.Distro-bashing
-by guest blogger nareshov 
Let’s begin then:
Let’s see, I’ve been asked to post here by rohitj on some sort of Fedora vs. Ubuntu. (He was more interested in “Fedora sucks” than “Ubuntu rocks” :P).
I have my own experiences with these distros ever since the FC3 days (and then Ubuntu 5.04). I’ve had n00bs having trouble with the default SELinux settings in Fedora given the LAN environment in IITK. Hunting for everyday requirements such as Valknut (those days, we didn’t have linuxdcpp). This repo and that repo and more. The troubles people had with not having mp3 support out of the box in either of these distros.
I hate hunting 3rd party repos and installing nvidia drivers only to experience strange lockups or X crashes. Many of us have had bad experiences with nvidia and deb-distros. Freezes and Crashes were common (not sure now, with gutsy things might’ve changed).
Ubuntu has seen a lot of improvements since Breezy. Trying to adjust time+date asks you to install NTP support if you choose to use a time-server. Ubuntu asks you to install either NFS or Samba if you try to share a folder. Totem calls synaptic to install gstreamer-plugins-{ugly|bad} when needed. I’m not aware if Fedora does the same. They probably do. While Shuttleworth still insists on a brown+orange mixture in the default appearance of the desktop, Fedora has been playing around with their blues ever since the Bluecurves in RedHat9.
Here in India, the “old” linux junta is primarily a RedHat fanbase. Ever since Ubuntu started sending CDs for free, we see things changing. Many who have a lot of faith in RedHat (for good reasons) use Fedora, only to realise that it’s more of a community playground for the RedHat folks to experiment on. I’m not really sure why SuSE wasn’t very popular until Novell showed up in Bangalore.
More? When I do an aptitude install mysql-server , Debian would ask me to set the root password for the server and start the service. Now, yesterday RohitJ had trouble even starting the service and didn’t know the default root server 
(Probably had none). I can understand Gentoo not setting a default root passwd and not starting the service for you, but Fedora?
Another point of dissatisfaction being the GUI Server administrative tools in Fedora. Boy do they suck donkey balls. I don’t even have to describe what we went through a year ago in that hurry.
Gutsy is here btw, I can see the Indian Ubuntu servers go slow with the rush as I write. Ubuntu has a decent Compiz-fusion set up that hasn’t crashed on me so far - been two days roughly. It also has a n00b-friendly restricted drivers manager. All this cuts trouble and time-expenditure, you know? Ubuntu even understands that when I do an aptitude install flashplugin-nonfree on an amd64 machine it first gets nsplugin-wrapper and then downloads the flashplugin from Adobe’s mirrors and voila! Your 64-bit firefox can play videos on Youtube. I seriously doubt if Fedora can do this (comments please).
What else? Ah yes, good things Fedora has done recently is to stop messing around with the upstream Gnome default layout and combining /core and /extras. But Livna et al still exist >_>.
Look at Debian or Gentoo, it’s all there in one place. *Most* of it at least, compared to the rest - Fedora, openSUSE, Mandriva where you _have_ to depend on third party repositories for some software which might not be popular in the US but very popular in Russia or India (DC++ !). Come on!
Well, guess I’ll drop by when the comments are pouring in 
Lemme introduce nareshov first. This guy (unofficial nick “Clueless”) is from Bangalore (IT city of india). He is one of the very early Linux users of 2008 batch. Being nerd when it comes to unix, this guy was a Gentoo user, and of course very obsessed with it. Recently, he tried shifting to freeBSD then Debian. Now he is running gutsy on his newly bought good looking laptop. This guy helped me install Gentoo ( no wait, this guy virtually installed Gentoo on my laptop), and to keep with Gentoo.
About the post :
1 : In Fedora we need 3rd party repo’s because Fedora doesn’t include closed-source stuffs in its repo’s, which is better in some sense, but for a normal user who is not deep into open source its pain. And anyways, in Ubuntu as well, you have option to choose between close source and open source.
2 : Fedora installs so many softwares that it becomes painful. Yes, its optional to install softwares, but that option is not with all the utilities. Ubuntu for that matter is very neat. You don’t need to do much work, and you will have a proper running desktop.
Comment by rohitj — October 18, 2007 @ 5:38 pm
Good critique. Some more Fedora criticism:
1) Fedora is too experimental (I use gentoo ~x86, so if I’m saying this, it is *bad*) — they add random stuff as soon as it turns up and then sit around twiddling their thumbs. Ubuntu seems to be going this way too, though. There are some merits to projects getting early exposure by being shipped by default in distros, but not at the large cost of user experience that these guys seem to think is okay.
2) Fedora takes *years* to start up. It’d start the bluetooth service on one of the servers I admin by default! (it does not exist on this server any longer, of course)
3) It is too big, bad, and ugly. I was using RedHat from RHL 5.0 or so till RH9 (when I discovered Slackware and then Gentoo). RHL 7.3 was the last good RedHat distro. It was lean, mean, stable and awesome. RHL 8 onwards started being sluggish on my machine. Take any given machine, try the latest FC vs. Slackware, and the speed difference will floor you. I do not understand how given all the same components, FC can be such a hog.
4) Fedora happily deviates wildly from upstream behaviour. Their wrappers around a lot of stuff (LDAP, at least, from what I know) do things very differently from what the software creators intended. It does take a lot of effort to work with upstream and get things done approximately how you want it, but it’d be nice if they weren’t so deviant.
Other stuff, I agree with Naresh. 3rd party repos, etc. Too painful. Ubuntu is miles ahead.
Comment by Arun Raghavan — October 19, 2007 @ 2:49 am
But still fedora is largely supported by many big firms like IBM. I’m working on one of their products and all the support for sdk is fedora based. We ( me & arun ) had tried to port those application on Ubuntu but it was really pain in ass. So, for me its Fedora rocks at moment though I loved working on Ubuntu. especially Automatix for out of box installation of application.
Comment by Pramod Bhatotia — October 19, 2007 @ 9:30 am
Well, I think thats because there is an enterprise supporting it. Big firms prefer to have things which are supported by again big firms. Though with involvement of Dell and other guys, Ubuntu should become a better choice for big firms as well.
Comment by admin — October 19, 2007 @ 10:00 am
Try ubuntu gutsy. very much improved and a lot cooler.
Comment by Nitin Munjal — October 20, 2007 @ 4:15 am
Just ran into this. Might be interesting. http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=293
Comment by Arun Raghavan — October 21, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
Fedora is always a difficult distro to start with because of the third party repos which mess up when not carefully used ( but there are enough docs and guide to help the interested ) .
You can always configure how your system boots in Fedora to get it really boot up fast . And I cud get it to boot faster than ubuntu . And I have tried fiesty for 3 or 4 times the biggest thing I disliked was it used to get slowed down due to buggy compiz installed . Ubuntu does not run as fast as Fedora . With Ubuntu you can’t keep your comp or lappy running for 24 hours , it slows down with time .
Ubuntu sucks in looks and fonts .
Ubuntu has one thing good for its huge non-developer community which actively participates in forums .
I have not been able to install the mac80211 on Ubuntu because they have fiddled enough with the shell trying to introduce the new shell “dash” . Also you are also gonna experience hell installing intel c compiler or vtune analyzer .
Some people are very irritated with fedora’s heavy installation. Answer to it is please try the basic installation from cds rather than dvds or the live cd installation (for F7 onwards ).
Ubuntu is a very polished version from outside but its not dat gud when worked as developer .
Comment by Anupam Ashish — October 31, 2007 @ 12:21 am
“Heavy Installation” : Do you think Fedora basic installation is better than Ubuntu? I don’t think so. Basic installation of fedora ain’t cool.
“Intel C compiler” : Like Pramod also pointed out, I think you are right. It seems Fedora is specially considered by these big guys like IBM or Intel… do not know in much detail though..
“24Hr running machine” : When I was on Fedora, I used to run my machine 24hr a day, today when I am on Gutsy, I run my machine 24hr a day (usually), I do not see any difference.
“for developers” : What is meant b developers? Distro developers? What I read in some forum sometime back was that redhat ain’t playing good with developers. I am not very sure how exactly it is doing that, but some developers seems to move away from Fedora.
“Compiz” : What should ubuntu do when compiz is buggy… Can we help that?
“look and feel” : Default fonts in ubuntu used to be bad (in 5.* age). But in Gutsy, I found fonts ok. I havent changed the default font settings, I am feeling ok with it.
Comment by admin — October 31, 2007 @ 5:32 am
Do you know that Fedora 6 onwards comes with a live cd installation as well why don’t u try that ?
I haven’t used gutsy but tried fiesty for 3 times and all the time i had to get rid of it bcoz there was huge slowdown in my system after few hours when desktop effects were enabled and that was bcoz of compiz . Compiz memory usage used to increase with time taking away a lot of memory . FC 6 onwards have compiz but there is no such problem in it
just compare the default liberation fonts of fedora and fonts of ubuntu u will know the difference .
Comment by Anupam Ashish — October 31, 2007 @ 6:34 am
You call this ugly?
And BTW, compiz-fusion on Gutsy is stable. Not one crash so far.
Regarding the Intel-compiler installation problem, IIRC, bheekling _clearly_ explained why you were facing the problem. Seems like you still haven’t understood it.
Comment by nareshov — October 31, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
Comment 10 was for Anupam Ashish and bheekling’s explanation was on the NG.
Comment by nareshov — October 31, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
Anupam: You’re comparing the performance of a single (at least at the time that you were using it) *experimental* package to draw your conclusion. And a couple of things:
1) New users: They do _not_ want to display “sufficient interest” to go and add repos. Things must *just work*. And they shouldn’t have to go disable a useless services that are on by default.
2) Fonts: These are a subjective. I dislike both sets, and use DejaVu Condensed.
Comment by Arun Raghavan — October 31, 2007 @ 11:40 pm
“Intel-compiler installation problem” regarding it I think bheekling himself never had tried his own solution .. he says problem is due to me fiddling with the my shell installation …but problem was with Ubunu symlinking /bin/sh->/bin/dash ..they say dash shell is faster ….but the dash shell is not comapatible yet to so many scripts I got to run ( load script of mac80211, installation script of vtune analyzer & Intel c compiler etc.) . So the only solution left was to symlink /bin/sh->/bin/bash . If you still don’t believe check it it . bheekling does not want to believe that problem can ever be because of “dash” shell .
Introducing new things is good but not at the cost of compatibility.
Might be compiz is quite stable in gutsy i was talking of fiesty .
I agree with Arun Fedora is a messy distro for new users .Ubuntu is best for any new user . But there are enough guides available for you . And if you don’t want the unnecessary services in fedora installed by default use live cd ( fedora has a live cd )or you will have to be very careful at the time of installation to have the packages carefully picked ( although its not easy too ) .
I like fedora because I have learned how to configure it well , and really enjoy its performance and looks (which I don’t get in the other )
Comment by Anupam Ashish — November 1, 2007 @ 12:23 am
@Anupam Ashish
1. The script started with #!/bin/sh, hence it is to be expected to be POSIX shell compliant. dash is POSIX compliant, a perfect subsitute for the original sh.
2. The script contained bashisms which would only work if the shell /bin/sh were linked to /bin/bash, which is not always the case. The proper thing to do would’ve been to use #!/bin/bash at the beginning of the script instead of #!/bin/sh
3. All you had to do was to change /bin/sh to /bin/bash in the script and it would’ve worked.
If it still doesn’t get through your thick skull, I’ll give you an analogy:
The Intel compiler script was like a movie claiming to be for kids, and having a raunchy sex scene in the opening credits.
Now, please stop trolling before you get mobbed by a group of *real* Ubuntu fanatics (I don’t even use Ubuntu anymore).
Comment by bheekling — November 3, 2007 @ 11:21 am
@bheekling
u seem to feel unlucky feeling left out of the raunchy sex scene .
dude have you ever tried compiling iwlwifi and mac80211 where even symlinking /bin/sh->/bin/bash or changing #!/bin/sh to #!/bin/sh does not work .
if dat does not go thru ur thick skull then i would advise u not to watch a movie because u might not comprehend it .
Comment by Anupam Ashish — November 13, 2007 @ 8:19 am
Um, if you hate Ubuntu so much, use something else. Stop crying like a baby on this blog.
Oh, one more thing; you’re the definition of a troll, a shame on all CSE deptt people at IITK, and in general a total idiot.
Comment by bheekling — November 13, 2007 @ 8:45 am
I think you are a shame on the whole of IIT K . Neither you have any moral values nor you know how to talk . I am not making any hue or cry . This topic is distro bashing , it’s not personal attacks, just bcoz u don’t have any logic left with you does not mean u will start howling like a scumbag .
Please refrain from using such stupid words in future .. maybe rohit is all watching this and would like to close this discussions just because of few people who lost their minds and don’t know how to talk .
neway for you information i don’t use ubuntu ..i have faced these problems while working in my friends computer .. whose wireless drivers were not working even though he was using ubuntu .
Comment by Anupam Ashish — November 13, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
pfft, the reason why I started personal attacks was because I dislike you. And why do I dislike you? Because you’re a fucking idiot is why. And trust me, getting me to think you’re a fucking idiot is an achievement.
I’ve had arguments with a lot of people as you know from the NG, but all of that was argument for the sake of debate. With you however, its because you annoy the hell out of me. You talk like you know things inside out and spread misinformation like the plague. Trying to refute you and showing how wrong you are isn’t worth it at all since you’ll just throw all that out the window the next time you open your mouth.
Congrats, you’ve made it to the extremely short list of people whom I’d love to see getting publicly humiliated.
Comment by bheekling — November 13, 2007 @ 12:13 pm
please point out some of these lemme know if i did so …. the reason you probably dislike me would be because you don’t like nebody disagreeing with u ….
secondly u don’t know the way to argue .. because u r too arrogant …nebody disagreeing with is like hell … u can’t see nebody disagreeing with u even if it is his personal opinion ….u want to force ur opinion on other’s
Comment by Anupam Ashish — November 13, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
hmm, donno about distro bashing, but I surely see some bashing going on.
Chill it guys. These are just distros …. of course one is better than other in some sense and vice versa. The point is, we need to discuss things in broader perspective. A particular application may not run easily in one distro, but may run easily in other. There are different tricks and tweaks that these distros do with different components, and it surely makes life easy in some sense and hell(?) in other.
haha
And if you will believe this fact, I am sure you will come up with some simple solution… and anyways, for such tasks show some geekiness to solve the problem rather than changing distro. 
And anyways if you are not satisfied, you can always change the source code
There are issues with every distro, don’t fight on a particular point.
@Anupam : Dude, when you know so much, and when you deal with such not-so-general codes (am I wrong?), try to consider that there are some basic things that no one will fiddle with.
Comment by admin — November 13, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
Hi
I was just passing by when I saw this argument. I recently updated to Ubuntu Gutsy. After an initial stage when I faced some problems, I and my system have settled down to a nice equilibrium. This is the most stable I have seen a Ubuntu install - I know that doesn’t say much as each version is more stable than the older one - but I can’t believe that I have spent WEEKS without customizing my system overmuch. I’ve instead used my system as I originally wanted to use it - it does whatever I ask to do it, no questions asked. I know that’s not what most people who use linux want, but I wanted my system to do what I wanted it to after an initial period where some work is put in. But this is the first release which has not asked me for more work after every input. Remarkable!
Comment by Tejaswi — November 23, 2007 @ 10:00 am