Over the last few years of using Linux as an alternative to That Other System, I started with Red Hat 9 and moved on to FC3. I have no web access with RH9, and FC3 no longer has audio. It used to, but I recently was obliged to do a fresh install, and up2date no longer does anything. I suspect this is because FC3 is so old. I need the updated kernel in order to have audio. Time to move on. I see that Fedora Core goes up to FC11 now, and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions as to which of the more recent FC distros is better than the others, or, alternatively, which one(s) to avoid?

Thanks,
Mark

Actually, Fedora 12 is out now. I've not used it personally but I've heard reports that it's more stable than 11. I used Fedora up to version 10 and didn't have any major problems. It's always a good idea to stick with the latest version or 1 version behind IMO because you don't want to be using a version that is not supported and therefore doesn't get security updates and bug fixes. If I were you, I'd go with Fedora 12 if you want to stick with Fedora.

Keep in mind that Fedora (core was dropped after FC6) is a development distro and any one version only has support for thirteen months. After that there will be no updates of any kind. Currently only F11 and F12 are supported. Support for F11 will be dropped when F13 is released(April?).

Centos is the free clone of RHEL(Red Hat Enterprise Linux). RHEL5(and therefore Centos5) was based on FC6. Centos 5.X will have support until at least 2014. RHEL6 was originally scheduled to be based on F9 but due to stability issues(of Fedora 9-11, so far) has been pushed back (repeatedly). Since the release of RHEL6 is approaching two years behind schedule I suspect the the RHEL5.X support date will be extended even further. Current release of RHEL/Centos is 5.4.

I am using Fedora 12 right now and it works great. I see no reason to stay 9 versions behind!

F11 is good.

I use Fedora 11 and one fine day KDE stopped working, I still don't know why!