Ok, so I've got both versions but I was informed that RedHat Linux is like completely obsolete and there are no programs being written for it? Is this true? If not, then which one should I go with on a P4 2.66, 512mb RAM, 40GIG HDD, CD-+rw/DVD-ROM?

Can someone or multiple people help me out as I wanted to get this loaded and futzin' around with it soon, like tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks,

G

u mean Fedora? or really Redhat? in the last case I´d say it´s a little bit too old for your hardware.
I´d prefer FC3. SuSE (9.2) is quite nice,good installation, but.....last but not least SUSE!
It´s for beginners...it´s the WinXP under all Linux Distros! ;-)
...always the same problems after an update
....always changed pathnames
...

OK, but the hardware recognition is very good under SuSE and they are up to date.
The topic of software installation doesn´t matter I think.
An argument might perhaps be if your are looking for how-to´s or support in german or if your must run an application which is definitely supported by a specific Distro.

Nope Overlord, I really mean RedHat V9.0 Professional, not Fedora. I dual-booted my current machine with SuSe and WinXP Pro and it's ok. I'd like to turn the other machine into solely just Linux and those two are the versions that I currently have on CD ISOs. I like the way RedHat looks a little better and have more eBooks on that than I do SuSe which is why I was leaning more towards that. But I asked this question in another Linux Formu and someone told me that there are no new programs that are written or developed for RedHat because it is like obsolete.

So that's why I'm asking. I seem to see a bunch of people saying things about Slackware but I'd like someone to like explain all the differences between the different verisons and other such things.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

I appreciate it.

G

The names are confusing...

Red Hat used to produce "Red Hat Linux", which has been discontinued and is now out of support. Red Hat Linux has been replaced by Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora Core is free and has the latest technology because a new version is released every 6 months, Enterprise is for organisations that want a product that they can get support on for a very long time (7 years !) and comes out every year or so.

Slackware is a distribution for experienced Linux users who want the simplest possible system with no graphical tools or hand-holding.

hi! im a redhat user like you but as a newbie
i think you should go for suse because rh users
are having sound problems (specially me) but if
you think you have time for some research and
compiling alsa you can use rh as overlord said
suse has a very good hardware recognition so
maybe it can detect your sound card. rh is
obsolete even though many are still using it
because rh migrated to fedora core and rh
enterprise but there are still rh programs
and packages out there available in the internet
if you still want to try rh! £Ä3

It's not really safe to generalise - both Red Hat and SUSE are good with standard hardware. I haven't had a hardware problem with Red Hat for six years, and SUSE has been almost as good for me. As always, if you use unsupported hardware you may have to get into kernel recompiling.

Red Hat 9 hasn't had any security or bugfixes for over 12 months, since it was end-of-lifed, so I'd take either Fedora Core 3 or SUSE Linux 9.2. Again, provided that your hardware is standard you can use whichever distribution you like best - both are free.

Red Hat Linux was an early product line from Red Hat. It has been discontinued. To replace it, Red Hat introduced two product lines. The first is Fedora and the current version is Fedora Core 3. It's still free, has all the community support that Red Hat Linux provided but does not have formal support from the software houses (Veritas, Oracle, etc.). Fedora is updated 2-3 times per year with all the latest and greatest features.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a more stable offering that is released every 12-18 months. It has the formal certifications from the big software houses. It doesn't have the latest and greatest versions of everything - latest version does not normally imply stability. It has an excellent track record for security and patch timeliness. Although the vast number of packages in the release are open source, RHEL is sold on a subscription basis that includes formal Red Hat support. There are free rebuilds for Enterprise Linux (http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/RedHat/rhel-forks.html) that will give you the stability and featuers of RHEL without Red Hat support. RHEL4 is rumored to be announced on February 14th.

Fedora Core will probably always have more fee packages available than RHEL, partly because it's free and partly because Red Hat doesn't want too many packages in RHEL because customers are paying for support - the more packages, the higher the support costs.

I've never used SuSe Linux but have heard that their products are pretty darn good too.

Personally, I'm running RHEL on my server (actually Red Hat Professional Workstation which was sold as a limited-support RHEL offering) and Fedora Core 3 on my desktop. There are pros and cons to both. Fedora Core is more leading-edge so for a desktop, it makes a bit more sense. I bought a DVD burner, plugged it in, and it just worked with k3b - nothing extra was required.

Both RHEL and Fedora Core 3 are current and are actively being enhanced. Red Hat uses the free Fedora Core products as its testbed for the RHEL products. You'll just about always see the latest package show up in Fedora before it shows up in RHEL.