I've been a long-time Ubuntu fan (well not that long). I've entered the Linux world by trying out Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron back in April of this year. I fell in love with it, and dual booted with Windows Vista. Well, I grew very fond of Ubuntu and found ways to get it to do all of what Windows Vista could do for me, if not more. So, I did a completel low-level format of my laptop and installed Ubuntu as the only operating system on the computer.

Ever since I found out about the release of Intrepid Ibex (8.10) that was slowly arriving, I became extremely excited and couldn't wait. That day came, and I was impressed by the new features and all of the updated software which is came with, and which I use on a regular bases (Pidgin, Audacious, Firefox, GNOME, GIMP, and many others). The drawback I have found on Intrepid Ibex was the performance issue. I feel like this new release is just too bloated and laggy and slowed down, and I don't know how this could be possible. Scrolling through pages on Firefox was very choppy, and the Compiz cube was choppy as well. It took a bit longer to load things up on startup, and applications took a bit longer than they did on Hardy Heron. It seemed like this version of Ubuntu has become a bit more of a resource hog, in my experience.

I've looked into trying out other distributions of Linux. I have LiveCDs of Linux distros such as Fedora Core 9, openSUSE 11.0, SliTaz, Damn Small Linux, etc., and a few BSDs, such as FreeBSD and PC-BSD. I'm looking into that Fedora Core up there. Just about an hour prior to typing this, I popped in the Fedora LiveCD and gave it a try. It ran very fast from the LiveCD. One issue was the fonts on the LiveCD which were kind of cut off at the tops and sides of words. I read that up on Google searches and found that to be normal. Is this fixed after installation? And I also noticed that Fedora didn't pick up the Acer monitor I have hooked up to my laptop, which Ubuntu does.

So I'm beginning to think: should I try a clean install of Fedora on my laptop? I have a "guinea pig" computer in the basement which I (used) to mess around with different operating systems on, but something hasn't been working right with that computer so I have up on that.

Here's a few of my questions if I were to switch to Fedora:
Does Fedora have an option that lets you enable attaching a monitor from the laptop like my setup is now?
-Can I still have all of the same programs I use on Ubuntu on Fedora?
-Is the rpm/yum update method really that bad?
-Are the fonts a problem with a clean install?
-Is there big enough community support for Fedora as there is for Ubuntu?
-In your experience, do you find Fedora to be faster than other distros?
-Do you think this switch would be necessary or should I just wait it out for a fix for Ubuntu's speed issue?
-Will my iPod work with Fedora?

Thank you, and I appreciate all replies.

You're first question I do not use Ubuntu so I do not know
Second is the rpm/yum update method bad not according to what I know about it , but there is also Graphical option
Is there big enough community support well you can ask you're question here or on the Fedora forum , if I had a problem it get a answer, sometimes you have to be patients
Is it faster than the other distor , can only compare it with opensuse and mandriva than Fedora is not faster.
If you like to try Fedora well may it is a good idea to wait for Fedora 10 , with come out this month

Thanks for the reply. I know the community isn't as large as Ubuntu's and that's what I'm a bit afraid of with Fedora.

I didn't quite understand what you meant here:

BTW, it's not Fedora Core since FC6 - it's just Fedora.

I like yum. The problems are packaging problems ratehr than yum problems per se. By that, I mean that one package may want to update a particular dependency, but another needs the version installed. Not a big issue.

A slightly bigger issue (or it may be for you) is that Fedora only has a 13 month lifecycle, so you will be wanting to update regularly. Given you've updated Ubuntu after 6 months, doesn't sound like a biggy.

Can you use all the same programs? We don't know what you use, so can't really answer. Probably is the answer - there are some good add-on repositories for Fedora.

Support is pretty good. I don't use Ubuntu enough, and have never used their forums. You should be OK with the Fedora forum.

Why not dual boot btw, and see what you think?

What did you think of opensuse btw? It's one of my favourite "stable" distros, and probably favourite desktop.

What I mean is that I only can compare it with the distros I use.
I use Fedora 8/9 Mandriva 2009 /opensuse 11 as a multi boot .
Used opensuse from opensuse 7.3 on so I am very familiar with opensuse.
And I must admit that opensue build service has a of applications.

To answer your question, the main programs I use on Ubuntu are:
-Firefox
-OpenOffice.org
-Pidgin
-XChat IRC
-FrostWire
-Audacious
-gtkpod
-GIMP
-Inkscape
-GNOME-Mud
-DOSBox
-Cheese
-gThumb Image Viewer
-Image Scan!
-Sound Juicer
-Brasero
-Wine

I could dual boot and try that out. But then again, if I decide I do not like Fedora, I don't like the idea of all those remaining Fedora files being left on my hard drive, so I'll want to do another low-level format of my laptop.

I haven't really tried openSUSE because I was afraid it wasn't a LiveCD. I put the CD into the drive and restarted my computer and it came up with the friendly welcome screen, but I saw no option for "try out the operating system" so I decided to back out. Is openSUSE a LiveCD just as Ubuntu would be?

If you download the Cd from the opensuse web site yes it is a Live CD it also stated on the opensuse web site that it is a LIVE CD

I tried the LiveCD with KDE4 and it ran extremely slow on my laptop, as well as on the computer in the basement. On my laptop it hangs at the "Loading Linux Kernel" popup window at 18%, while on the computer in the basement, it zips right past that, but hangs at the openSUSE loading bar; It gets stuck at the very beginning of that.

The laptop has the following:
Intel Pentium Dual Core 1.6GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM
Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

The basement computer has:
AMD Duron 1.3GHz
768MB DDR RAM
nVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 440

What's going on with that?

Frankly I've never heard anything about it being bad before..

Someone before me recommended waiting until Fedora 10 is out. I don't think that's such a good idea, Sulphur (F9) was so bleeding-edge new that many people decided to stay with Werewolf (F8). New GDM, crashy KDE4, PackageKit, lack of proprietary drivers for ATI & nVidia for a long and a few more.

Performance.. well I can't really compare. I don't think anyone's expecting it to be as fast as Gentoo or Slackware.. On my laptop: a little over 30 seconds to boot into graphical, stable and smooth during work, fast as hell when it comes to shutdown (5 seconds?). That's the only "performance" I can speak of. And it's a pretty old laptop. Oh, stock .f9 kernel.

YMMV, as always.

Can you try to boot in the verbose mode ?
Hope fully it comes up with a error message.
To get in the verbose mode press the Esc button as soon as possible and
repeat it
That it is slow with 768 MB RAM well 512 MB is more or less the minimum requirement
If it had a problem with newer laptop than it is with the Graphic card
The Intel Pentium dual Core is not a problem I use the same on
The drive of the new laptop is ATA or SATA ?

The Fedora "community" is about as big as Ubuntu's. Fedora is quite popular and might lend itself to server type applications more easily.

Frankly, I find no significant difference between the two distributions. There are headaches w/ both.

Every app you listed is available on Fedora and most can be yummed. You'd probably want to at least add Livna to the fedora repositories and possibly check out "Autonine". There are other repos as well.

I don't recall having any issues w/ yum OR apt. I just don't like how Ubuntu handles sudo. Never had any font problems...

As with Windows, the more crap you install on your system and let load on boot will slow you down. Neither Fedora or Ubuntu are particularly built for speed. However, using a desktop manager like Fluxbox will give you some added performance as far as graphical apps.

If you don't have any particular problems w/ Ubuntu, you don't have much of a reason to migrate, unless you're just interested to see what else is out there. You can also try out the Live CD's, or even better - install to a flash drive. Both the live cd's and flash installs will perform much slower, but it's a good way to check things out without making any permanent changes.

iPods are from the Devil - you don't need an iPod. Get something that plays .ogg's.

-Does Fedora have an option that lets you enable attaching a monitor from the laptop like my setup is now? As far as I know, it does. I've done it plenty of times since FC5 (when I started using Linux).

-Can I still have all of the same programs I use on Ubuntu on Fedora? More times than not, programs that are available are available for Fedora. You will run into some programs that are not in the repo's, though. In that case, you can find them elsewhere and download.

-Is the rpm/yum update method really that bad? I don't think so, and now Fedora has Packagekit. It automatically updates your system for you. However, if you're trying to use yum from the command line it will conflict with Packagekit when you don't realize it's running. You can install yumex, it's a GUI frontend for Yum. It works well for me.

-Are the fonts a problem with a clean install? Fonts? What about them? I don't notice any problems. You can install Microsoft fonts if you like.

-Is there big enough community support for Fedora as there is for Ubuntu? I'd say so. You can find plenty of support here or at fedoraforum.org

-In your experience, do you find Fedora to be faster than other distros? Define what you mean by faster, please. Fedora 8 used to take about a minute to boot up with all default services running. Fedora 9 might take less than 30 seconds now. You can disable services as you need to and it will result in faster booting times.

If you want to talk about desktop environments, you can use whatever you want with Fedora. Gnome, KDE or Xfce. Xfce is lightweight and gets the job done. You can install them all and see how you like it.

-Do you think this switch would be necessary or should I just wait it out for a fix for Ubuntu's speed issue? From what I understand, Ubuntu is becoming more like Windows with all of the bloat. Really, it's all a preference. I started with Fedora and stuck with it. I've tried other distro's, but I couldn't really dig them all that much.

-Will my iPod work with Fedora? It will. Install gtkpod (through yum) and you will be up and running in no time.

There wasn't a lack of drivers for ATI or Nvidia, it was the fact that the drivers didn't support the new version Xorg. People would install the drivers and be met with a black screen. That's all fixed now.

You will want to install the livna repository. It has tons of stuff that you will need for mp3 support, and other video support.

Getting audio support isn't as it is in Ubuntu. It used to be more difficult in Fedora, but not so much now. A few clicks and you will have it.

Check out this website for help with install Fedora and getting it up and running. It's pretty informative. The guy who made the website roams these forums from time to time, but I don't remember his name. http://www.my-guides.net/en/content/view/103/26/

I should've been more precise, you are right. I remember that people were either trying to revert to the old xorg or just simply going back to F8.

Okay, thanks a lot guys. I'm currently wiping openSUSE off of my computer right now (finally got it to work by using the DVD). I'll let that run as I'm off to work for the night, but as soon as I get back, I'll throw in the Fedora 9 CD and give it a whirl.

I guess I'll be posting back here once I have questions.