Hi guys,

I started with RedHat 4.0 few years ago and I've been using RedHat 5.0 from quite a few months now. Now I don't use Rhel5.0 in dual boot with windows xp but through Vmware as my hardware doesn't support dual boot with RedHat .
Now I want to upgrade myself to some new distro that will let me explore newer things about linux and my previous Redhat knowledge should be used in that.
I used to use Rhel for mainly programming and scripting practice.
Please advise me for the best possible distro available for my kind of use ; also let me know if there is any major difference in scripting among them.

Thanks in advance .

If you're comfortable with RHEL, you could install CentOS or Fedora. They're both free and will be familiar to you. Actually, CentOS is RHEL, without the Red Hat logos. There are quite a few linux distros out there. Check out http://distrowatch.com/ for information on others. I prefer Slackware, although it may not be the best option for you at this time.

Thanks a lot buddy for bothering.

Yes...I've heard a lot about CentOS being the nearest cousin of RedHat. And Fedora is from the same community i.e. RedHat, then what's the main difference and feel for what I should switch to fedora?

I've heard quite a time ago, a few people talking about "Ubuntu" a lot...But I'm not sure about using it...there must be a reason for that.

Again thanks a lot for your valuable suggestion.

RHEL/CentOS, is geared more towards an enterprise/corporate environment. Fedora is geared more towards home/desktop use and also includes newer/unstable packages. Many of the "buntu" flavors are popular as are the Debian based distros. Your choice of Distro is completely up to you, based on what you're comfortable with and how you're using it. What works best for me, may not be best for you. It's not that one is really any better then another but some people like chocolate ice cream, some like vanilla...

Hi,

Many thanks for your time my friend.
Yes...you are right when you say about the right choice of distro's...But I wanted the experts opinion before trying my luck with other ones.

well...I think I'll give "either CentOS or Ubuntu" a try very soon.
CentOS is similar to RedHat so i'm not very excited about that.Still I'll let you know about my experience.

Other's opinion will be highly appreciated.

You guys are doing a wonderful job here for the open source communnity.

Hey folks,

I just downloaded fedora11 from the official Fedora site !
So what are your opinions for a RedHat5.0 user like me to give it a try over Ubuntu and centOS?

Please reply soon as I really need your kind suggestions...!

Thanks in advance.

Fedora should be familiar to you and it's better suited to a desktop then RHEL or CentOS, I think. Ubuntu is very popular, although I don't care for it much.

By the way, you didn't mention what type of hardware this would be running on. Is it a desktop system or a server?

I use debian, and it hasn't ever failed me. =P

HI Guys,

Chromezero ,
First of all Thanks a lot for giving your valuable time to my problem.
I'm using it on my Lenovo Laptop...(No server thingi )!As I already said I use to practice scripting and programming on Linux.

So You want to say that Fedora is a "better" option in my case than Ubuntu and CentOS?
I think I should give it a try.

mushroomboy ,

Yes, you are right..I've heard a lot of Ubuntu stability but here I just want your opinion regarding my case("A Previous RedHat user ").
BDW thanks a lot.

Will seek response.

For a laptop, Fedora would certainly be a good choice. I think Ubuntu would work fine too. CentOS may not have some of the apps you'd want on a laptop.

I have never had a problem with debian based distributions... And I don't think it's the distro that makes it more user friendly or more a "desktop" distro it's the WM you are using. I like debian because it is stable and flexible. It has a large set of packages and the synaptic package manager is very easy to use. Honestly it really is up to you to figure out what distro you want, just mess around with them. IMO Debian has one of the better package management systems, the same goes with ubuntu. That's just me, I know other distro's have yum...ect and they work pretty well too. Really the main 2 I've seen that hold the most for packages is rpm/deb packages, a lot of programs are distributed that way.

In my experience, it comes down to what you're comfortable with. I prefer Slackware for many reasons, although I've used several others. I use RHEL and Fedora at work and both have their advantages. For a newer Linux user, I'd definitely recommend a popular distro such as Fedora, Ubuntu, or Debian simply because of the large amount of support available. But, since PrinceSharma is already familiar with REHL, Fedora seems like a logical choice.

Voila !!!

Many thanks both of you, buddies !!!
I think I should get rid of my own confusion and give Fedora 11 a try as I already downloaded it and I feel that would be a logical choice for me.

Again thanks a lot for both of you for giving your honest opinions.

Will try to post here my experiance with Fedora soon...I hope .

Folks...

Here I am again...I just installed Fedora 11 to my HDD by live USB and It is really impressive.
The installation part was very confusing especially the "partitioning scheme";But after trying a couple of times I managed to get it right.
There are a couple of problems with the GNOME I'm facing. One of them is that my touchpad works only after pressing ctrl+F8 twice (very starnge it is...).

I'll start a new thread for this problem here only and I need your suggestions to resolve this one.

Thanks in advance.