Hi,

I would like to hear some Slackware users' point of view on Fedora Core 5. The reason for this is that, I've been looking for desktop Linux distribution that is fairly easy to use, but is secure and stable, too. Does Fedora have those features? What makes Fedora so special among other user friendly distributions? How would you compare it to other distributions?

"Why Fedora?" I got some fond memories of the days when I started with RedHat Linux 7.3. I've heard that the later versions were lot worse, so I've been bouncing from distribution to distribution, from SuSE to Debian based distributions and finally ending up to Slackware, which I've used for a few years now. Recently I've heard that Fedora has been getting better and better. That's why I've suddenly became interested in Fedora.

Fedora Core 5 from Slackers' point of view.
Since none of them slackers seems to have noticed this thread (clear from the absence of mindless drive-by hit-n-run "use slack" propaganda oneliners) I'll give you mine. I'm more of a CLI user in terms of administration and I consider myself rather distro-agnostic.


fairly easy to use
Ask yourself if its distribution-specific annoyances, application usability or knowledge that's causing you problems.


secure
Apart from benefits from progress (if that indeed can be counted as a pro) FC is not that more or less secure than any other GNU/Linux distribution meaning an out of the box install needs proper hardening and upgrading, just like any other GNU/Linux installation.


and stable
If stability is what you're looking for then 5 isn't the release you're looking for: its "bleeding edge". Bleeding edge means *you* do the bleeding and a tourniquet may or may not be available RSN.


RedHat Linux 7.3.
You can't really compare RHL7 with FC5. For starters RHL7 is EOL'ed meaning you get no more support. It uses a 2.4 kernel which in aspects is less performant when compared to 2.6 kernels and it also contains less functionality. OTOH 2.4 is way more stable if you tally recent reported vulnerabilities. It also uses less and older application versions which you may or may not find updates for through Fedora Legacy so if you can't upgrade things yourself or through Fedora Legacy then you're SOL. If you need RH stability or compatibility w/o the RH support then I could suggest looking into CentOS which basically is a rebranded RHEL.


I've heard that the later versions were lot worse
If you need something just testdrive and experience it yourself.
Just disregard hearsay and reverse slackware advocacy.


Recently I've heard that Fedora has been getting better and better.
I don't know what constitutes "better" from your POV. Offering more functionality and being more polished: yes (compared to RHL7) that's progress for ya, but at the expense of running more services, using more libraries and applications for running a "standard" desktop. Compared to earlier releases installation dependencies are more difficult to dodge and some just can't be turned off on install. Post-installtime fat scraping on a default install can reduce down but still will be considerably more compared to earlier FC releases. Scrape off more and you're bound to loose tools, goodies and eyecandy in the process. Other than that I don't think it's that different in general. GNU/Linux in any form is "just" a toolkit and isn't like an authoritarian system of government under absolute control of one person so basically you can change whatever you don't like.
Most of it.

I tried FC5. Underneath the pretty FC logos, it's still RedHat underneath. Distros which are supposed to make life "easy" for me usually frustrate me instead. They get in your way.

That's why Slackware rocks. It makes you feel like you can do anything with it.
Try it.

You can download it for free.

Apart from benefits from progress (if that indeed can be counted as a pro) FC is not that more or less secure than any other GNU/Linux distribution meaning an out of the box install needs proper hardening and upgrading, just like any other GNU/Linux installation.

With secure I meant, how fast the package security fixes are released etc.


If stability is what you're looking for then 5 isn't the release you're looking for: its "bleeding edge". Bleeding edge means *you* do the bleeding and a tourniquet may or may not be available RSN.

Oh, I didn't know that. sry. :/

With secure I meant, how fast the package security fixes are released etc.
Hmm. Somehow I think answering "pretty fast" wouldn't do but OTOH I don't feel like doing comparisons today. One way could be to track the time between the publication of the vulnerability and publication of the availability of the fix: for this you could use cve.mitre.org, www.osvdb.org or nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm. You prolly will see the answer amounts to "pretty fast" anyway ;-p

Distros which are supposed to make life "easy" for me usually frustrate me instead. They get in your way.
...which, with all due respect, put that way says more about you than about the distribution.

You're probably right. I'm a "function before form" type of guy.

As I haven't actually checked out FC5, I am downloading the DVD iso now. I like to keep up with the various distro releases on my spare partition but just hadn't got around to the FC5.

I'll let you know.

i like it. it's a good desktop newbie distro that looks good and works well pretty much "out of the box," with a few configuration tweaks. i don't use it myself, but i set it up for two people who had never heard of linux before, and they haven't had any problems at all. it's been very stable, with not one crash (unlike the windows systems they were using ) and uptimes in the weeks so far, only downed by rebooting or shutting down for vacation, etc.

aside from the basic security tweaks you can do on any distro, it also implements something called SELinux (secure linux?), which i haven't looked into too much yet, but which seems to add the possibility of enhanced security (link).

overall, i think it's a pretty good distro, and very good for beginners. updating is easy and so far reliable either through the command line or the gui with the yum tool. the mailing list is very active and responsive. there's good documentation and invidual support sites. with SELinux jacked up full and an intermediate or advanced administrator to remove all the bloat (and keep an eye on things), it would probably also be a good server -- it feels very solid for a supposedly "cutting edge" distro.