Why is Fedora always seem to be broken?

[JosephV]

Hello,
I hope that I do not offend any one here with this question but here it goes.

I have been looking for a great Linux desktop for about a year now (on and off) and i am always led back to Fedora and Ubuntu or a derivative of these two distros. However I like the RHEL version better and I also use CENTOS 5 on one of my servers.

I am disappointed that it seems that Fedora being so closely attached to the "mothership" (Red Hat itself) you would think that this original version would be rock solid. However I am finding that other distros based off of RHEL are more stable than this Fedora. I would really like to have a CENTOS Server and Fedora Desktop. But it seems that Fedora is always broken.

Will this ever change?

Thanks for your time
Joseph

Originally Posted by JosephV

Hello,
I hope that I do not offend any one here with this question but here it goes.

I have been looking for a great Linux desktop for about a year now (on and off) and i am always led back to Fedora and Ubuntu or a derivative of these two distros. However I like the RHEL version better and I also use CENTOS 5 on one of my servers.

I am disappointed that it seems that Fedora being so closely attached to the "mothership" (Red Hat itself) you would think that this original version would be rock solid. However I am finding that other distros based off of RHEL are more stable than this Fedora. I would really like to have a CENTOS Server and Fedora Desktop. But it seems that Fedora is always broken.

Will this ever change?

Thanks for your time
Joseph

will it ever change. will the sun ever change color? in other words No.

why is fedora so broken? its been explained numerous times its just a testing distro for RHEL. if you want a stable desktop Linux PC use Ubuntu or Mint or PCLinuxOS or CentOS

[JosephV]

Thanks for the reply,
With little experience with Fedora I didn't know that this was the case. Thank you for the help on this. I do want a stable Desktop and preferably RHEL based. Do you know any other than CENTOS as it lacks some of the desktop functionalities.

Thanks again
Joseph

Originally Posted by JosephV

Thanks for the reply,
With little experience with Fedora I didn't know that this was the case. Thank you for the help on this. I do want a stable Desktop and preferably RHEL based. Do you know any other than CENTOS as it lacks some of the desktop functionalities.

Thanks again
Joseph

not off the top of my head no but you could go look over at http://distrowatch.com/

[JosephV]

I saw XOSLINUX and ASPLinux and look quite nice.

They are RHEL based. Have you any experience with these two?

thanks
Joseph

never used them but there is a thread in this forum i think its noted as what distro are you using something like that you might be able to get some ideas from that thread

you do have OpenSuse to but im not a fan of Yast

[JosephV]

Yep.... Was a huge openSuse Fan until 11.0 broke most of my SUSE Dreams. 10.3 was awesome.
I think that I might buy a copy of Red Hat for the desktop. However I lean, I want RHEL now as it is the most widely favoured for many applications and companies.

Thanks a lot for your feedback I will move the post over there.

Joseph

[mk27]

Maybe you should explain what you mean by "broken", because I think what you really mean is that you have a hard time using it, and that your experience with RHEL is in some different environment where you are not really responsible for it, so of course it's kept running better. That probably means no matter distro you use you will run into the same problems. I'm not a salesman for fedora or anything, it just seems to me that it actually is a fairly stable and user-friendly variant, and that anyone who's overwhelmed by it maybe should be running microsoft and forget their whole linux nightmare entirely.

[scottro]

@Demz... I believe that the sun will change color one day. However, I also believe it's a few million years in the future.
However, metaphorically speaking, I think JosephV understands.
@JosephV, I haven't had experience with either of those two.

From what I see of XOS, however, it will be the same as CentOS, based on RHEL, with all that implies (in other words, older packages.)

Blag might suit you though. I've played with it from time to time and it seemed stable.

Alt seems to be a Russian distribution--if you can't speak the language, I suspect it might be harder to get help.
Though it uses RPMS, it doesn't seem to be Fedora based (I'm not sure if that's an issue or not.)

I think, in the same way as Debian's stable version, if you choose something with the stability of RHEL, you will lose some of the ease of installation of the latest and greatest desktop packages.
For what it's worth, I find that I can get almost everything installed on CentOS 5.2. I cheat a bit and run a minimal text mode Ubuntu install in a VirtualMachine, then use Ubuntu's alien package to create rpms. I've only done it for a few packages, but it's worked each time, though sometimes I had to create symbolic links from an existing library. (For example, it might look for something called lib.1.0 and the CentOS version had 1.0.4.) So far, I've gotten away with it. (I don't do it that often though, I think I've only used it for BSDtar and one or two other packages.)

[johannlo]

I'm guessing he means broken as in all this bleeding edge stuff that doesn't quite work with a lot of people's hardware / other software dependencies

e.g. how for F9 (or F8 I forget) Fedora was the first distro to use the new kernel and new version of X that didn't work with ATI or nvidia proprietary drivers.
e.g. Ditto with teething pulseaudio issues with F7 (or F6 I forget lol).

Fedora is a MISSION if you want to use it for desktops and you are a PC 'enthusiast' so to speak.

I would highly recommend ubuntu instead, the 8.x versions are insanely well done and working out of the box to a degree unimaginable only a few years ago (wireless, compiz etc.). Of course depending on your hardware YMMV. Personally I've abandoned the constant war against breakage that Fedora + bleeding edge desktop hardware always entails. + bleeding edge hardware usually is for purposes of games, enough said lol

For servers I've found it rock solid and highly flexible.

[JosephV]

Hello,

Actually I would say I do fine with other distros and what I mean by broken I would say that I hold my breath on updates with this distro and that I cannot seem to find basic things (menu items) and many other things that just
a. have to be fixed/manipulated to work or
b. Broken.

Stable to me means confidense in my OS.

I have no issues with Ubuntu or CENTOS 5.x besides I have seen it written many time in many forums to be carefulwith Fedora as it tends to be bleeding edge and not stable.

Actually I am joining you via a triple boot on a old Dell Laptop and using ubuntu.

Thanks
Joseph

[JosephV]

Scottro and johannlo's

You have it correct thanks very much this is exactly what i meant by broken.

and thanks for the feedback on the other distros. I think that I will spend a little time putting together a CENTOS 5.2 to my liking.

Joseph

[johannlo]

They really should split Fedora into server and desktop builds.

IMHO most of the time the breakage is in desktop realm (X, compiz, beagle, pulseaudio, relatively poor KDE integration, stuff like that) and if you ran a server (i.e. no X and everything on top) the perception of breakage wouldn't be as strong.

I've almost never had a breakage on my headless fedora machines including functions like LAMP, squid, privoxy, source games servers (HL2, left4dead etc.) though I do turn SElinux off ;. The various desktops though were a different story, esp. if you've paid for pricey new components you want to be able to turn all the bells and whistles on!!!!

[mk27]

Originally Posted by JosephV

I cannot seem to find basic things (menu items)

I'm not trying to put you down, but the belief that a "menu item" (like what? where?) is some basic thing makes me doubt that this server you are running is really being used for much and I certainly hope you aren't the head honcho there.

In general, administrating linux will be much much easier and DEFINATELY MORE STABLE if you can get behind the GUI and not just throw up your hands when your mouse won't point and click the way to relaxing over another coffee. I even believe that the fedora people may have thrown in some roadblocks for people who don't understand their system sufficiently well -- because there is a BIG difference between something that doesn't work and something that you can't work (like the mysterious stick shift in some cars isn't actually a flaw). I also think the fedora bar may be higher because what they are selling is redhat. The point is: do you want something that is as simple as possible to use for the uninitiated, or something that you can use more effectively but will require some hard-core learning on your part?

ps. anyone who believes that people are seriously developing linux as a gaming platform -- fedora or otherwise -- is just nuts. There's a difference between "bleeding edge" hardware (for games) and "bleeding edge" software (=no game!)

[JosephV]

Thank you Demz

Joseph