On Sun, 27 May 2012 15:10:13 -0400
Adam <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi again, fellow Linux users!
>
> I've been using Mandrake/Mandriva since I was a newbie in 2005. Now,
> with the company's future uncertain, this seems like a reasonable
> time for me to consider other distros. Besides that, I now have a
> few years of experience that I didn't have back then. Would any of
> you be willing to share your expertise on the subject?
>
> What distros do you use, and why did you choose them? What are their
> biggest advantages and disadvantages? Are there any distros you've
> tried but chosen not to use? What made them a "bad fit" for you?
> I'd be very grateful if any of you would share your experiences with
> various distros.
>
> Just to clarify, I'm open to considering any distro (even if it's
> totally different from Mandriva), and am comfortable with the command
> line. Thanks VERY much in advance!
>
> Adam
>
I've been using Fedora since Fedora Core 1. I'm really glad to
use Fedora and participate in the Fedora Project because I believe that
it is an effective way to contribute to the development of Free and
Open Source Software (FOSS).
The Fedora Project, with much support from Red Hat, contributes to and
takes leadership roles in many of the open source projects that are
part of Fedora and many other Linux distros. The Fedora Project is
sponsored by Red Hat but there is significant independence in the
management of Fedora. However, Red Hat uses Fedora as an upstream
source for almost all of the packages in new versions of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. (So, Red Hat certainly influences Fedora's
direction.)
Fedora tends to have early releases of FOSS so it is not uncommon for
there to be glitches and incomplete features. Fedora users get a
chance to use the latest FOSS, help to resolve glitches, and influence
its direction. Also, a new version of Fedora is released about every
six months and each version gets OS updates for only one year. For
these reasons, Fedora is probably not for users who want a completely
glitch-free experience. That having been said, Fedora has certainly
provided a productive desktop environment for me to get my work done as
an admin. The Fedora community is helpful in resolving issues.
The latest version of RHEL or CentOS may be a better choice for users
who want a more glitch-free experience. The time between major versions
of RHEL/CentOS is tending to be about three years. OS updates are
provided for ten years.
By the way, Fedora 17 is set to be released tomorrow (May 29).
Aram
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