Tried Fedora Core 4 - I'm back to Ubuntu

[FormerDittoHead]

I put together this white box for $90 plus some parts from other computers I had along with a 200gb hard drive ($70? how cheap are these things going to get?) for a dedicated backup machine.

Background: I cut my "linux teeth" on Redhat 6.4 through 9.

I installed Ubuntu, but found its GUI menuing system not to my liking (although a new linux user would like it.) Also, because of my 'upbringing' I found the lack of a root account (everything is done via sudo) to be awkward and indirect.

BUT: EVERYTHING WORKED.

But I wanted a "power user's" box. So I downloaded Fedora Core 4. Thought this would be like Redhat 9, but even smoother.

Boy, was THAT wrong!

First off, before doing anything, the boot CD asks to verify the CD.

Guess what I found? After downloading the first CD THREE TIMES and burning it etc. - the initial cd check is BROKEN! Searching the web I found out it's been broken since v2 and you have to add a line like linux dma=off or something like that. Like, ummm, FIX IT or take it out!

Now, again, I wanted this for a backup box. So, I figure, I need really, *ONE* THING - SAMBA.

BUT GUESS WHAT - Fedora, out of the box, vanilla setup, no custom commands etc etc - IT DOESN'T WORK. Others have reported similiar problems, etc.

Additionally, it would only get my video up to 800x600 (which is nearly unusable for some of Redhat's dialogs), when Suse and Ubuntu got me to 1024x768 with the same hard ware.

For me, Fedora is waaaay down on the distro list:

Right now its:
Suse (full featured esp desktop)
Ubuntu (light weight (1 cd!) and generally good)

and my next "try-me": MANDRIVA (Mandrake)

[RoyGBiv]

1. I don't like Fedora ...

For similar reasons, but the final kicker for me personally is that for some reason I have never determined, the default install sequence will not recognize by USB ports. I don't have an exotic mobo. It's an ASUS Socket A with nVidia drivers. Every other distro I've tried recognizes them just fine, but Fedora will not and hangs during its installation routine unless I disable USB port detection.

I'm going to try Mandriva as well next. I'm planning on getting a new hard drive for it in the near future.

[FormerDittoHead]

2. Updates on Ubuntu (good!)

Going back to Ubuntu, it's been a very good experience for this distro that new to me.

To follow up, I must say that there IS a root account, but again, they don't want to LOGGING IN as root, and I guess, forgetting about it, and screwing things up, etc.

But you CAN "sudo passwd root" and, giving root a password, volia.

But the big surprise has been the application installer / apt-get.

I was able to install KDE (gnome is default) & Windowmaker. There was a wealth of my other favorites available too and everything installed with a few clicks.

BTW: Openoffice 2.0 came with the default install.

So far, I'm quite happy with it. You know it's funny. Whenever I hear someone say, "I need a computer. All I want to do is web, email and word processing..." - Well, Ubuntu is doing all of that and I don't have to worry about crashing, security etc. It's STILL too bad you kind of have to know what you're doing at times but things are getting very close for the majority of Window/Office users...

[salvorhardin]

3. Oh sure, they all say that!

"All I want to do is web, email, and word processing."

So you set them up a system, nice and tight and secure, with exactly what they ask for.

Everything goes swimmingly for a while, but then down the road it's photos and videos and recording full symphony orchestras -- and, of course, playing stupid games downloaded from Yahoo! And the calls... "Why can't I run Bonzi Buddy? You said this computer could do everything I wanted!" :-)

[Solon]

4. That's what wine is for...

its finally in BETA!!!!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

5. wine, the program which has been "coming next year"

since 1994 now!

[Solon]

6. True, but I'm amazed at both the speed and stability of quite a few...

Windows programs that it runs.