I Use Fedora Because...

[Ug]

I use Fedora because it feels like a professional distribution which allows me to get my work done without patronising me. Its also an innovative distribution as its the testing ground for the new technology ready for the RHEL lines. At the same time its got a growing community which makes it a joy to interact with.

So why do you use Fedora?

[grommer]

I started my linux with RH 8 a few years ago, tried other distros, gentoo, slack, debian, freebsd. Just never got a good feel for them.

Something about the Rh and Fedora line just stuck with me. It's not too complicated, but at the same time it's not entirely easy either. The perfect mix. Setting up servers has never been easier. Awesome hardware support out of the box.

Simply an awesome distro. It's hard to give specifics

[ndv]

I am a Microsoft Certified professional, and I work mainly with AD and Windows2003 related iussues as a consultant for some big and small firms. but for the sake of security assessments I have begun to use linux. I have tried really dozen of distros on my laptop and I have decided that fedora was:
the only valid competitor in terms of usability and easiness of windows xp, which is still the easiest OS to give in the hands of an average secretary...
It is stilish, powerful and has a reasonable way to install packets and the OS itself. has a complete set of applications and it is quite fully internationalised (here in italy english-only systems are NOT welcome).
my two cents.
nicola
italy

[ghaefb]

I started with RH 5.0 continued with 7.3, 8.0, 9.0, FC1, FC2test*, FC2; Tried Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo, FreeBSD,...
But I liked Fedora the most. I like to have everything up to date and the latest, that's what Fedora is.

[wolveso]

I'd used Windows 95 for too long a time.. my old computer died a nasty melting inside kind of death and I'd long lost my Windows CD. I built a new computer and got an OEM copy of XP and ordered Red Hat 9 in the nice pretty box from Amazon. I kind of forgot about RH9, too busy playing games on XP!

Once I got round to trying RH9, I was pretty amazed at how it had all the applications I needed.. but they were free and open source. I seem to be good at hosing my harddrive - each time I'd reinstall XP and a different distro, but seemed to come back to dual booting with RH and now Fedora.

As a platform for games, I've got no problem with XP. Soon I'll hopefully have my 60GB harddrive for XP and a nice new one for Fedora, with *everything* non-game related happening on Fedora.

[Thoreau]

i started out with red hat 9 when i started working where i am currently. I have read lot about linux and wanted to give it a shot. I hread that redhat was a good product. Also my boss was using it do to things that our IT(i work for a university, so the campus IT) wouldn't like too much :) So he really got me hooked. I loved it the 1st sec i hit the GUI, i even love the command line.

I have tried others. FreeBSD, Mandrake, SUSE, Gentoo. I still love my Fedora Core. I use it more than my winodws 2000 workstation

[foolish]

Started out using Red Hat Linux 7.3 after a friend told me to try this linux thingy and that Red Hat was the most used of all the distros. Of course, I had no idea what a distro was at the time. I managed to get it installed, and used it in a dual boot system for some time even though I really didn't like this linux thing much.

When Red Hat 8 was released I installed it and was hooked. Bluecurve looked great, had most of the things I needed and even better, it was free in every meaning of the word.

Since I liked the system now, I removed windows all together. I also started to read about the system, about rpm and the linux command line, about open source and about free software. I spent a lot of time browsing the net, reading. By the time Red Hat 9 was out I started to get the hang ot things and I even started to help others with their problems.

When Core 1 was released, and I had it installed I felt right at home. It was simply the best desktop experience yet. It was simple, fast, had everything I needed, I knew the system well and I had experience that allowed me to help others with issues.

Now I feel like I'm part of something great. That's really the main reason I use fedora and free software, because it allows me to be involved.

[CheeseWarfare]

I am since as far back as I know am a Mac user. With Mac OS X came UNIX abilities. I started to tap into it with the GIMP. I used fink and had a flood of programs coming in. I then heard about live CD Linux. So I got my greedy paws on my mom's old thinkpad. I booted it using Damn Small Linux. It left me hungry for more so then I tried Knoppix, I still wanted more. So I discovered Fedora. I install Core 1 easily. 4 days later Core 2 came out. The installation was a tad rockier but I got it all worked out. And here I am! :-D

[Avatraxiom]

Frankly, if I analyze the whole situation, I use Fedora because anaconda rocks. :-D The installation of RH9 was what really convinced me to use RH9. :-)

I'd used Mandrake, and I didn't *love* it, even though I thought GNOME was cooler than iced dirt. I'd heard good things about Red Hat, figured it'd be a good distro to lean anyhow (for job value), and so I threw it on the machine.

Eventually, in my desire to learn about things (and the best way with computers seems to be "break them"), I started upgrading to Rawhide ONE PACKAGE AT A TIME. :-D That was pretty amusing. Eventually I just went in for it all, and was running RH9 + Rawhide. Eventually, that became Fedora Core 1 Test 2. So, I guess that's when I started using Fedora! :-)

I kept on using Fedora because of the HUGE amount of software available for it. And *Fedora* in particular has such great ease-of-use when it comes to finding and installing a new tool, way better than Red Hat Linux ever had. Three cheers for yum!!

Also, I *like* Fedora so much more than Windows. It might be just me, but for what I do with computers, it's *so* much easier to use Linux.

And of course, use Fedora because being the author of the Unofficial FAQ makes Fedora a Holy Quest. :-D

[crackers]

I like Fedora because I've been hacking around in RedHat since 5.0 and I know where most of the bodies are buried. :D

I like Linux because my first job turned me into a Unix weenie and Slackware with 0.99 was my ticket for a joy-ride...

My wife uses Fedora because she's got me around and loathes anything coming out of Redmond.

[s0lus]

I started with Red Hat 8 then moved on to a bunch of other distros to see what they were like...but nothing ever seemed to come close to the way the red hats felt to me...i guess i was just devirginized to linux with the redhats, became addicted, and now fedora is just the almighty up-to-date distro of them all...

I have not found one thing that i did not like about Fedora yet...

now that i have my 5900 ultra running properly and winex, im having my fun...hehe

[HolyLiaison]

I started out trying Redhat 7.3. I bought it from Bestbuy when I was 16/17... ever since then I've been trying different tastes of linux. Mandrake / Debian / Slackware, you name it I've probably tried it. Including all the BSD's. But, after I got fed up with my Windows problems I came back one more time. Fedora Core 1 appeared in my browser and it's been smooth sailing ever since. Fedora Core 2 just solidified it even more for me. Great distro.

[Ug]

The one thing which really did it for me with Red Hat was that it doesn't patronise you. Has anyone else noticed that?

Its very clean and professional and doesn't try to hold your hand the whole way.

[Avon]

I've tinkered with various Linux distributions through the years (first time I think was with Slackware around 8 years ago). I work as a Unix admin so I'm naturally already biased in favour of a clearly superior OS :) I installed FC1 for the first time a couple of weeks ago because the CDs were given out during a Red Hat training course I was on. I'm impressed by how far it's come since I last looked at it and was sufficiently enthused by the course to blow away Windows 2000 for the nth time and install Fedora. Now that there's a much richer variety of applications available for Linux these days, I'm probably going to stick with it. Just have to train the wife now :)

[ipn1nj4]

I don't know what it is about Fedora. It just works. FC1 was amazing on my system. Last night I installed 2 final. It is going to take a while to get everything tweaked, but Im sure it's going to be just as good. GREAT WORK!

[Finalzone]

I use Fedora Core for designing websites and testing forum. I am amazed with the large availabilty of softwares and the time people answer to some question. Now I contribute to this community somehow.

Even my sister likes to use it after I created a WinXP them for her account.

[jedtheHumanoid]

I have tried a couple of distributions since my introduction to linux, sticking to slackware for a while back...and having gentoo as my former favourite. But as fun gentoo or some other "poweruser" linux can be fiddling with, for the moment i just want something that pretty much works straight away...

A must for me is a good packagemanager, and I love portage in gentoo, but i hate having to wait for the programs to compile for a couple of hours. Debians apt-get is a really good one, but me being a little bleeding edge maybe debian was not for me :rolleyes:.
Solution: I use fedora with apt-get:)

Fedora feels like a good mixture of laziness, tinkering and bleeding edge to satisfie me

also, you seem to have a nice forum to hang around in:)

[crackers]

Originally posted by Ug
The one thing which really did it for me with Red Hat was that it doesn't patronise you. Has anyone else noticed that?

Yes. My wife. (See above) That was exactly the reason for the change ... 1-1/2 years ago. We haven't had a single Windows installation that lasted more than 1 day around here since. Ah, bliss!

[Jman]

Like foolish, I installed Red Hat 7.3 and stuck around. The install is a still running webserver. I got started on Red Hat because my uncle gave me a Linux how to book with Red Hat 7.

I upgraded because Red Hat 9 got EOLed, but now I like Fedora on it's own merits.

[Ug]

Originally posted by crackers
Yes. My wife. (See above) That was exactly the reason for the change ... 1-1/2 years ago. We haven't had a single Windows installation that lasted more than 1 day around here since. Ah, bliss! Indeed.

[JonR]

I got Fedora after trying Mandrake 9.2 as my first Linux distro. I couldn't get Mandrake to load on my laptop successfully and having paid a little money for 30 days of Mandrake support was very disappointed that they didn't seem able to sort out any of the problems I was having. I downloaded the FC isos and tried FC instead and found that it gave far fewer problems. The only area I'm still struggling to make progress with is Samba, but that's another story...

[sailor]

I use Linux because I like to be able to take control of my OS and set it up the way I want...I like the vast collection of software developed by people who don't just do it for money...I feel linux is going to be a big part of the internet and computing in the future and I don't want to be left behind...Linux doesn't require me to upgrade my computer with each new version of the OS... I also like to get "under the hood" of the system to tweak things if I feel inclined to do so...I hate "wizards" and other setup schemes that don't allow you to adjust the settings....

I use FC1 because of its ease of installation, great community and it works well. I have tried many distros and have settled on FC1 because it worked right out of the "box". I have had problems but they were easily fixed by asking in the forum or searching the web.


sailor

[Ug]

When are you upgrading to FC2? :p

[JonR]

I'm waiting a while before upgrading to FC2. At the moment I get the feeling there are more horror stories than not...

How about a poll on the FC1-FC2 update experience?

[sailor]

When are you upgrading to FC2?

I think I will wait a little while longer...I hear nVidia drivers still aren't quite working...I'm gonna let the bugs be found...
...I am going to get a new harddrive before any new installs...

I am in process of downloading the FC2 iso though...

[leasure98]

Well, I soldered this capcitor back on a motherboard for a friend at work. He had been giving me "one-liners" about linux everytime we'd pass one another. So when he said "what do I owe you?", I said, "oh, just bring in some Linux CD's for me". Oh man, I loaded RH9 and had to learn it. At first, I cussed myself for getting myself into something that I couldn't stop learning about. Then I tried them all. Liked apt-get with debian but it didn't compare to the "moderness" of RH9.
Also, gnome seemed more "mature" to me and kde was like 4 cups of sugar in a bowl of Cheerios so I went back to RH with fedora core 1 and then tried all the other debian spinoffs but by then I was starting to get rotten teeth from all the sugar so I decided to quit hopping around and focus on one distro. Here I am now with FC2 and I'm stayin'. I think Fedora with apt-get is going to be the perfect combo for me.

[mbjbdc]

i just installed fedora 2
works great with my nvidia video card
fixed no sound problem from earlier version
no horror story here

[shtik]

i tried suse (7.2 and 8.0) and mandrake (8?) but there were always issues with not working vital hardware, so i had to use windows, but i really like the idea behind open source, so i decided to give fedora a try, and now mostly everything works (except my f**#! canon scanner, so i still need w*@--). but i'm impressed with the simplicity of precompiled rpms, apt and yum, and that quantity of rpms you won't get for many other distris!

[sailor]

I have installed FC 2...still need to mess with nVidia card to get Open GL...all else seems to work...I got tired of waiting for a new Harddrive but I am getting one for fathers day...no one can keep a secret around here...:)
I am sure I will run into something that will require someones help...keep your fingers crossed nothing goes wrong...:p
sailor

[crackers]

Most of the issues I've had (NVidia, sound, IPv6, etc.) have been discussed here, and pretty well figured out (unless you're doing something really bleeding edge), so you can consider yourself late to the party... :D

[sailor]

I have looked over the discussions on Nvidia...and I still don't have a clue...:(
I need to read up on the how-tos out there
and try to struggle along...

so you can consider yourself late to the party
i'm always late to the party...but always willing to catch up...:p

sailor

[mark]

...because I'm a cranky old curmudgeon who just loves to hear "You can't do that!" (Sony tech support re: running Linux on their nice, respectable Window-fied laptop). Since that time, I have felt righteously justified everytime I hear/read about some new MS security oops and/or virus/worm assault. It also doesn't hurt that I can have my "independence" and still be able to work on MS Office-originated documents at need.

Also because I love to tinker. Be it admitted - if everything on my computer was working perfectly, I think I would feel vaguely dissatisfied and would just have to find something to "improve". I am most emphatically not a programmer and sometimes I've gotten myself in trouble because of that. But, it's a learning experience - and while I'm learning, I'm living...

[strixy]

because I love the fact I can get to the MS virus removal information page - while all the windows folk are stuck in an infinite reboot loop.

I love the fact I can give a copy of this sweet sweet thang to a friend and not have to worry about the men in black showing up on my doorstop.

I love the fact that if I can't do it - I can program it to do it myself. Again, without the men in black showing up on my doorstop.

I wouldn't give up my Windows XP coaster for the world. Not many people have a $400 coaster.

Multiple desktops.

One word - Root.

More - Mozilla. SSH. Apache. GIMP 2.0. Evolution. 0Office. PHP.

Still hoping for Macromedia to get it together, however, and release some native linux versions.

[rkl]

I'd have thought a major reason people use Fedora Core is that it's free - all the software comes with source, there's (hopefully) no legal grey issues and the ISOs of the CDs (and now DVD) can be downloaded for nothing (but your time and the cost of blank media of course).

The fact that FC2 is effectively "Red Hat Linux 11" (FC1 was "version 10") meaning that Red Hat Linux users can jump to FC1 or FC2 without too much pain is also handy.

Of course, all is not sweetness and light - I've never liked Disk Druid (when you go to the "manually partition" option in Anaconda, I feel Disk Druid leaves you high and dry as to what to do next - no, I don't use auto-partition because I have 4 OS'es installed and usually am re-installing on top of an existing partition). Strict adherence to the "no legally grey software" means no 3D Nvidia graphics, Flash, Java, MP3 playblack, DVD playback or NTFS support (all fixed by subsequent downloads of course), so it's not a great "out-of-the-box" desktop distro if you want all your goodies to work with no extra effort.

But, on the other hand, the extra effort is worth it - plenty of software repositories out there for FC2 and the new "yum" command gets you out of RPM dependency hell. Once you've tinkered with a Red Hat or FC distro, later releases become quite easy to setup since most of the stuff is in the same place of course. Takes me about an hour to get my desktop and all the packages I need to be installed as I like them in FC2. That's not bad for a 100% free distro.

[jak8charm]

I switched from my Xp OS two weeks ago for what some might call a strange reason. You see, I was talking with a friend, and I happened to ask him what the internet was like before any idiot could get on a computer and log on. He regaled me of a story about the 'pre-aol days'. Said that the internet community was cooler back then, as it demanded a sort of mental equivalent of 'you must be this high to ride'. I said to myself, I want that! I want to be a part of something that takes intelligence!
And, of course, since I decided to do the linux thing, I figured, go for the up to date stuff, fedora. :)
After I got Synaptic installed, there was no turning back, ever. :D

[kosmosik]

I use Fedora beacouse...
* I really always have used RHL. Tried other distros but RHL fits me best.
* Fedora just works for me. Minimal glitches but most thing work well out-of-the-box.
* Up-to-date software, even if I need bleedin' edge I can get it using Fedora unstable/developement.
* Lot's of software (all those external repos (FreshRPMS, Fedora Extras, Dag's, NewRPMS etc.) aviable with single command (APT). Especally I like Dag's repo for lots of additional kernel modules (he uses the same notebook as I).
* Good community support.

[Ug]

* Good community support.Aaaw bless.

[cyborg]

I use Fedora because I was one of my first tasters of Linux, iv'e tried a few others including Mandrake and Slackware but I just prefer Fedora because It has a wide verity of programmes and everyone can put in feedback to improve it.

[Viro]

because:
- Its free
- Its easy to configure it the way I want.
- Being an offshoot of redhat, its much more widely supported.
- Things just seem to work (albeit sometimes after a bit of tweaking)
- Loads of community compiled RPMs. No more insanely long builds like Gentoo in order to stay up to date.
- Girls find redhat sexy and it impresses my girlfriend
- My momma asked me to.

[Thomas Howard]

I use fedora because its a newer version than RedHat 9.

I use linux because it seems more secure than windows and so far, I havnt had to bother with drivers for anything, things usually just worked.

I would totally switch over and abandon windows if Photoshop CS, Macromedia studio MX 2004 and my games would work in it. The GIMP simply isnt as good as Photoshop yet I think.

[Viro]

The GIMP simply isnt as good as Photoshop yet I think.

Neither is printing on Linux. For some reason the printer driver doesn't reproduce colour as well as the drivers on the Mac or even Windows. It becomes very obvious when you start printing photographs. Its a real shame and I think printer manufacturers should provide proper Linux drivers.

[mikethec]

My own reason for using Fedora is, like others, a winding, twisted path.

I am a Mac user primarilly, and will continue to be so (but, hey, at least I'm running Panther!) I wanted to downscale my PC, so I sold the tower I'd built and then built a Shuttle XPC box. (As an aside, if you are looking for a nice, small PC that's attractive, this is it!)

I have a bought-n-paid-for copy of WinXP Home and wanted to put it on this system, but hard as I tried, it wouldn't even allow me to activate it. BillG strikes again! Argh!

So, I put on Win2K, set it up and used it for like a week. It really started to nag me: I've got a nice little new PC here, what in the world am I doing running Win2K? So, I started looking around for distros of Linux. I had already gotten Mandrake 10 a while ago, and someone had given me a copy of Debian 3.something. I tried Debian but, like others, couldn't get through the installation. And, to be honest, I really didn't want to work that hard to get an OS up and running. So, I tried Mandrake. It's ok, but somehow it seems too gaudy, and I didn't like how the fonts rendered, interface elements were drawn, etc. (I know, picky picky picky, right?) So, back to Win2K. Yeesh!

I went to Red Hat's site to get the latest version of Red Hat, and then discovered Fedora. I used BitTorrent to pull FC2 down (got a nice 390K throughput -- woo hoo, BitTorrent!) After installation, I recalled how similar it is to Red Hat 8 (the last Linux distro I'd used on any of my PCs). It is even more refined and polished. And, what's more, Gnome got rid of the "browser window" approach to it's file manager. That is so welcome to a Mac user!

I've been in #Fedora several times and had some kind and helpful people (Foolish amongst them) help me out with getting the nVidia driver installed, using yum, configuring MPlayer, etc. I still can't get DVDs to play, but now I can listen to MP3s and watch video files.

My main use of this system will be to study Chromium, learn about Linux, play some more Chromium, do some writing, play even more Chromium, and maybe even contribute in some way to the Linux effort (while, of course, playing Chromium...)

Oh, yeah, and so I can play Chromium.

[crackers]

Said that the internet community was cooler back then, as it demanded a sort of mental equivalent of 'you must be this high to ride'.
I don't know how I missed this, but that is a perfect analogy!

[WebWind]

... because:
I want try something new.
It is free.
I want completly replace Windows.
I want Multiple desktops.

[KiwiNZ]

After my earlier hassles ( see my thread core 2 woes) I gave up on FC2 , but I came back ( see the same thread) I solved the issues and now FC2 is fantastic. My First Linux experience was Turbo Linux 6 then Redhat 7.2. I have has 7.3, 9, RH enterprise WS , FC1 so I really wanted FC2 to work, I guess for me Fedora just feels like a mature OS and not a bag of candy.
The support on Fedoranews and especially here is fantastic. This site is very professional .

[Max Freeman]

Well as server os I use Debian stable, because it's absolutly good tested and secure. For good and stable server it is the best to install Debian.

But on my desktop I use FC2 because it's easy to install and it has really very actual packages on it (kernel 2.6x, oofice 1.1.0 etc.).

Note: You can't have actual software that is stable. Either you have actual software or you have stable software :-).

regards

Max

[David]

I have issues with the way windows runs. I don't think it's well disposed to multitasking and seems to get more unstable the more software I install on it. Typically I have to reinstall every 18 months or so. This wouldn't really be a problem but I need a stable system for my music software, an environment where hard crashes are unacceptable so I decided to keep a seperate system specifically for music production.

Rather than have two windows systems I thought I'd go for linux; partly out of curiousity, partly because I liked the philosophy but mostly because it seemed nicer and is better disposed to programming. Plus MS are always playing catch up (although, in some regards, so are Linux). I went for Fedora because that's what my university recommended, but I tried Debian and Mandrake before them. Incidentally, uni upgraded its linux machines from RH9 to FC2, you'll be pleased to read:)

[seabass55]

I started using *nix around 1996/7. I've bounced around between OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Redhat, Slackware, Gentoo and probably a few other distros that I can't seem to remember right now. For years I still used Windows at home and only used Linux/BSD for servers and to play around with on the desktop.
When Redhat 9 came out I installed on a spare harddrive and ran it for a few days...after about two weeks I didn't have any need for windows. Really the only problems I was having with linux was not being able to play command and conquer (though all my first person shooters aka quake3, rtcw and AA all worked) and with java. Though I was willing to deal with it. If I REALLY needed java I could always revert to my laptop which still had win2k on it. My daily use computer kept a 2 month uptime until a power outage killed that...needless to say I was very happy with that as I had to reboot windows atleast once every two weeks (though usually weekly). I skipped Fedora core 1 when RH stopped EOL'd RH8 and 9.
This is when I first tried Gentoo. I liked it don't get me wrong but I didn't really care for the install length. And I'm not bashing Gentoo in anyway...it's a great concept and a great OS but I simply didn't have the time or patience to deal with the install (bear in mind I have 4 machines here all of which are completly different). Yeah great Firefox will load up half a second quicker than with another linux...but it takes me an hour...hour and a half max to install Redhat which includes adding any apps I use...updating my saved configs, patching programs and rebuilding the kernel.

I left to Iraq for a few months...came home...put IPcop on my router, FC2 on my desktop and later on my server and recently my wife switched to FC2 from XP (WOOHOO!) and we've never been happier. The End

[Prem0]

Ive been playing in linux since RH6 and have tried many different disros. Problem was I could never get them to work right and I didnt have enough knowledge to fix the problems.
I totally swore off linux after this and that was around the RH 7.4 days and went totally with windows. I was a windows groupie and still am to an extent, there are things that are just easier to do in windows.

I have since gotten a degree in networking and have realized that windows has its place but not on my machines that require productivity. I decided to get back into the linux groove and tried Gentoo which is a great os and damn fast but the install is a killer. My roomate installed Fedora 2 on his computer and was telling me about how easy the install was and that everything worked except his wifi. I decided to give it a shot and boy was I shocked at how far things have come with the binary distros. Almost everything worked right off the bat and it didnt take me long to get wifi going thanks to these forums. Fedora core still has its little problems but nothing that cant be fixed by doing some research (sucks that Im lazy).

Im now using Fedora 2 on my servers and on my main laptop. For doing business and troubleshooting networks it is working great for me. I however still have my windows machine that is basically my glorified X-box, all I do on it is play games and do dvd authoring stuff.

Thanks to Fedora I am here to stay :)

[crackers]

Careful! Knowledge can be a dangerous thing... ;)

[mick]

The first Linux distro I tried was Topolinux - just because I could install and boot it from Windows and it created a folder instead of a partition. And then I found RH9 - and thought it was altogether a 'too classy' distro. But, RH went enterprise and at the time I thought 'Fedora' was a silly name for a distro, so I went looking elsewhere. Knoppix, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, SuSE, Mandrake, Mepis, PCLinux, Gnopix, Morphix, Gobo, CaOS, and a drawer full of everything else. And then I finally thought 'what the heck' and tried FC1. (Actually, it was LormaLinux before Fedora - a cute first cousin) I actually got up early the morning FC2 was released to try and "...get it while it was hot" and have been running it since. I have Debian on the servers at work, but have been considering changing them to FC2, now that I have a slim idea of what makes it tick.
So, back to the original question; why Fedora? The visual appeal of a truly maturing OS really appeals to me - not all eye-candy and fluff, but a no-nonsense system. The idea of having to reboot every time I installed a program was getting REAL old; I love installing a program in Fedora and - :D - there it is!!! Losing all of my documents from school when a virus borked my XP installation was the high point of my third year in sem - didn't lose a jot or a tittle working in OOo last year. And I am sooooo tired of the whole 'point-and-click, watch-my-index-finger-go' mentality; yes, I do have to think once in a while using Fedora - but it really doesn't hurt as much as Mr. Gates would have had me think... Oh, and one more thing: Try to get the community support for XP that you can for Fedora. What I am too lazy to figure out myself (read that 'fix after I hopelessly screw up') someone on this forum, for sure, will know how to rectify. :p

Mick

[crackers]

... at the time I thought 'Fedora' was a silly name for a distro
Given the names in the list that follows, I found this actually quite amusing! :p

[mick]

Gee, maybe I should finish the list... How 'bout Centos, Lindows, Elearnix, Yoper, Overclockix, Cobind, Libranet, LBA, SOT, PLD, Lycoris, OneBase, Xandros, Lycoris, Feather, Damn Small, Vector, Arch, and Slax; including the live CD's... Not to mention a fleeting attempt at FreeBSD, Solaris and QNX.

The only one that really makes sense is 'Damn Small' because, you guessed it; it's damn small...

[cavedweller]

I am back to where I started started with RH with 5.2 I bought it and later a copy of mandrake. Not much problem installing RedHat but never did get mandrake to install system would just bog down and die. So I stuck with RedHat until the end. I bought 9.0 pro registered it and three months later I recieved an email declairing it's end of life looming in the not to distant future. Kinda pissed me off so I migrated over to SuSE which I think is a nice easy to install and run distro.

I was however not willing to spend the $89.00 US on SuSE 9, after googling on the 2.6 kernel and reading all the different issues. However I wanted to try it out. I was willing to trade off some of the stability of 2.4 so I could see if 2.6 was any faster. I also figured that 2.6 was going to be the new wave of things so I might as well jump in as painlessly as possible. So I went to FC2. I had installed FC1 once It came with a Mag I bought. I actually uninstalled it just becase I had spent the $89 on on SuSE 9.0 so I was going to run it.

As far as I can tell the bigest difference with Fedora verses comercial RedHat is the lack of a few of the apps I was use to seeing. No big deal though Editing YUM.config and adding a few repositories fixes that. Yum compared to the old up2date is a refreshing change. I edited inittab to boot to init3 and it was just like coming home after a quick switchdesk to kde and a few preference changes. I guess I finally figured if I was going to run an open scource OS I was going to run a free one. I am more familiar with Redhat than anyother distro and it FC2 seemed like the way to go. Just have to get use to a blue fedora instead of a red one.

[engwnbie]

Used to admin a sun UNIX network in late 80's and loved it. Then in last year or so heard about Linux and was supposed to be like UNIX. So I wanted to learn it badly, and started with Mandrake 9.2. Had one hell of a time installing it, but learned along the way. After video card and HD swaps finally had it up and running on an old P11. Then dumped win 2k on a Dell gx260 and installed Mandrake 9.2 on it ran OK but would loose programs and other would not work. Installed it a number of times and loved it still found it buggy. Then installed Mandrake 10 RC1 and again had all kinds of issues with video. Then I bought a Linux magazine that came with FC1 installed with out a hitch. Never had any issues networking with my other Win boxes and running any of the programs that came with. Could not wait for FC2 and again no problems getting anything that I like to do with it to work. Now I use it before any of my other boxes. My other boxes are just for storage. Wish I could do away with using win.

[dpw2atox]

"Fedora feels like a good mixture of laziness, tinkering and bleeding edge to satisfie me"

I agree 100%. I have installed gentoo, debian, redhat 6.2-9, mandrake 7.2, and a few bsd versions....

I have hand configured everything before on my system, played around with all the different settings but now im at a point in my life where I just plain don't have the time. I work 60+ hr weeks at my job and when I do have free time i'd rather spend it relaxing and using my computer for the occasional game or listen to music. I don't want to spend hours updating everything, hours configuring everything just to get 1.39 seconds taken off the load of an app. I'd rather just use an autoconfig tool and save myself some time.

[kosmosik]

[photoshop vs. gimp]

well it (gimp) probably will never be better cause patented algorithms (cmyk decomposition) - can't use them in opensource software...

Neither is printing on Linux. For some reason the printer driver doesn't reproduce colour as well as the drivers on the Mac or even Windows. It becomes very obvious when you start printing photographs. Its a real shame and I think printer manufacturers should provide proper Linux drivers.

as for printing I don't think it is worse than on Windows... really. it just depends on your printer (but why would you buy unsupported printer anyway?) I've run plenty of print servers in offices. they're more stress used than in home setup and all I've got to say that printing on Linux just works, you set up a print server and it works without a hassle. I can't say that about Windows. I remember system crashing whille doing a printout (XP) - it is since Windows does page rendering in kernel space (I know - this is stupid) via GDI and stuff... or I remember need to reboot the system (2K3) just to delete file from print queue.

well I don't say I am a Windows expert, but things like crashing while printing (stupid - printing is just sending file to a port, nothing near real hardware stuff where drivers can mess up things) and having to reboot the system just to delete a printout for queue (well maybe it could be done other way like spending few hours with documentation and stuff - but reboot semed more successfull in this, especially when you got like 20 people waiting for printer) is just odd.

well with Linux it is not like printing with Linux sucks - when you got good printer it works great. well when you got bad printer, get rid of it as it will cause trouble on any system.

[inha]

I use fedora because:

1. It's stable
2. I like the idea of opensource progs
3. It's a nice OS for a linux newb like me since it's easy to use for most tasks and yet it's good for learning and getting deeper into linux.

[TrancesTrances]

1. Company Standard
2. Easy access to other machines in the network and remove linux machines
3. Bored and looking to increase my skill base
4. GUI that i can userstand and cope with after a life time on windows

[siwoods]

I started in 1989 (yes, I'm feeling very old at the moment) with PC based UNIX systems. (SCO Xenix/Unix) on 286/386 PC's so Linux is an obvious home for me. As I progressed through my career in support I moved on to AIX, Sun, Novell UNIXWare (remember that!) and then was pushed into the world of Novell NetWare and MS Servers.

I've watched Linux grow-up and nearly took the plunge and deployed it at work in my previous job, but backed out when Novell cut me a deal. RedHat have always seemed to be the best at behaving like a professional outfit and this has helped me argue in Linux's favour with my bosses.

I finally got round to installing FC2 recently and have to say that I wouldn't have any doubts about installing it in small/medium sized businesses again. OpenOffice is the crowning glory for me, it shows your average punter that there's nothing to be afraid of. I haven't even had to provide any special training for my wife or daughter!

The only way is up!

SiWoods ;)

[mark]

I started in 1989 (yes, I'm feeling very old at the moment) with PC based UNIX systems. (SCO Xenix/Unix) on 286/386 PC's so Linux is an obvious home for me. A fellow geriatric! I first used SCO XENIX in '87 on a (gasp, wheeze) 286 server!

I haven't even had to provide any special training for my wife or daughter! I've found that people without extended experience on Windows (or other GUI OSes) take quite easily to a well-done X-based Linux such as Fedora. Several people I've showed Fedora running on my laptop to have said, "And you mean this isn't from Microsoft? Whaddya mean, it's free??!!??"

[Lucky-Charms]

Hi,

I'm a complete Linux newbie, but I've decided that there's not much holding my to Microsoft anymore, and I'm ready to migrate to something different. I've 'shopped around' some and have decided to at least give FC2 a try. I've heard it described as a 'bit too bleeding edge for the casual home user who just wants a stable desktop' but some of the features appeal to me greatly, and I feel particulary attracted to the philosophy / community that has built up around it.

-L

[crackers]

A fellow geriatric! I first used SCO XENIX in '87 on a (gasp, wheeze) 286 server!
Anyone remember "PC-UNIX"? It was a not-very widely distributed (or marketed) UNIX layer on top of DOS. I used it in the '83-'84 timeframe...

I've found that people without extended experience on Windows
I've found that anyone that has had extensive experience with GUIs can also adapt, once you get it through their head that it's not Windows and will behave a tad different. The wife went from Macs to Windows to KDE with only minor difficulties. And now she thinks Windows sucks, Macs are "too cutesy" and GNome is "too dumbed down" (she is quite opinionated, by the way). But she is glad I didn't throw twm at her... :D

Edit note: fingers slower than brain...

[r_azhari]

Hi all,
I'm a college student in Indonesia, i've been using Linux from Mandrake (8), RH(8), Debian(3 woody, unstable), Slackware(9.0, 9.1), etc.
I love to work at linux, it's more stable than Windows... :)
Lately, i've bought a new Laptop, and I decided to put a linux in it...
When searching for a reference, i found that the support of community for laptop users is bigger in FC, so I decided to use it..
Now, my laptop is installed with FC2, my ATI works.. :D
the community support is that what im looking for from a distro.. :D

[Ned]

I use Linux because I was fed up with worrying all the time about viruses and vunerabilities in Windows. I like the stability, flexibility and security.

I use Fedora because Core 1 is the best disto I've used to date (core 2 included). Everything that I wanted just worked for me right out of the box.

Plus we use IRIX at work and I needed to learn some UNIX.

Ned

[regeya]

I've used a number of different distributions over the years. For the past 2-3 years, I've been an off-again, on-again Gentoo user--then I decided recently to give FC2 a whirl, and a nearly out-of-the-box install managed to outperform my highly-tweaked Gentoo install. :D

That sold me. That, and most of the packages are set up exactly as I want them. And for those things missing, there's always extra repositories.

Had you told me five years ago that Red Hat would sponsor a distribution with easy upgrade options (especially apt as an option, though I'm using yum for now) I'd have told you that you'd flipped. :) I'm impressed, though!