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Fedora 8 A Serious Threat to Ubuntu

Tubs writes "According to MadPenguin.org's latest article, Fedora 8 from Red Hat is a serious threat to Ubuntu. The author writes, "I was never that swept up with past releases of Fedora. There was nothing compelling about it. But for the first time, I cannot help but feel that the Fedora team has been spoon fed an extra helping of Wheaties, which has put them into overdrive with their accessibility efforts."

4 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Linux Wars? by kripkenstein · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wouldn't consider one open-source project to be a danger to another... That's a good point.

    Also, TFA has absolutely no content on which to base its claims. It mentions 4 things, PulseAudio, CodecBuddy, Spins, and the Fedora theme. Ubuntu 8.04 will have PulseAudio; in fact, this is just another example of the usual relationship of Fedora and Ubuntu - Fedora is slightly more 'on the edge', Ubuntu is a little more stable - but still, at least in non-LTS versions, quite risk-taking. Regarding CodecBuddy, Ubuntu has this, and in fact had it before Fedora. Spins are fairly meaningless - a nice idea, but let's see some compelling implementation. And anyhow both Ubuntu and Fedora welcome 'spins' aka derivative versions; Ubuntu has its own Kubuntu/Edubuntu/etc. as well as the non-official Mint, etc.

    Finally, the theme. Well, he's got me there, Fedora does win in that respect. I don't mind the Ubuntu brown, but they aren't doing something nice enough with it so far. However Ubuntu 8.04 will have a brand new theme with a lot of effort put into it, so here's hoping.

    Returning to your point, in fact most of these examples prove it. Fedora led the way with PulseAudio; Ubuntu saw it was possible, and will now do it as well. They might even benefit from the code. Similarly, Ubuntu led the way with CodecBuddy-type things, which Fedora wisely adopted. Hopefully Fedora's nice theme will encourage Ubuntu to focus more on that. Thus, we have in effect excellent examples of how FOSS project spur each other to better and greater things.
  2. Re:Wake me up.... by rasjani · · Score: 4, Informative

    And things have changed how exactly from days of when redhat was redhat and there was no fedora? Gone worse ?

    Seriously. How many redhat releases there where ? 9 majors if i remember right and few .1 and .2 releases + the ee versions. So, how much time have gone into 8 fedora releases ? How and how much progress has happened in them ? Does redhat still back up fedora development, do they provide services like bugzilla/mailinglists, mirrors, what ever to fedora project ? And what about the community ? There more more 3rd party wiki pages, news sites, *RPM REPOSITORIES*, support forums and what not than there was ever provided by Redhat alone..

    And you say that support has gone worse because "they dont want to support the serious users"..

    So, honest question, could you actually give some real facts how things are worse now than they where ?

    --
    yush
  3. Re:Please be serious by MSG · · Score: 4, Informative

    How can Fedora be a "serious threat" to Ubuntu when according to well known facts, the Fedora platform is a testing ground for RedHat and will always be?

    That's not a fact, it's a characterization. It's not a particularly good one, either. Stability is, in fact, important to the Fedora developers, because they're users too. Slashdot did an interview with Max Spevack, the Fedora Project leader a while back. His answers, particularly to question #8, are relevant to your assertion.

    Quoted: Fedora is the best of what works today. RHEL is the best of what will work for the next seven years.

    Fedora isn't going to be the latest beta of stuff that doesn't work. The people who tell you that are advancing a political agenda.

    Has yum improved that much to match apt?

    It's likely that you know a great deal more than I do about apt, so you should correct me if I'm wrong about this:

    While yum is slower than apt to resolve dependencies, I think it's a much more useful tool. apt can install a package if you know its name. Yum can install a local package, and get its dependencies. It can also install a package based on its name, a virtual capability, an actual capability (library name or executable), or a file provided by the package (by path).

    Yes, yum is a little slow, but in exchange it is capable of better doing what I want it to, as a user. I think it's better than apt. As a Fedora user, I have the option to use either one, and I stick with yum.

  4. Re:Linux Wars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I love how Ubuntu is given 'credit' for codec buddy. Who wrote codec buddy? Bastien Nocera who works for Red Hat and Thomas Vander Stichele who works for Fluendo (you know, the guys who want your soul so you can play mp3's)

    Red Hat pays someone's salary to write codec buddy and yet 'ubuntu' comes out the better. Sounds like NetworkManager all over again. Red Hat pays to write the code the fanboys think ubuntu is the greatest thing ever....