Fedora, Mandriva or Opensuse?

Message

alidh · #1 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 17:24

Hey,

I want to test a 'rpm' distro, and thinking about Fedora, Mandriva or Opensuse. I love Debian but I want to learn to work with a 'redhatlike' distro too.
What can you tell about the different philosophies of these? That's something I think is important too...

(or is there a better option?)

MeanDean · #2 Post by **MeanDean** » 2007-09-07 17:34

choose for what?

If it was me I would like to check out mandriva. That being said, I did *try* to checkout fedora so maybe that is why I said mandriva. Can't stand the name 'mandriva' though. I feel like mandriva is more "put together" than fedora. I like how they have different flavors and so forth. I feel like mandriva is more of a 'end user' distro and community whereas fedora is more of a 'tester user' distro and community.

That being said, I would probably find mandriva even more disappointing than fedora and come running back to debian.

But I do like metisse a lot!

openwhosa?

btw - this thread will likely meet a swift end...maybe...

alidh · #3 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 17:45

MeanDean wrote:choose for what?

When you was me and would try a rpm-distro

I feel like mandriva is more of a 'end user' distro and community whereas fedora is more of a 'tester user' distro and community.

Fedora as a testing distro for Red Hat or something?

MeanDean · #4 Post by **MeanDean** » 2007-09-07 17:53

alidh wrote: Fedora as a testing distro for Red Hat or something?

possibly that as well,sort of a distro for those wanting to run a volatile system and *test* it out rather than just install and use the system. Fedora is more geeky/technical/volatile IMO. Of course, you can just *use* fedora and you can make mandriva more geeky/technical/volatile but in general I feel they have different purposes.

Qew · #5 Post by **Qew** » 2007-09-07 17:54

I chose Mandriva from those three, simply because prior to Debian and, before that, Xubuntu, it was my distro for over four years. Despite my abandoning Mandriva just over a year ago, I will always remember it as the distro that got me to feel comfortable with Linux. Sure, it had the GUI tools to administer the system, but you could also edit the config files if you really wanted to, so I tend to believe it's a good gradual learning distro. It also has urpmi, which may not be as good as apt-get or aptitude, but is, in itself, a good package management tool. Apparently they've made a few changes with their upcoming 2008 release, so that might interest you.

alidh · #6 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 18:02

Qew wrote:I chose Mandriva from those three, simply because prior to Debian and, before that, Xubuntu, it was my distro for over four years. Despite my abandoning Mandriva just over a year ago, I will always remember it as the distro that got me to feel comfortable with Linux. Sure, it had the GUI tools to administer the system, but you could also edit the config files if you really wanted to, so I tend to believe it's a good gradual learning distro. It also has urpmi, which may not be as good as apt-get or aptitude, but is, in itself, a good package management tool. Apparently they've made a few changes with their upcoming 2008 release, so that might interest you.

Does Mandriva works like Red Hat does? Because I want to be able to work with Red Hat....

ghostdawg · #7 Post by **ghostdawg** » 2007-09-07 18:03

Of the three I would say Fedora. It is the lastest one I've tried recently, still have F7 installed on multi boot setup. I think Fedora is put together pretty well just wished it had a better package management system.

Haven't tried Mandriva since Mandrake 8, it took over my whole hard drive, so I stuck with it awhile and enjoyed it.

Haven't used opensuse since it was SuSe 9, I guess. Hateded it...that green theme sucked.

MeanDean · #8 Post by **MeanDean** » 2007-09-07 18:06

I think I am going to have to try mandriva myself.

I have been meaning to checkout urpmi. I think mandriva may make a good comeback and really shine again. I thought 8.2 was a very nice distro, a bit too 'set-up' and fragile if you liked to rip and tear and put back together but not bad at all as a end-user distro. 9.0 wasn't too bad either but did have some quirks and seem to run like a dog on a couple systems I tried it on.

Yep, I think I am going to have to head over and see what I can find to download that loooks interesting...

alidh · #9 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 18:07

What about the different companies which stands behind the distro's and how 'commercial' are they?

MeanDean · #10 Post by **MeanDean** » 2007-09-07 18:08

alidh wrote: Because I want to be able to work with Red Hat....

Then redhat, whitebox or centos would be the thing to check out IMO.

alidh · #11 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 18:27

MeanDean wrote:
alidh wrote: Because I want to be able to work with Red Hat....
Then redhat, whitebox or centos would be the thing to check out IMO.

I thought that Fedora is sponsored and supported by red hat... ?

How easy is it working with centos or whitbox?

dmn_clown · #12 Post by **dmn_clown** » 2007-09-07 18:34

alidh wrote:I want to learn to work with a 'redhatlike' distro too.
What can you tell about the different philosophies of these? That's something I think is important too...

I'd say go with Fedora, because they are more of a "testing" distribution for RHEL and you'd be more apt to learn rpm because of it. Mandriva and Opensuse are basically the enterprise version without the non-free bits so you will be less likely to have the breakage and/or have to fix bugs that lead to learning.

alidh · #13 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 18:48

found another interesting distro:

https://www.scientificlinux.org/

any experiences?

Qew · #14 Post by **Qew** » 2007-09-07 18:49

alidh wrote:Does Mandriva works like Red Hat does? Because I want to be able to work with Red Hat....

Yes and no... but more near no. They're both RPM based distros, but they've sort of diverged a bit since the inception of Mandrake. If you want to work with Red Hat, then go with Fedora.

alidh · #15 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 18:56

Qew wrote:
alidh wrote:Does Mandriva works like Red Hat does? Because I want to be able to work with Red Hat....
Yes and no... but more near no. They're both RPM based distros, but they've sort of diverged a bit since the inception of Mandrake. If you want to work with Red Hat, then go with Fedora.

Ok... clear

any experiences with:
Centos
scientificlinux?

What if I should choose between fedora, or Centos ?

Plato · #16 Post by **Plato** » 2007-09-07 20:53

Before Debian I used openSuSE. SuSE is one of the best distros out there in terms of polish and one of the worst in terms of package management. Together they would make the best linux distro ever.

P.S. To anticipate. As devs of openSuSE are not responsible for decisions made by Novell bashing openSuSE on that account seems to me totally off the mark.

alidh · #17 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-07 22:08

Can I see Fedora as 'Red Hat unstable' and centOS as 'Red Hat stable'?

industrialpunk · #18 Post by **industrialpunk** » 2007-09-07 22:28

You should definitely give Fedora a spin since you are eager to learn the Redhat way of doing things. Fedora is a testing ground for Redhat and would be the best way to learn all the redhat config tools next to running RHEL or Whitebox (free, unbranded RHEL)

jml · #19 Post by **jml** » 2007-09-08 02:31

I would also add a vote for Fedora 7. Its the most "RedHat" like distro of the three that you listed. And yes, it is a developement ground for Redhat Enterprise Linix, and is supported by Redhat and by user forums. So it is a good choice if you want to develope RHEL skills.

Its a reasonably quick instal by RPM based distro standards. Once installed it runs rather well. My main gripe about it and other RPM based distros is package management and security updates. They seem to be very slow and prone to crashing in my experience. Adding alternate repositories is still a major pain in my opinion.

The one thing that makes Fedora a total non-starter for me as my main distro is the fact that you can't upgrade it. Both the developers and the forums state that each new version of Fedora should be a fresh install!

OpenSUSE once installed is also a very polished distro, but its set up diferently than Fedora 7 so I do not know how helpful it would be to improve your RHEL skill set. My main to gripes about OpenSUSE is the install, it seems to take forever, much longer than Fedora 7. Package management is also very slow and in my experience, also prone to crashing.

Since Mandriva has had so much turnover in its company, (the original developer being fired,) I have tended to steer clear of it. Like OpenSUSE, it does things diferently than Fedora 7 so it also would be of limited use for honing your RedHat skills.

alidh · #20 Post by **alidh** » 2007-09-09 12:35

Thanks for your reactions so far!

I've downloaded Fedora 7....

The statement about the not able to upgrade Fedora thing makes me wondering if it is the same for centOS or scientificlinux, or is it possible to upgrade to a new version with these distro's?

Mandriva is maybe also worth trying... but I want to concentrate on a RedHat look a-like system...

Debian User Forums

Fedora, Mandriva or Opensuse?

Which of these would you choose?

Fedora, Mandriva or Opensuse?

Re: Fedora, Mandriva or Opensuse?