[TriLUG] Ubuntu vs Fedora, was Re: Linux Distribution for server Opinions

[Alexander Ray]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:31 PM, James Tuttle <jjtuttle at trilug.org> wrote:

> Interestingly, every single Linux user I know at NC State, all of which
> are faculty, staff, or graduate student, uses Ubuntu.  Others I've
> talked to agreed that the NC State-localized Red Hat Enterprise-based
> distribution is much less desirable than stock distributions.
>
> I haven't used Red Hat since version 9 and thought it was a giant
> steaming pile of crap.  I hear Fedora is better.  I just haven't tried
> it since there hasn't been any compelling reason to look beyond Ubuntu
> since I've used it.  I can say that I've never had any dependency issues
> on any version of Ubuntu, which was the crippling factor on RH 9.
>

I switched to Fedora from Ubuntu (and back again, several times, but now I'm
on Fedora). I like Fedora a lot, and a lot of the things i like about it are
also things i like about Ubuntu. To be honest the only appreciable
difference to me was the online community and documentation.  Sitting on my
desk on their own i could've done anything I wanted to in either equally.
Yes there is a lot of Ubuntu users of the NC State Students, and thats
exactly what I reccomend somone get if I'm asked about Linux.

As for the Realm Kit (NCSU-flavoured RHEL)... its really by this point not
very useable as a desktop environment.  It's forte is in Lab Environments,
where a researcher wants a RHEL machine that has NC State Software, plays
nice with AFS, and generally maintains itself with not a great deal of
intervention.  it also has a good deal of admin tools to play with (thanks
to jack neely).
Its cool, check it out, but I'd wouldnt tell anyone to put it on their
laptop.

There are alternatives to that realm kit though.  There is a Realm setup for
Fedora 8 (going to be bumped to F10/11 over the summer), and there was just
recently a LUG presentation on getting AFS working on Ubuntu/Debian.

Also, last NCSU lug meeting (IIRC) was:
Kbuntu, Ubuntu/Gentoo, Fedora/Arch, Arch/Fedora/Minix/Plan9, Arch/Slackware
and that was just the laptops i saw (or people i know).