.

I asked for the discussion because downloading 10 CD and doing two full installs on a machine that the family uses is not really an option. This machine is their gateway to the internet, so when it goes down for a length of time, they are not happy with me. So I don't like to make big changes on that machine regularly, nore do I like to get them used to one desktop, only to confuse them with a new desktop again. This machine is the only one that I can try out other newer distros on because my other boxes are too old and too slow.

Actually, when I did the Kanotix install on this machine last Christmas it was because they had been using Kanotix on an older machine up until that time. So there was not transition, just faster machine with a better experience. So this will be the first time they have had a change in 1 1/2 years. If I make a change, I want it to be something that that we can live with for another 1-2 years.

One disadvantage that was mentioned is 5 CD download of Suse. Don't you have to download and install all 5 CD to do a Fedora Core install?

What is the official forum for Fedora Core which is also friendly to new users?

Also speed is a concern for me. I don't like a slow desktop, that is one of the reasons I love Linux is because of the speed that it has compared to WindowsXP. I also want a snappy experience on fairly new hardware without going down to XFCE or Fluxbox. So basically looking for a great KDE or Gnome experience on AMD 2800 Sempron with 256megs-512megs or ram.

Thanks for this open and honest discussion.

Steve
mowestusa

[Linc]

>>I tried Ubuntu once, but it was on a slow machine, and I did not like the experience at all. I also don't like typing "sudo" all the time. How did Pat and Linc get around this, and doesn't that annoy you?
<<

Hell yes it annoyed me and it was one of the very first things I changed.
Open a terminal and sudo sh, that will get you to a root terminal, then do a 'passwd' and put in a root password. From then on you'll have a *real* root user and shell that you can su to.

<<I>>

Tell ya thr truth, for me it's been a time thing. For a good while I was satisfied with Ubuntu at home on my main WS, but more and more it seems to be getting in my way there. For instance, my recent install of vmware player - there was no ease of installation there, in fact, I had a harder time with that than I would with a slackware machine because I had to dl compilers and all kinds of other crap. I also know for a fact that slackware run's rungs around ubuntu in terms of speed. The cons to the switch now are a couple apps I like (grip, etc) that I will have to find replacements for because of no gnome in slackware now (or I gotta go through the hassle of getting all the gnome libs). I just need the time (and ambition) to dedicate a couple hours to moving stuff around again.

[mowestusa]

Oh man, I just don't wanna get into this!
(Psst... OpenSUSE = Community project | SUSE Linux = Linux distribution)

I remember this being discussed, but then one of the LWE interviews with someone who works on the OpenSUSE project seemed to use the OpenSUSE name to discuss the distro. Like, "If it is open source it is included in OpenSUSE."

I also feel that it would be in Suse's greater interest to clean up their naming conventions a little more. They have dropped "Novell Linux" which is great. Now if they would call the commercial boxed version "Suse Linux" and the community distro "Open Suse" it would be clearer on Distro watch too. Right now it seems confusing as to whether the community distro has been updated or released or if the commercial boxed version has been updated or released.

I'm sure there is a method to there madness, but I felt it just makes things more confusing to figure out what has Novell included in the commercial version that they have not included in the open version. There are differences in "ifolder" and other "server" technologies. Maybe I'm just missing it, but I felt that this naming issue caused some confusions during the interviews. Dann tried to ask a couple of times what is included and what is not included in the open version of Suse Linux and I don't really feel that the answers were always clear.

Thanks, Tsuroerusu, because I did appreciate your post a lot. It was very helpful in my considerations. As were the others.

Steve
mowestusa

[Tsuroerusu]

Thanks for the responses.

No problem.

I asked for the discussion because downloading 10 CD and doing two full installs on a machine that the family uses is not really an option.

If you think 10 is a lot, you should see my entire collection just since September 2005
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Slackware, PC-BSD, DesktopBSD, SUSE, Fedora .....................................................

This machine is their gateway to the internet, so when it goes down for a length of time, they are not happy with me. So I don't like to make big changes on that machine regularly, nore do I like to get them used to one desktop, only to confuse them with a new desktop again. This machine is the only one that I can try out other newer distros on because my other boxes are too old and too slow.

I'd say try SUSE 10.1, it has something called AppArmor which can prevent buffer overflow attacks from being exploit to modify anything but the files that AppArmor allows, say Firefox, to access. That way you don't have to update Firefox ASAP. It's just a feature I find interesting, not necessarily a super important feature.

One disadvantage that was mentioned is 5 CD download of Suse. Don't you have to download and install all 5 CD to do a Fedora Core install?

If you just do a default install of GNOME (When I tried KDE, it did require other CDs) it will only require CD1 and CD2, however you mention KANOTIX, and from that I assume you need KDE for your family, while Fedora does offer a wonderful GNOME experience, I still think SUSE, and even Kubuntu, does a much much better job at a good KDE experience than Fedora.
One of the things that's interesting about SUSE's YaST is that the Qt UI, is not done at the YaST core it's actually just a plugin, so you could make a GTK2 plugin and have a native GNOME look and feel.
Now one thing to note about the upcoming SUSE 10.1, is that the three CDs are needed for either a KDE or GNOME install in English or German, so you still get the choice, without needing a whole bunch of disks.

What is the official forum for Fedora Core which is also friendly to new users?

I think http://www.fedoraforum.org, is what would be considered official.

Also speed is a concern for me. I don't like a slow desktop, that is one of the reasons I love Linux is because of the speed that it has compared to WindowsXP. I also want a snappy experience on fairly new hardware without going down to XFCE or Fluxbox. So basically looking for a great KDE or Gnome experience on AMD 2800 Sempron with 256megs-512megs or ram.

If you have 512 MB of RAM, any of the three distros we're talking about will work fine. I ran SUSE 9.3 (Which was somewhat sluggish) on an 800 MHz Pentium3 with 256 MB of RAM, it was not exactly as snappy as on my Athlon Barton XP 3200+ with, at the time, 512 MB of RAM, but it was absolutely usable for web browsing, email, word processing and all that stuff, apps just took a few more secs to launch and maybe you'd notice a slight milisecond of loss in click speed, but it was certainly usable. My P3 died, and I never got to load SUSE 10.0 on it, sadly.

Thanks for this open and honest discussion.

Steve
mowestusa

No problem man, that's what you in the US have the first amendment for, to be able to speak freely and honestly.

[mowestusa]

I just need the time (and ambition) to dedicate a couple hours to moving stuff around again.

Time and ambition are the reasons why I want to do one of these installs and just keep it for the next two years at home, and then use my Slackbox to deepen my knowledge as I have time. I just don't have the time or ambition to mess around fixing printer and multimedia problems at home. I just want to sit down and enjoy the experience. Of course, I'm willing to do some things to get it set up, but I don't want to spend hours combing the internet for answers on playing a DVD or fixing a video codec issue when I come home and want to use the computer for a few hours and then go to bed.

Steve
mowestusa

[Tsuroerusu]

Oh man, I just don't wanna get into this!
(Psst... OpenSUSE = Community project | SUSE Linux = Linux distribution)

I remember this being discussed, but then one of the LWE interviews with someone who works on the OpenSUSE project seemed to use the OpenSUSE name to discuss the distro. Like, "If it is open source it is included in OpenSUSE."

Well, Michael Löffler is from Germany, and I noticed he had a few mistakes in his english here and there, not that I don't have that, but he mistook deployment for development, if you go watch the very first FOSDEM 2006 presentation by the openSUSE project, you will notice Michael and Sonja Krause explaining this VERY clearly.

I also feel that it would be in Suse's greater interest to clean up their naming conventions a little more. They have dropped "Novell Linux" which is great. Now if they would call the commercial boxed version "Suse Linux" and the community distro "Open Suse" it would be clearer on Distro watch too. Right now it seems confusing as to whether the community distro has been updated or released or if the commercial boxed version has been updated or released.

I'm sure there is a method to there madness, but I felt it just makes things more confusing to figure out what has Novell included in the commercial version that they have not included in the open version. There are differences in "ifolder" and other "server" technologies. Maybe I'm just missing it, but I felt that this naming issue caused some confusions during the interviews. Dann tried to ask a couple of times what is included and what is not included in the open version of Suse Linux and I don't really feel that the answers were always clear.

They have actually been trying to do this, but apperantly all the journalists, including our good friend Steven J. Vaughan-Nicolas, still uses the name openSUSE.

So let me clarify it for you, as Novell has been trying to do.

Commercial Novell Linux Products
Novell Open Enterprise Server (Netware services on Linux)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (A classic, and very solid product)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
(Formerly known as Novell Linux Desktop, the reason for the name change was to get a common branding name, and because NLD was mainly for smaller machines like thin clients, and SLED10 is for a full fledged workstation)

Community products
SUSE Linux Retail Box
(Developed and maintained by the openSUSE project, with some proprietary addons and a nice printed manual, and 90-day installation support)

The "open" in openSUSE, doesn't really have anything to do with the term "open source", it's refering to the development model, because in the past SUSE was developed behind closed doors, so the idea in the "openSUSE" name is to express that this is SUSE developed out in the open, it's about opening SUSE up to the public open source developers, and not about open sourcing stuff.
The reason why it makes no sense to call the distro "openSUSE" is that the openSUSE project does more than just build "SUSE Linux", it also "hosts" and is an umbrella for a lot of Novell's other stuff like AppArmor, iFolder and so forth., Mono and that stuff is all seperate.

If you think about this for a minute, the SUSE Linux codebase is developed in the openSUSE project, and then when it's time for a new enterprise release, they kind of do what Red Hat does with Fedora, does some hardcore beta testing, vendor certification, enterprisization of the codebase.

Novell might have more products, I just don't remember them all, and I wanted this to be a simple explanation.

Thanks, Tsuroerusu, because I did appreciate your post a lot. It was very helpful in my considerations. As were the others.

Steve
mowestusa

Once again, it's my pleasure.[/b]

[Gomer_X]

One disadvantage that was mentioned is 5 CD download of Suse. Don't you have to download and install all 5 CD to do a Fedora Core install?

Fedora does not require all 5 CDs. You can get by with just 1 if you want to do an FTP install. You just boot and install all the packages over the net. I'm pretty sure you can download the 75 meg rescue CD ISO and install from that, but I haven't tested it.

I do NFS or hard drive installs, so I only burn the 1 boot CD. All these options are explained in the install guide (see Alternative installation methods).

[Patrick]

One very cool thing Ubuntu did was automatically lower my resolution when plugged into an overhead projector for presentations. Unfortunately the only way to bring back my default screen resolution was to reboot my machine. I can live with that. I'm planning on doing an informal introduction to linux presentation for my co-workers during a "lunch-n-learn" session.

[snarkout]

Can we all use bold or italics to indicate a quote until the quote tags are fixed? Reading this thread is just painful.

EDIT - nm, just saw dan's post that quote is fixed.