I'm surprised you use Fedora as a server - to my mind too cutting edge and too short a lifecycle.

That said, it's one on my preferred desktops as I don't mind replacing it every 6 or so months.

I think Red Hat has done very well until now. Demonstrated open source model is profitable, and has contributed to open source more than any other single company in the world.

I understand the open source purists point of view and in fact I believe is the best way to develop applications, but by now, some of the best applications stay closed (Someone know a really good open source CAD application?).

I use Fedora because in my case, because is the OS best suit to my needs, no other principle involved.

Pietro Pesci Feltri

I'm really glad to see that Ubuntu's not winning this one (at the time of my vote). I've never been able to get it to work right. And for a distro to be touted as 'the most user/newb/crossover friendly' but running Gnome (not very newbie friendly) is kinda disheartening. Just my two, or three, cents.

Gryyphyn, out.

If you don't like the "brown" Ubuntu...... go Blue with Kubuntu :O)

I thought so too, but upon thinking it over, they are good choices...

Do you like Red Hat over Debian if you prefer a primary distro, or Fedora over Ubuntu if you prefer a child (and arguably a slightly easier or up-to-date) distro.


I prefer Debian for my servers but recommend Kubuntu for desktop use...

All four - both the vendor supported and community editions of all of these distros make excellent choices. However, each has specific advantages and disadvantages, call them characteristics, that may make each person side one way or the other.

From the standpoint of a company backed system, you can't beat Red Hat. The free version of Red Hat, which is newer, but somewhat less tried and true, is Fedora. I found Fedora 7 to be one of the all time best versions in that line up. Fedora 8 is current, and Fedora 9 is coming out on Tuesday, May 13, 2008.

Ubuntu just released version 8.04 on April 24. It is truly easy to install by inserting a CD and booting the system, running in "Live CD" mode, then installing from there. But there is also an installer called Wubi that you can use right from Windows. It is a small executable program that you can download on Windows and run it from there. You run the program and insert the CD, and it will help you to install very easily.

Ubuntu is the most like Windows of all the versions mentioned, but under the covers, it is powered by Debian software packages. I'd say it is the simplest choice of the four, but the least flexible (far more flexible than Windows though). If you use wireless networks though it may be the best choice of the four - VERY GOOD wireless network detection and configuration.

Debian has the most software, the most choices, the most freedom, and the most complexity. If I had only these four to choose from though, well, I'd get all four, but if I could only have one, I would pick Debian. Why? For me, choices and freedom outweigh the other factors. Ubuntu would be second, and if I could have two, it would be Debian, then Ubuntu.

At work, another story. There, I would, no question, opt for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), particularly if servers were involved. If I had a number of desktops to deploy, I would look into getting a contract with Canonical and use Ubuntu.

Fedora makes a great test bed for RHEL, or if you have no budget to spend on software. CentOS makes a solid, and somewhat more stable alternative to Fedora, being a system that is built directly from the freely available RHEL source code.

I do find the Debian based systems to require fewer system resources. If old hardware is a factor, lean more toward Debian or Ubuntu. Otherwise, choose based on flexibility versus freedom of choices or support and stability versus more choice. If you just cannot decide, find a system where you can try all of them out, then decide based on your own personal experience. I just cannot see you going wrong with any of these choices.

I ignore your 4 distros.

Slackware gets rid of those dumb repositories you have to get, if you want a program, you either build from source or download a tgz if you feel lazy...or get a SlackBuild. I couldn't go back to Debian-based repos if I was paid to.

Anybody smell smoke? Flame war brewing?

I voted Ubuntu for the simple fact that Xubuntu is in the Ubuntu family.

Does that count XD

I tried more than 25 different distros, and i vote for Mandriva.
Also Mepis and Kanotix-Debian are for me very good.
Now i gonna try on me test-computer Fedora 9 KDE, i will see.
But, Mandriva runs here on 3 computers in the Art-Studio, and all works very well.
Even on me I-Mac i installed Mandriva- Gnome desktop and i must say it works all out of the box.
Greetings.

I tend to use red hat/fedora becuase i am used to the filesystem layout and how to use and make rpm's.

The difference between the two, i would say Debian a community project to big together all the pieces of linux in a way that you can shape GNU/linux into what you want, Ubuntu being the desktop version.

Red Hat on the other hand along with Novell not only provide free desktop version as well as enterprise supported products.

Also Red Hat is a large and important part of the whole Linux experience for example Red Hat do a large amount of kernel work, more then any other single entity.

Red Hat also do a lot of desktop work, so the new gnome gvfs abstraction layer, a lot of that work was done by red hat/fedora guys, intlclock, fast user switch applet, Network Manager, PackageKit etc.

So really Debian and Red Hat are completely different, i see Red Hat as more of company that drives open source software and Debian as more of a operating system framework similar to LFS/Gentoo but with binaries.

I marvel at members who have tried 25 different distros. Do some people have too much free time? And what can you say of someone who would use Windows if he couldn't get Slackware?

When I built this PC, I installed Fedora 1 because I wanted Linux and I could get "Linux for Dummies", complete with DVD, in the local library. Fedora's Linux. Fedora works. End of story.

Fedora's Linux. Fedora's eternal beta. Fedora fails. End of story.

I see nothing wrong with Fedora. I also fail to see how it is eternally beta software. Some people might have an issue with it being a bit more bleeding edge then some distributions, or be troubled by it being the testing ground for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. But, Open Office is the testing ground for Star Office, so does that fail too? Open Solaris is now the testing ground for Solaris, does that fail as well? Or, is it the bleeding edge factor that bugs you, making Gentoo (portage adds a lot of new software in quickly, usually marked testing) beta; and while we're at it let's not forget that OpenSuse has the latest binaries for KDE available befor anyone else.

No not to much time, i am retired and have time for meself now.
Just give it a tried for the reason i will see if there are Linux-distros who are really do the job without to many errors.
AND than make me final choice. Many words are spoken and many...
Whatever, there are many Linux-distributions who sucks to.
Greetings,
Fredo