Alternatives to Fedora

[salmankhilji]

After using SuSE 8.0 for almost two years, I decided to switch to Fedora. Currently using FC2 (pretty happy with it BTW). However, there is one thing that I do not like about Fedora. It seems like if you want to remain up-to-date with the latest and greatest GNOME or KDE, you have to keep reinstalling the entire OS every 6 months---since updates to GNOME or any other core packages are not provided (I have seen posts here that recommend waiting for FC3 for xorg and GNOME 2.8) For FC2 users that leaves no choice but to wait for FC3 and do a complete reinstall.

Back when I was using SuSE and KDE, I remember updating KDE a few times (went from 3.0 to 3.1.1). Then after about 12 months that I had bought SuSE 8.0 Professional, updates to KDE were no longer provided (updates were only available for version 8.1 and above for the latest KDE). Thus again, for SuSE you have to keep reinstalling the entire OS about every 12 or so months.

I am looking for a distribution of Linux that does not have a Core version #. I mean there should not be anything like Mandrake 9.0, 9.1, 10.0, or FC1, FC2, FC3 and so forth. What I am looking for is something that installs easily and then all you have to do is to use the distribution's specific repository to keep updating the system and be using the latest and the greatest core packages---I should be able to upgrade to any newer version of gcc, any version of GNOME, any version of glibc etc etc. indefinitely.

Does such a distribution exist? I looked at Gentoo's website and it seems like it is such a distribution, but sorry....I don't want to take a complete month to install it---neither am I willing to learn all the command line tools and learn everything about Linux down to every souce line of code to operate it.

I am looking for the polishes look'n feel and ease of install of Fedora but a never ending update support---6 months isn't really that impressive.

[imdeemvp]

mandrake and slackware apply in this case, you can also visit www.distrowatch.com for more distros

[DarkMasterMatt]

Maybe not Slackware. I've heard it's tough to work with because of it's lack of GUI tools. And he seems to be looking for a fairly basic, easy to use distro.

[Varkk]

Maybe Debian would be the way to go, or perhaps one of the countless "Debian-based" distros

[inha]

I think gentoo would do aswell. That is if you're not looking for an easy distro. Even though gentoo isn't that hard either, the tinkering just takes time.

[imdeemvp]

I think gentoo would do aswell. That is if you're not looking for an easy distro. Even though gentoo isn't that hard either, the tinkering just takes time.


no kidding.....everything is done by command. :D

[deuch]

maybe yopper , linspire or xandros ??

deuch

[kilrex]

I have been using Fedora for about 8 months (my first linux distribution BTW) and I think in a very similar way as you: I don't want to have to reinstall (I know you can do an upgrade via CDs or YUM/APT but I experienced problems doing that last time, because of the switch from OSS to ALSA among other issues) every 4 months. I simply want to get updates and that's it. This is why I switched to WhiteBox Enterprise Linux 3 (http://whiteboxlinux.org/) some week ago - it's a "clone" (i.e. it is based on the sources) of RedHat's Enterprise Linux 3 and the project will provide updates until October 2008 (!), so no reinstall needed until then! Installation is almost exactly the same as Fedora, hardware detection is great, you have the choice between "desktop/notebook", "workstation" (same thing but with developer packages included), "server" or "custom". For your work you can use the same config tools as with Fedora, there is Gnome as well as KDE, you get the same applications as with Fedora (OpenOffice, Evolution, Mozilla, GAIM, etc.), even the desktop looks very similar.

Another thing I don't like with Fedora is that there sometimes are real alpha and beta packages in the repositories - only a few weeks ago my cd burning drive suddenly stopped working because of an unsupported cdrecord package that made it into the repositories - and I never used "at-testing" or "at-bleeding", only "at-stable" and "at-good", mind you. With WhiteBox, you will get only very thouroughly tested, reliable packages. That can as well be a disadvantage if you must always have the latest features, of course, but I don't mind, personally.

BTW, I'm not going to say I don't like Fedora or anything, in fact I like it very much it's just the two things above that made me switch to WhiteBox. That's because I'm not a developer or a technology enthusiast, I'm only a user who wants his work done properly and so I can't have packages so "up to date" that they mess up my system.

Just my two cents ;).

kilrex

[deuch]

Kilrex,

if you are using K3B with fedora, there is a bug with the 2.6.8.1 kernel with K3B ... you cant' use your cd burner with tis kernel (ic have the same problem with a debian).

K3B is a "front-end" for cdrecord and consor ...

I d'ont know the whitebox, thanks for the link, i will take a eyes on it :-)

deuch

[kilrex]

Kilrex,

if you are using K3B with fedora, there is a bug with the 2.6.8.1 kernel with K3B ... you cant' use your cd burner with tis kernel (ic have the same problem with a debian).

I know, but this is not the problem. I was using 2.6.7 (Vanilla) then - it was a "broken" package (it even said to me upon startup that it was an experimental edition), I have to know for I'm not using a front-end to burn cd's...


K3B is a "front-end" for cdrecord and consor ...

Yes, see above ;).


I d'ont know the whitebox, thanks for the link, i will take a eyes on it :-)

Okay, maybe you could really like it :).

kilrex

[kosmosik]

yes you need to upgrade entire system - what problem is that? it takes like 15 min. you don't need to reinstall it - you upgrade it. you can do upgrade and work on the system in the same time.

fedora is meant to be like bleeding edge distro. the main focus with fedora is on developement on new cool features. developers want to develop not to maintain software to work on old versions (since fedora is free you can always install a new version and it is quite straight forward to upgrade). I think it is good aproach.

[kilrex]

yes you need to upgrade entire system - what problem is that? it takes like 15 min. you don't need to reinstall it - you upgrade it. you can do upgrade and work on the system in the same time.
Maybe you can upgrade your system in 15 min. using the CDs, that's right - but then you can't work on it. But that's not the point: Upgrading often means problems AFTER the installation; I read many people had problems getting their soundcards to work after having upgraded from FC1 to FC2 e.g. I agree with you that it normally is no big deal but in my opinion it's likely that you will have to fix a few things - and if I can avoid that, I will ;).

fedora is meant to be like bleeding edge distro. the main focus with fedora is on developement on new cool features. developers want to develop not to maintain software to work on old versions (since fedora is free you can always install a new version and it is quite straight forward to upgrade). I think it is good aproach.
That's right - if you want to be bleeding edge, take Fedora. Of course, I agree that it can be an advantage always to have the new, cool features - but there is (in my opinion) a trade-off between stability/reliability and those new, cool features; if you want to have them you will have to pay some reliability for it.

But as I said already - I don't want to criticize Fedora in any way! WhiteBox / RHEL just takes a different approach and for me (tm) the second one is better, because I value reliability higher than new features.

kilrex
who didn't want to start a "distro war" :D

[kosmosik]

Maybe you can upgrade your system in 15 min. using the CDs, that's right - but then you can't work on it. But that's not the point: Upgrading often means problems AFTER the installation; I read many people had problems getting their soundcards to work after having upgraded from FC1 to FC2 e.g. I agree with you that it normally is no big deal but in my opinion it's likely that you will have to fix a few things - and if I can avoid that, I will ;).
you can upgrade with yum or apt - you don't need cds. problems with FC1 -> FC2 occured due to kernel version change. but usually such problems could be fixed by simply running configuration utility (or just editing files as I would do). I think it is not as dramatic as you say - if you do upgrade with apt or yum after upgrade you will get an output from entire process informing you about changed files (f.e.config) - you just have to examine those files... it is not like everything will break. maybe some little thing but it can be fixed.

fedora is so good also because developers focus on developing not on maintainig - it is main issue with that. if developers were wasting time on tweaking everything in FC1 they won't have time for FC3 - also maintianig something for older versions is problematical since to certain degree you must modify entire system (or desktop -> f.e. gtk2.2 vs gtk2.4) write sophisticated build trees, maintain build envirements and so on. time - all about time and human resources which are lacking ;\

[salmankhilji]

I visited the whitebox site. Browsing quickly thru the downloads section, it seems like WhiteBox will not provide upgrade to GNOME 2.8. Maybe my original question was a bit wrong----keeping up-to-date all the time with something like GNOME means that by definition you want a bleeding-edge type distribution like Fedora.

As suggested atleast by one---Mandrake---I don't want to use because Mandrake has had a history of ugly font support. All fonts in Fedora look really good. But then again last time I tried Mandrake was 8.0 before XFT stuff.

[kilrex]

I visited the whitebox site. Browsing quickly thru the downloads section, it seems like WhiteBox will not provide upgrade to GNOME 2.8. Maybe my original question was a bit wrong----keeping up-to-date all the time with something like GNOME means that by definition you want a bleeding-edge type distribution like Fedora.

I got you wrong then, I'm sorry :rolleyes:. If you want bleeding-edge, WhiteBox is certainly not right for you - it'll be a long time until Gnome 2.8 or even kernel 2.6 make it into WBEL / RHEL.

you can upgrade with yum or apt - you don't need cds. problems with FC1 -> FC2 occured due to kernel version change. but usually such problems could be fixed by simply running configuration utility (or just editing files as I would do). I think it is not as dramatic as you say - if you do upgrade with apt or yum after upgrade you will get an output from entire process informing you about changed files (f.e.config) - you just have to examine those files... it is not like everything will break. maybe some little thing but it can be fixed.
Yes, I know. I didn't intend to say it is "dramatic" either, I only said there are some issues with upgrading. Personally, I don't mind too much either, but if I can avoid them, I will.

fedora is so good also because developers focus on developing not on maintainig - it is main issue with that. if developers were wasting time on tweaking everything in FC1 they won't have time for FC3 - also maintianig something for older versions is problematical since to certain degree you must modify entire system (or desktop -> f.e. gtk2.2 vs gtk2.4) write sophisticated build trees, maintain build envirements and so on. time - all about time and human resources which are lacking ;\
That's a question of what you expect from a distribution, again. But that's exactely what I like on Linux in general - you have got the choice ;).

kilrex

[crackers]

Upgrading often means problems AFTER the installation
Ah, herein lies the rub. FC2 was a MAJOR upgrade because of the switch to the newer kernel plus the move to Alsa for the sound-system. The kind of problems you noted have, in the past, only happened when the kernel changes radically. The issues with these early versions of the 2.6 kernel are pretty trivial compared to some in the past. The change from 1.2 to 2.0 was... painful. In fact, practically every major kernel upgrade introduces new and unique problems. That's why vendors usually wait until there's at least some stability before doing it themselves. For example, RH didn't get onto the 2.4 kernel until 2.4.6, if I remember correctly. Fedora's a bit riskier, obviously...

And don't worry about staring a "distro war" - everyone's got an opinion.

[Lovechild]

Ubuntu maybe, it's debian based so you should be able to just dist-upgrade the sucker..

[kilrex]

Ah, herein lies the rub. FC2 was a MAJOR upgrade because of the switch to the newer kernel plus the move to Alsa for the sound-system. The kind of problems you noted have, in the past, only happened when the kernel changes radically. The issues with these early versions of the 2.6 kernel are pretty trivial compared to some in the past. The change from 1.2 to 2.0 was... painful. In fact, practically every major kernel upgrade introduces new and unique problems. That's why vendors usually wait until there's at least some stability before doing it themselves. For example, RH didn't get onto the 2.4 kernel until 2.4.6, if I remember correctly. Fedora's a bit riskier, obviously...
Uh-oh, I didn't think of that, you're right! I'm sorry for that, but Fedora Core 1 was my first linux distribution, so I didn't have any other upgrades to compare :o.

And don't worry about staring a "distro war" - everyone's got an opinion.
Thanks ;).

kilrex

[crackers]

Uh-oh, I didn't think of that, you're right! I'm sorry for that, but Fedora Core 1 was my first linux distribution, so I didn't have any other upgrades to compare
No problemo - which is why I gave the history lesson. Heck, I still have phobias about recompiling the kernel - the last time I did that it took over 16 hours! Er, that was a while ago, obviously... :o

[kilrex]

No problemo - which is why I gave the history lesson. Heck, I still have phobias about recompiling the kernel - the last time I did that it took over 16 hours! Er, that was a while ago, obviously... :o

Haha, a "professional java geek" who doesn't feel comfortable recompiling a kernel? Come on, I'm studying law and economics and I got it :D - though I don't like to do it by any means either :rolleyes:.

kilrex

[superbnerd]

Ah, herein lies the rub. FC2 was a MAJOR upgrade because of the switch to the newer kernel plus the move to Alsa for the sound-system. you forgot to mention the switch to Xorg. that also caused a lot of confusion when upgrading from fc1.

[imdeemvp]

you forgot to mention the switch to Xorg. that also caused a lot of confusion when upgrading from fc1.


yeah, no kidding MAJOR confusion there it took me a few days to find that out. :eek:

[cylon]

Ubuntu quiet right...never tried it...the concept quiet similar to Fedora..They want a bleeding edge of Debian base distro without the problematic of Debian relese date and they have a policy of support up to 18 months for any release.

Basically this what prompt Redhat in making this move. I've read somewhere an interview with which i think is Redhat CEO. He wants to acknowledged his paid customer mostly whom is business community. He wants a stable product which can span for quite sometime..let say for 3 years, so there wont be a problematic of updates/upgrades for customers and would also made their partners..like Sun or Oracle happy since they wont have to made any chages in a few months just to support latest kernel, X-window etc. But to apply this practice on the desktop market woukd post a problem for their consumers market and open source developers which support them all this time ( 3 years kinda stagnant for any linux desktop os..looks what happened to Debian). There's a dilemma! How about a different approach for Desktop OS...every six months for new release! It would be problematic..packaging, distribution, marketing..by the time it arrived on the retail maket its already 2 or 3 months too late..not to mentioned the unsold release they have...not to mentioned that most retailers prefers a longer life span product on their shelves. That's why the Fedora project was born! To give the larger community of a bleeding edge product...something which cannot be achieved using their practice on their business platform...so basically:
1. Paid customer dont have to worry about shorterm updates/upgrades or shorter product lifespan.
2. The rest of community at large dont have to worry of not getting the latest products the open source community have to offer.

[Shadow Skill]

No problemo - which is why I gave the history lesson. Heck, I still have phobias about recompiling the kernel - the last time I did that it took over 16 hours! Er, that was a while ago, obviously... :o

16 hours my God man!

[inha]

Maybe you could give vidalinux a try. It's a new distro that's basically a stage 3 gentoo installation done with the anaconda installer. The consept is pretty cool I think. Even though it kind of kills a part of what gentoo is "supposed" to be all about.

[Paul_Vandenberg]

After using SuSE 8.0 for almost two years, I decided to switch to Fedora. Currently using FC2 (pretty happy with it BTW). However, there is one thing that I do not like about Fedora. It seems like if you want to remain up-to-date with the latest and greatest GNOME or KDE, you have to keep reinstalling the entire OS every 6 months---since updates to GNOME or any other core packages are not provided.

The KDE FTP server had FC2 RPMs of KDE 3.3.1 2 days after it was released. Also, in my opinion, KDE is easier to upgrade between distro releases than GNOME.

[Shadow Skill]

Inha, Gentoo with an installer? [Insert happy music here.] If that's the case I may try it if I can't get fc2 to behave on my laptop.

[inha]

I was thinking about giving it a try myself but I didn't since I managed to get through the stage 1 installation. In fact that wasn't the hard part for me. The unbelievable amount of tinkering made me drop my gentoo experimenting for now.

I might have to download it and give it a shot just out of sheer curiosity. It has hardware autodetection and all so it'd be much more friendlier for someone only slightly past the noob phase like me.

[dirtyepic]

salmankhilji:

i'm of exactly the same mind as you are. i installed FC2 2-3 weeks ago - before that was some very short experiments with RH9 (too old ;p), Mandrake 8 (too GUI), and Gentoo (so good but steep learning curve for some). i love it, but already i'm wanting to rebuild the kernel, strip X down and rebuild it from scratch w/ Gnome 2.8, use the dev (or at least testing) yum repositories, etc. etc.

this might just be the broken-in 'beta is better' mindset of the ex-windows tweakaholic, but i think i just like tearing things apart to figure out how they work. to know that there's newer, possibly cooler stuff out there that you can't play with yet is sheer torture. ;d

Does such a distribution exist? I looked at Gentoo's website and it seems like it is such a distribution, but sorry....I don't want to take a complete month to install it---neither am I willing to learn all the command line tools and learn everything about Linux down to every souce line of code to operate it.

now there is the problem. what a distribution basically does is allows you to use linux without knowing linux. they provide you an environment where you can do whatever you want and not have to worry or even know about the specifics going on behind the scenes. to accomplish this is a lot of very hard work. everything must be thoroughly tested and carefully integrated to make sure the house of cards doesn't come crashing down. they take all the pieces and make them fit together so you don't have to do so yourself.

basically my point is you can have either simplicity or freedom. if you want complete control over your system, you are going to have to learn the command line tools and a bit (not everything) about linux itself ;)

two possibilities:
Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml
which isn't as bad as you might think. a stage 3 install is pretty much equal to a FC2 install IMO. the stage 1 install is the people talk about (only took me 3 1/2 days - woo ;)) but you learn a lot about linux on the way, and there's a very good handbook that explains everything clearly. it's also a good distro for tweakers (but unfortunately seems to attract a lot of the aforementioned windows-tweakerppl that are generally clueless as to how everything works but feel cool because they're compiling stuff with optimization flags. PS - sorry gentooppl, no offense intended. (but you know it's true :P))

Linux from Scratch: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
this is probably where i'm heading next. i built one of these about 3 years ago and it was a rewarding if sometimes tedious experience. expect 1-2 weeks to install, dependent on how many times you screw up and have to start again. :D the advantage here is you know _everything_ that's on your system and you have absolute freedom to do with it whatever you wish.

[inha]

(only took me 3 1/2 days - woo ;))

[keanu reeves]WHOA![/keanu reeves] That's a long ass time. Did bootstrapping and emerge system take long on your machine or did you have some other problems? It took me about 7 hours.

Compiling openoffice... now that took some time.

[crackers]

16 hours my God man!
Kernel 1.2 on a 386XS16 with a whopping 16Mb of memory and a 40Mb hard drive. Er, that wasn't quite a "state-of-the-art" system, but pretty close. 486s were brand-new and expensive as hell.

[dirtyepic]

no problems. ****ty computer.

=/

[Shadow Skill]

Sigh I really wish I was able to get rid off my windows partitions on my laptop..I'd like to try Mepis but I have to do a network install of fc2 which takes an eternity even with fairly decent DSL.(I know Mepis is a live CD but I always install those types of things to the HDD.)