First, let me say that Linux is fairly new to me. I have "evolved" with Window$ since 3.1, and I cursed MS everytime they changed OSs. I worked for a small co. writing software that controlled robots, and I more recently wrote apps in VB6 for friends (simple games, my masterpeice was Farkle).
The thing that I hate worse than anything else with Window$ is searching for (and then downloading) drivers. I'm surprised that Win can display a dialog box without asking for a driver for it.
I had a friend download the 6 iso images for Fedora Core 6 for me, because I have dial-up and it would have taken FOREVER. This was in February of this year. I converted the images in Windows, and installed using the dual-boot setup. I was absolutely floored that Linux found all of my hardware and didn't need a driver.
What prompted me to write this review was that tonight I plugged-in a printer (HP Deskjet 3910) and waited for the prompt, something like "found new hardware", but nothing happened (that I could see). So I went to 'Settings/Printers' and there was my printer, installed by HAL and ready to use. In disbelief, I opened Firefox and printed a page of the "Welcome to Fedora Core 6" page, and the printer jumped to life. No driver CD required, nothing to download. Micro$oft could learn a lot from Redhat about plug-n-play (and a lot of other things, too).
I'm in love with this OS, and my next project is finding and downloading a VB6 clone or as close as I can find. Or, maybe I'll finally learn C++ and contribute. Either way, Win will be gone if I ever need the disk space.
Fedora, you are a 10+ in my book.
Fedora Core 6 Review
Linear Mode
