I'm pretty new to linux (but I'm already hooked) - after my SUSE 10.1 installation messed itself up after a week with update package problems, I've decided to switch distros - I'm trying to decide between Kubuntu and FC6.

Can anyone give me comparisons, advantages, disadvantages of both?

Such would likely be very subjective and biased by what the user liked.

One key difference is that kubuntu is Debian based so uses apt rather than yum (and rpm) as FC6 does.

It would probably be better to figure out what you intend to use it for then pick the distro for that.

Fedora Core would be a good choice if you intend to do professional linux administration because it serves as the beta for what goes into RedHat Enterprise level. Anyone who knows their way around FC would likely easily find their way around RHEL of the same version. (Suse being the other big commercial distro).

There are some that don't like RH so would steer you away from FC because they're still mad at RH for taking the RH name back away from OpenSource.

You might want to look to the right a Distro Reviews to see what people have to say about the one's you're interested in.

If I were you I would try them both. I don't want to give you a non-answer but only you can decide which is better ... and you can do that best by comparing them side by side on your computer ----- dual boot!! I use Kubuntu on my desktop and laptop and I love it because of apt (the package management system --- which is available on any Debian based distro.) But I also use Slackware and Mandriva. Good luck.

i would recommend trying kubuntu 6.1 or mepis 6 (based on ubuntu repositories).

aptitude package management, imho, is the reason why.

the only caveat, which has been mentioned earlier, is if you plan on administering linux in a corporate environment. then you should learn FC. if it were me, i'd install kubuntu at home and set up FC on a different partition.

good luck.

PS - i've heard rpms get borked - similar to your experience with yum. i'm sure it can happen in aptitude, but i think you will be better served by aptitude in the long run - by a lot.

PSS - you can use synaptic to interface with aptitude - it is gui based and pretty intuitive.

Try this: http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Note that if it says Ubuntu, just add the KDE packages and you have Kubuntu.

Thanks for the input. If anyone else has anything to say, feel free to comment

Linux is just for recreation for me. I'm still in college, and am looking at EE or architecture, so if business linux is in my future it will be a ways down the road.

Vista already lives on the other hard drive (don't laugh, I wanted to try it ) so whatever distro I choose will be dual booting with vista.

That's a cool site, I'll bookmark it

My results were Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Mandriva (in that order, if order matters for the results)

It says Fedora at the bottom, but says "may not be suitable because: may require some linux knowledge". I only have a week's worth of knowledge so far...

Fedora Core has 3D eye candy. in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWB5eIvM4qo

Fedora sometimes also has bugs and software installation. Plus, you need a DVD for it.

Kubuntu is slower than FC6. It doesn't have the 3D effects by default, but they are installable by pasting some code.

However, it is a little more newb friendly, it is more stable, and it has an excellent community. Plus, it has a live-cd.

Looks really cool, Vista copied that for sure, but it didn't end up looking nearly as awesome.

Kubuntu is probably the best for me, since I'm a bit of a noob to Linux still. If I want the eye candy I can probably install it later (but I hear it's a pain to do)

BlahBlah_X is right about Kubuntu being slower than FC6, but part of that is because in the FC6 installation, you can chose what you want better than K/Ubuntu. How much RAM do you have? Gnome is better for a low-RAM computer.

2x 1GB______

You would have NO problem with literally any distribution I know of. I run Kubuntu with my whole 256mb of RAM, even though it isn't supposed to be able to do it. I don't really like it, but you could try Freespire.

Looks like Freespire is trying really hard to be like Windows, from what the screenshots on wikipedia look like.

I think I'm going to go ahead and try Kubuntu.

I'm more partial towards Fedora Core (I like to pick and choose what I install right from the beginning), but as others said try both and stick with the one that you like best.

....burning EdgyEft and Zod to try the LiveDVD thing....had to find a new burner program since Vista doesn't like nero...

How easy will it be to update to the new versions once they come out? (feisty fawn and ??? FC7)

-AND-

Do both distros use GRUB?


I am highly amused by FC6's name ---- KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!!!11!!!1!