Red Hat's Fedora 11: So easy you'll forget it's Linux

Red Hat has taken heat over the past few years for allegedly neglecting the personal computer in favor of more profitable enterprise servers. It's a fair critique: Red Hat is an enterprise software company, a decision it made years ago, and to good effect.

But anyone thinking that Red Hat has somehow forgotten consumer markets in its rush to win the enterprise need only try the final release of Fedora 11, its community-focused operating system for desktops and laptops. I've been evaluating Fedora 11 for the past week and find it polished and professional while meeting or beating Windows in key performance areas.

Reading through Fedora 11's feature list, the geek in you may get giddy seeing the use of ext4 as the default file system. Not me. I don't care about the underpinnings of the operating system. I just want it to work.

This is, in fact, Fedora 11's biggest selling point: it just works. And fast, too: from powering on to logging in takes 20 seconds or less. Beat that, Windows!

(Ironically, if Windows hopes to catch Linux in boot-up performance, it's going to have to turn to Linux, like DeviceVM's Splashtop, for help.)

This, however, is an experience I've been having with several Linux distributions, including Moblin Beta 2, Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (reviewed here), and OpenSUSE 11.1. While none is perfect, the same is true of my preferred Mac OS X and Windows (Vista or XP). They all work, with little or no fiddling required.

In fact, as an experiment I've been leaving my Linux-based Netbook around the house and have given my children and wife free rein to use it whenever and however they want. My wife looks up actors on IMDB. My daughter writes a school paper. Not one of them has struggled to perform these basic tasks, set up the wireless, etc. Everything just works, and works in a way very familiar to a Mac or Windows user.

This is the state of "desktop" Linux today: it really has nothing left to prove. It took years to become user friendly, but it has arrived, helped along by the world's move to browser-based computing. At this point, the only thing that Fedora and the other Linux distributions can do is embrace and extend the Windows or Mac computing experience, because they've largely matched them (especially Windows).

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth has targeted the Mac as the "desktop" operating system to beat, with plans to do just that.

In fact, my only real complaint with Fedora 11 is that it doesn't yet have a Netbook-focused "spin." I'm not alone in seeking a "Fedora Netbook Remix," but Fedora Mini, as it's called, is not yet ready for prime time.

In the meantime, yes, Fedora 11 provides support for cross-compiling Windows applications directly on Fedora Linux using the MinGW environment, and yes it provides the latest and greatest in open-source software like Firefox 3.1 for Web browsing.

Just don't expect it to be weird/geeky anymore. Those days for the Linux "desktop" are gone. It still needs some spit and polish but, again, so does Windows. The Mac is the closest any 'desktop' operating system gets to being both beautiful and super user friendly. Linux, however, if Fedora 11 is any indication, isn't far behind.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

[shywolf982]

I have been, very, very impressed too by Fedora 11. In fact, I'm typing this from my EeePC 900 running F11.

However, there are still a couple of things that need to be worked on, and the primary thing is going to be audio and support for 3rd party, closed-source applications.

It will be intresting to see how the latter will be addressed: experience from the server world shows that, generally, interoperability with 3rd party proprietary application is relegated into the "supported Linux" niche: which exists for the server but has yet to be seen, massively, for the desktop.

[odubtaig]

It's not even that, it's more that 'supported' Linux doesn't change rapidly over time. Looking at the market for 3DCC software (which is the best supported 'desktop' seller for Linux) the latest Softimage (7.5) supports Fedora Core 5 and Maya supports Fedora Core 8 64-Bit (having jumped from Fedora Core 5 for the previous version). Houdini supports Fedora Core 4, Ubuntu 5.10 or Debian Etch for 32Bit.

If any desktop Linux wants to capture the 3rd party developers, it needs to be more static as a target to program for. This is why RHEL is so successful in the enterprise.

[caryjanderson]

I love the idea of open source software and have installed multiple distros on multiple machines, but honestly, for now and for the forseeable future, I will be a Windows guy. For me, it works, and "if it works, don't fix it". I like to think I'm on the cutting edge - always downloading alphas, betas, and RCs, trying to make equipment do something it wasn't originally intended to do, but IMHO I just can't stand how annoying it is to install a simple application on Linux. Flash - good luck. In Windows, it takes maybe four clicks; in Unbuntu, Fedora, etc. it takes an open terminal, sudo get....umm...apt....uhhhh....(*^*&^()#@!@()& and I go back to using the tried and true. User friendly - getting there, but not yet. The mass public doesn't want to sit and type commands and have to search the internet for how to install software. They want to go to iTunes, download a .exe, double click it, install it, and sync their iPod. They don't want to have to search through repositries for alternates to something that already works. Until the open source community can embrace the fact that the masses don't care whether their software is open or closed source, they will fail to gain considerable market share. I'm an electrical engineer and can figure out these operating systems, but if I even trid to put something like Ubuntu in the hands of my parents, they'd freak out and want good 'ole Windows back.

[forever4now]

Dell is offering an Inspiron 15n NOTEbook starting at $299 with Ubuntu. There is a link to it here:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?CS=19&kc=6VAFF&oc=dncwzl1&dgc=CJ&cid=24471&lid=566643&acd=10495476-1260291-

This is an AWESOME deal and, when you buy a system with Linux pre-installed and tested, you avoid the types of issues you bring up.

[dragonbite]

I get Flash running in Linux easier than you seem to have...
1. Open Firefox
2. Navigate to a site I know has flash (I use Strongblade.com)
3. When the "Install Plug-ins" bar comes up along the top of the page I click the button
4. I select the Adobe Flash Player
5. I restart Firefox, I am done at this point. No .exe, no navigating to Adobe every time I set up a system.

I've gotten everything running on my systems without needing the terminal once. For my iPod I have a choice of running Rhythmbox, Amarok, Banshee, Songbird or more. I am not stuck with iTunes and whatever else they want to bundle with it and cram down my throat.

Installing or updating my system (ALL apps.. not just the Microsoft or Apple ones) I simpler too and doesn't require all these applications "phoning home" and using up resources/bandwidth until they are done delivering all my information (good luck Googling to find out what all they are sending and even more luck VERIFYING that it is *all* they are sending)
1. Navigate to System > Administration > Synaptic (for Ubuntu)
2. Enter your password (not some Administrator password you also have to remember)
3. Click "Refresh"
4. Click "Mark Updates"
5. Click "Apply"
And unless you go install something completely different than the 12k applications available in the repositories, *all* applications will be updated.

Now I understand, this is Ubuntu not Fedora. Fedora is good for people who know what they're doing with Linux and is a great distribution but for a "cutting edge" Windows users, something like Ubuntu is better to get your feet wet.

[JonesDuv]

In Fedora, it's a little easier than that...

1. Open Firefox
2. Go to Adobe.com, click on the "Get Adobe flash player" image at the side of the page.
3. On the download page, it will ask you to select the method of packaging for the Linux plugin. In the drop down menu, there is a "YUM for Linux" option (assuming that you are using Fedora). Click that and download it (you will be given an RPM file in the Download directory). Close Firefox once it's done with the download
4. Open your file manager (this will depend on a few things but if you use Gnome, like I, then it's either Nautilus or PCMan. I would suggest you use Nautilus) and click on the RPM file then following the prompts (you will be asked for your password and/or root password).
5. Once that is done, pull up either terminal or PK. In Terminal type, "sudo yum install flash-plugin"[ignore the ""](this is assuming that you have /etc/sudoers set properly... if not, then you type out "su -c 'yum install flash-plugin'"[again ignore the ""] and plug in your root password when asked). In PackageKit (PK), simply search for flash-plugin, check it and click apply). Once that is done and everything is installed, Start up Firefox.... and enjoy flash.

In Fedora, for some reason or another... using Firefox's AMO to install flash is disabled. I assume that Adobe having a YUM repo all to itself would be the reason. Dumb I know, but basically if you set up the repo, you are not on the hook for getting and installing the updates yourself... since Adobe updates the repo RPM itself, and you get it when you update your system.

[A_Wave]

It is not a matter of complexity but familiarity. If you were as familiar with Linux as you are with Windows you would find that installation, updating, and configuration is generally much easier and more efficient with any of the major Linux desktops than with Windows (reinstalling XP from an older disk is a genuine PITA any way you slice it). When you ask a question or search for a solution in the Linux community you generally get a response that includes "copy & paste" CLI commands because they are easier for the writer than walking someone through a GUI solution (click this; then that, click "accept", etc.). Users grew into Windows because they had no choice. Now they can grow into Linux (or not) if they so choose. No skin off our beaks either way.

[ospideyo]

I totally agree with you. I hate using the terminal. This reminds me of DOS and we have come a long way since then. I just want to download a file and click on it. As soon as Linux can do that it will be mainstream, that and better support for Intel wireless cards.

[ricegf]

@caryjanderson: "...in Unbuntu, Fedora, etc. it takes an open terminal, sudo get....umm...apt....uhhhh....(*^*&^()#@!@()& and I go back to using the tried and true"

The 1990's called and they want their FUD back.

Installing Flash in any modern distro is trivial - you click on "Install Flash" in the browser. Unless it's already installed, as in Linux Mint (for example).

Perhaps you should try USING Linux before exposing your long-outdated notions of yesteryear.

[pinkfloydforever]

I completely agree with you. Linux guys just unnecessarily complicate things too much.
I run various Linux distros from dvds from iso images that I had downloaded. Have not found 1 (one) single distro that does not annoy me. Some come close to be real good like Mint, Dreamlinux, SimplyMephis and Mandriva but there is always something that turns me off. It is just too many bugs for general population to accept it.
If you want something that just works that is Mac always and Windows most of the time. Linux has a long way to go to be there.
Big selling point of Linux is supposed to be it is free. Windows has more free and more programs than Linux.
OS is not free but that is included in price of new hardware so you still get it dirt cheap.
Most annoying in Linux for me are simple things. Like Mandriva can't remember where gadgets were and mixes xfce and kde, Mint had terrible flash support, SimplyMephis is good but has absolutely zero support (support is done by
LinuxQuestions.org and there is new post there every 10 seconds so chances to get any reply are close to zero) etc.
Anyway i agree completely with you. If you want things just to work Mac and Windows. Linux is just too much talk by Linux evangelist. Talking about Linux desktop only.

[hozelda]

pinkfloydforever,

I think you would gain from a support group or "geek" to help you out (if you don't want to pay someone). There is no shame in that.

Like yourself wrt Linux, many have found Windows (or Mac) to have problems here and there.

Moving to Linux is an investment. Once you get used to it, the positives become more obvious (everyone that likes Linux has their reasons).

If spending hundreds here and there (sometimes much more) is not a problem, you may be curious about Linux and/or like it but possibly would not dump Windows or Mac or whatever.

Personally, I like Linux quite a bit. It's a good feeling to be able to create your own things and call your own shots. Linux needs more work so that more people (besides the more technically inclined) can take advantage of all of that creation potential. Lots of people like to create, but it has to be focused on their hobbies/interests.

PS: By far, Linux has the most amount of open/free "plumbing" and utility apps that work well. It's also the easiest plaform with which to grab free/open applications on an ongoing basis. It's the easiest and most inexpensive platform with which to grab cutting edge free/open applications. That encourages the most innovation at the application level. Seriously. With most of the software industry coding for Windows, the Linux community can still hold their own. Where will Linux be in five years as it continues to attract developers and industry partners? Microsoft's and Apple's platforms will stall when these two stop being able to pull in the heavy profits. They have been making real cuts for a little while now. The pressure should keep growing for these two. How many cuts can they (in particular Microsoft) make? When will growing Linux overtake them for good?

[storm14k]

I call BS. This is more of the same FUD thats repeated over and over. Anyone that has used Linux for more than 10 minutes knows Flash installs via the browser the same way it does on Windows. They would also know that to install software if you just WANT to download a file and click then you can. Download the RPM or DEB file and double click it. But most users find it to be much simpler to just go to Add Remove programs and check a box to have the software installed. Whats funny is that either way on Linux once you start the install you are done. Theres rarely any NEXT NEXT NEXT or questions about where you want to install or options for custom install or standard. Its far less confusing for an average user.

Second I'd like to know what commands these people are typing. I use Linux every day of my life as my main OS and don't HAVE to type any commands. I simply choose to do so because its easier than bothering with a GUI in many cases. But the GUI method exists. Its pure FUD because none of them will ever tell you just what apps they aren't able to install or have to resort to the GUI to get to work.

[stevens73]

Exactly. This is the third evening that I'm spending to install a flash player / plugin on Fedora Linux. Hopefully this will be my last attempt.

[forever4now]

I hope the Moblin initiative is successful, in unifying all the major Linux desktop distributions (Fedora, Ubuntu, SUSE, Xandros, Linpus, etc.)...at least for Netbooks. I know each distribution prides itself on its unique look, packaging, etc., but the resulting fragmentation decreases the possibility that:

1. any one of them will be highly successful, as an alternative to Windows.
2. major commercial software companies will port their software to Linux (e.g. Adobe, Intuit, etc.).

I understand the business rationale for having a unique Linux distribution, but one UNIFIED distribution might, in fact, generate a significantly greater demand for Linux, resulting in even more opportunities for all of the companies to sell support, training, consulting, custom software development, etc.

[Dalkorian]

Bull. The problem you see isn't because there are so many *distributions* of Linux, it's because there's more than one "flavor". Gnome or KDE? *That's* the problem you're describing.

Honest competition is rarely a bad thing.

[Mr. Dee]

According to OS News, Fedora 11 includes Firefox 3.5 unless you are actually not using Fedora 11 Matt. Fedora still suffers from one big problem - its Linux. Which means its incompatible with the rest of the world. Windows works because everything out there for it provides a cohesive experience. Fedora is to insulated within its community of stick it to the man attitude to survive. When Fedora gets Microsoft Office, Home Groups, out of the box integration with Microsoft networks, not one iota of need to ever go to command line for any type of purpose, app or device install then I will admit that Linux has come a long. But for now, Linux - whatever you want to call it (Suse, Redhat, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, this, that, whatever) is just too incompatible to survive in a world of 1 billion thoroughly satisfied Windows users.

[dragonbite]

Kinda like Apple, huh. Should be dead any moment now.

Funny thing, though. When I tried installing Windows XP on my laptop it was a pain in the backside getting all those darn drivers. Linux, on the other hand, detected everything and for the proprietary WiFi drivers it was like 3 clicks and then it worked and that was the only driver I had to do anything for.

I gave up on Windows trying to get the video, wifi, ethernet (yes! the ubiquitous ethernet drivers were not included! how dumb can THAT be?!) drivers, first trying to determine the manufacturer, then finding the drivers on the website!

[Matt Asay]

My typo on the version of Firefox, with apologies.

As for the problem of incompatibility, I don't think that's true. The Web is the great unifier. As for Office docs, I specifically tried opening up a few PowerPoint presentations, Excel files, etc. Everything "just worked." Granted, I don't have serious pivot tables and what-not in my spreadsheets, for example, but then, neither do most people.

[Mr. Dee]

dragonbite: I am sure if you bought that PC preloaded with Windows XP the system either includes device drivers in a Recovery partition or on CD's somewhere. Every PC I have bought does. If you built it yourself, I am sure every component came with device drivers on their own CD's, whether its the video card, your printer, scanner. The only chore you probably experienced was installing them and that's a huge difference when it comes to Linux. Linux you search for help but no answers on how install your devices.

Matt - but then, neither do most people.
I think you need to make a correction there. Do you have some special software installed on your Linux based PC that checks all 1 billion Windows PC around the world to know if its a majority that does not need Pivot Tables and special effects in their PPT's? I don't think so, so don't assume things you don't know.

[A_Wave]

Linux is surviving quite well, thanks very much. It will continue to do so with or without you and the other thoroughly satisfied Windows users. The Linux community isn't selling anything to end users. Many of us like to communicate the benefits of Linux, offer support to those who are interested in trying Linux, and contribute to the development of Linux. But the assumption that Linux community in general has any interest in what OS you or anyone else chooses to use on their desktop is incorrect.

[pentest]

"...in a world of 1 billion thoroughly satisfied Windows users."

LOL

I bet you even believe that, don't you.

What is not compatible in Linux? All formats are supported, office, audio, video, many many windows games run better in Linux, etc. The point of the web is that the OS connecting is irrelevant. I can connect any linux box without any issues to a network full of windows machines.

It is funny how idiots like you don't understand that the command line is infinitely more powerful and useful than any GUI. Of course CL in Linux is 99.9999% optional, just like Windows.

[storm14k]

When Fedora get Microsoft Office?

I start to think that the FOSS community is a bit slow when they don't attack these things head on. Its not up to Fedora to get MS Office. That is a choice on the part of MS to build a Linux version. So please explain how Fedora has isolated itself via MS not building a Linux version of Office.

I mean really...some of this FUD really makes people look very stupid and I don't think they realize that.

[correnos]

There is no need to go to the command line for most anything an average user is doing. And in addition, you need command prompt in windows to do some things as well. The only difference is that linux doesn't try to hide the command line from the average user, it just offers alternatives.

[Marauder62]

Matt, I dunno. Sounds like more of the same. Don't get me wrong, I'm downloading Fedora 11 now for a test drive. But it sure seems that every time Ubuntu or Fedora or <insert name here> Linux comes out with a new version, someone somewhere christens it as the best desktop experience yet. Always far and away better than Windows or Mac. But they always seem to fall short.

Kinda like a joke someone told me a year or so ago. It's the 10th annual "This is the year Linux takes over the Desktop" party. After a while, the claims just begin to fall on deaf ears and nobody shows up to the party.

As I said, I'm gonna take it for a spin but it will need to be something special for me to say it's a better experience than either Windows 7 (because Vista really does stink) or Mac.

[Matt Asay]

I'm only saying it's pretty boring, it works so well. Not perfect by any stretch, but then, I can't remember ever having perfection in my computer. I'm a big Mac fan and even there, I still get errors with my Epson printer after two years of trying to get it fixed....

[storm14k]

I believe many Linux users have the same feelings about Windows. I gave Win 7 a try and don't see anything compelling about it at all to warrant all the talk about it. I'd gladly wipe it from the hard drive of a new laptop without a second thought for a Linux distro as I did with Vista and XP. I've found most releases to be on par with the amount of hype they receive. The OS gets better every six months.

Simply put, if you look at Linux now and don't care for it then its safe to say you just like Windows and thats fine. Just stick to the Windows blogs and forums and don't question the Linux folk when we are excited about new releases. Remember there are many out there questioning the excitement over Windows 7.

[howardshippin]

I haven't tried the latest Fedora, but I'm using the latest Ubuntu. Linux has gotten a lot easier, but besides lingering driver issues, there are still a few basic operations that are a pain to do. Recently I had to put together a quick slide-show on cd-rom. Windows has simple solutions to take a bunch of photos and turn them into a slideshow, without effort. Ubuntu lacks that. Sure there are apps in the repositories, and it's possible to put together an OpenOffice presentation by slowly inserting photos into slides. But there's nothing quick and simple to use; and the point is, it should already be there in the distro. We can't hold the distros completely responsible for driver issues, but they at least need to provide basic solutions for all the common things that ordinary users need to do with a computer. Ubuntu's offerings for managing a photo collection or making a movie are similarly poor, and I'm sure users can think of various other operations that are needlessly difficult.

[finalzone]

"Recently I had to put together a quick slide-show on cd-rom. Windows has simple solutions to take a bunch of photos and turn them into a slideshow, without effort."

That solution already exists through application called gThumb which is probably not installed on Ubuntu by default. On Fedora 11, simply group select those pictures, choose open with gThumb and can view them in slideshow mode. Hope it helps.

[howardshippin]

@finalzone: Thanks. Gthumb can make a slideshow, and Digikam can make an even more finely tuned one. But the specific task mentioned here is to create a simple slideshow that can be placed on a cd-rom. If I'm not mistaken,neither Digikam nor Gthumb are able to do that. There are solutions in the repositories, but these are hard to find, and then hard to master. I eventually performed the task by using the Windows version of Picasa. Of course, a workaround would be to simply place the photos on the cd-rom and depend on the solutions provided by the operating system to show them as a slideshow, but that solution would be inelegant. It wasn't something I could rely upon when giving the slideshow to someone in order to make a presentation.

[JonathanE1701]

I've been using F11 since beta a couple months ago. It's much more polished than F10. I haven't had to use the command line for anything, except I use gterm anyways because I prefer the command line. Start-up is super fast. I don't even bother hibernating anymore.

Bluetooth works flawlessly.

Networking is flawless and stable.

I haven't had any compatibility issues with SMB networks/CIFS. I connect to a Vista desktop regularly for a shared music folder. I don't know if there's a GUI applet for this. Anyone else know?

I read in a couple previous comments complaints about lack of software for linux, a fair point, but I haven't had any problems with my basic tasks, word processing, uploading photos, etc.

One annoyance I've had is SELinux's tendency to pop up when I'm doing basic admin tasks... like in the printer add tool. It hasn't yet shut anything down completely, but it obviously has some kinks to work out. With basic computer use, I should hope never to see that annoying SELinux icon pop up.

Honestly, I'm happy that F11, Ubuntu, SUSE, et al have so many nifty GUIs to appeal to Win/Mac users, but I couldn't care less. I use linux because I like linux. I'm all for being inclusive, but I'm not going to obsess over mimicking some other OS's interface.

[i_debian]

Matt, I'm a big Fedora fan even though I'm not running it at present. It has a great community that is more welcoming and inclusive than any other project I've seen, and the technical level of the distro is very high, which isn't surprising given that it feeds into Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

I have run CentOS -- the free version of Red Hat -- a bit, and it likes my hardware a whole lot (the 2.6.18 kernel is the best I ever used on my Gateway Solo 1450 laptop).

But RHEL and by extension CentOS don't have a huge repository of applications like Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva and ... Fedora.

So just due to the package choices, Fedora is something I really should be running. ... Except that Ubuntu is already running so well, and has long-term support, that I'm reluctant to pull it.

Even though I see how/why Red Hat doesn't want to produce an LTS version of Fedora (and the 18 months of support each Fedora receives is pretty good), I think both RH and Fedora would be well-served by an LTS Fedora that, like Ubuntu, offers 3 years of support on the desktop and five years on the server.

That's not as long as RHEL, so they're not totally eating into that market, and the RHEL support via actual engineers over the phone or e-mail has got to be worth something.

I've heard that the upgrade process for Fedora from release to release is getting better, and with the debacle that was my attempt to upgrade (instead of reinstall) OpenBSD 4.4 to 4.5, I probably should be just doing reinstalls anyway, but a commitment on the part of both the Fedora Project and Red Hat to users of Fedora with even a three-year term of support on both the desktop and server would go a long way toward me picking up Fedora as a production system.

[jspaleta]

@i_debian:

Fedora runs the EPEL repository which can be used as an addon for CentOS and RHEL. Fedora contributors with build system privileges can choose to maintain EPEL branches for Fedora items not in RHEL, with the understanding that updates in EPEL are to be more conservative than updates in Fedora

EPEL grows as a function of the manpower to support it. Take a look at:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/collections/
EPEL 5 is at 2564 source packages at the moment...where has Fedora 11 is at 7842.
The numbers aren't directly comparable as EPEL does not include material made available in CentOS/RHEL already which is easily over 1000 source packages .

Doing a little yum repolist on my F10 and CentOS with EPEL enabled I think I get an easier to understand comparison based on the number of binary packages.

Fedora 10 -i386: 11,416

CentOS-5 - Base: 3,272
EPEL 5 : 4,971
Total: 8,243

While EPEL doesn't bring the full package total up on my CentOS box all the way to F-10 binary count, EPEL does have a significant number of packages housed in its repository based in the Fedora build system. If there are things in Fedora but not in EPEL that you need for your CentOS or RHEL install, you should think about stepping up and joining the contributor base as a maintainer for EPEL in coordination with the existing maintainers for the packages you need.

-jef

[BrandonLive]

Umm, Windows 7 already boots in 15 seconds or less on new machines (8 seconds from POST to desktop on my auto-login Media Center machine).

Are you saying Windows would have to "turn to Linux" if it wanted to be slower?

[JonesDuv]

Depends on the system... Mind you, my system is old but I seem to be waiting for about a minute (Or more) from boot to get to the Login screen for my tests of Windows 7.
Fedora 10, I seem to get about 30 seconds to get to the Login screen from boot on this old p4.

Both are on the same system. I am currently using Windows 7 RC and Fedora 10 on a Dual boot setup.
As always, your milage may vary from system to system... but from what I have found, if this is how Microsoft seems to want to support netbooks, it's in for ALOT of complains.

[MarkyGoldstein]

I agree: Linux is now easy to use. What we need now? We need more applications, also commercial applications. And we need more style.

[forever4now]

There is a CNET article titled: "Novell's open-source app store..."

I think a desktop Linux "app store" (like those for smartphones) is the right way to go. A "market place" for software developers & commercial software companies to "sell" their products to Linux users, would provide developers & companies more incentive to port their commercial applications to Linux.

[zelrik]

I have read recent complaints about the lack of standardisation in Linux. This was coming from people working on the Linux port of Google Chrome. They seem to say it's a mess to port apps on Linux. I'd say there is some truth to it looking at all the different WM and DE's out there. I think it's time for Linux to consolidate that and build strong standards.

[cjs-8]

I actually think its the other way around. Its a mess porting to Windows without having the C / C++ / POSIX standards which Mac/Linux/BSD/other unixes have. But maybe that depends on the app being ported.
For user interfaces, I just pick a cross-platform GUI toolkit, so I have no WM or DE issues.

[_Me__]

@author!
i was hoping cnet would hire more grown up and educated people, but apparently not! you can be a mac fan or windows fan, wouldnt bother me, heck if u want be a prostitute (not saying u'll be successful but!) but as an author of a moderately renowned site, shove your fanboy ideas up your you know where and dont give us your opinions... if you think Fedora is so great (with which i dont disagree), compare it systematically with windows and mac and say the advantages or disadvantages of all systems. i've been using windows 7 RC on my laptop and i'm getting boot-up time between 15-20 seconds constantly! so if you're so uneducated and unknowledgeable about what's going on around u, just do everybody here a favour and shut the f*** up!
i'm not saying windows is perfect, nor is any other system! but at least it works on multitude of hardware systems and there are greatest number of applications written for it... unlike mac's closed system. all i'm saying is that..... you're a ******! not a legit author!

[cgdotcom]

This is one of the oddest posts I've read on the Internet for a while, and that's really saying something. What on earth are you talking about? I thought this was an interesting and well-balanced article. Don't you have to be over 12 to sign up for a cnet account?

[shellcodes_coder]

LOL @you'll forget it's Linux
Just look at it's ugly desktop, it will def. remind you of LinSux

[JonathanE1701]

no compiz on windows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUSn-jBA3CE

[X0mbi]

Mr. Dee i've read your comments. Linux right now is so easy. I installed 9.04 Kubuntu and it's so good. It's gorgeous to look at, everything works. Video card, networking everything worked so easy. It reminds me of a mac where everything worked so well. And with the new package manager programs installed like a snap. Only problem I had was getting DVD's to play. That was an unnecessary chore. But other than that Linux works for me for everything as well or better than XP which is what I was using before.

To the Author I wanted to know what you thought of Ubuntu 9.04. I know you reviewed the remix version for netbooks but what do you think of it for Desktops? And how do you compare Fedora 11 to Ubuntu 9.04?

[A_Wave]

It seems like yesterday that someone who could get a modem working in Windows 3.1, or pry out a piece of malware, was considered "geeky". I believe the loss of geek status may be one reason that some Windows "power users" resent/feel threatened by the progression of Linux on the desktop. Thank god we Linux types can drop to the CLI and do mysterious things when we need to prove our "geek cred".

[listed_accessory]

Windows 3.1 was prevalent a long time ago. The growth of the number of PC users (and I mean 'personal computers' of all kinds) has been steady, so it may be difficult to picture the difference between now and then, but there are *a lot* more non-expert users now. Internet access is considered a necessity practically on par with telephone communications. Inevitably the portion of the user base who don't know the technical details is much bigger.

Also, the time when someone whose only OS experience is with Windows had any 'geek cred' passed a good while ago.

[A_Wave]

"Also, the time when someone whose only OS experience is with Windows had any 'geek cred' passed a good while ago."

Amen.

[firecad2006]

i think Ubuntu is the eases to use i tried fedora and find it to hard to get video and wireless drivers good Ubuntu told me to get use them and downloaded and installed them for me fedora dosen't do that.

[pentest]

Fedora 11 is outstanding, it just might beat out the current best opensuse 11.1. The only real problem with Fedora is its installer/updater, it is crap.

Sadly, Ubuntu still lives on hype alone and is years behind the others. It still has a chance to become a good distro.

[storm14k]

I always find these types of comments to be ridiculous.

Ubuntu doesn't live on hype. It lives on actually working and having a strong community. I found Ubuntu by using Fedora and looking for answers to questions that I seemed to always find in the Ubuntu forums. So eventually I tried Ubuntu...and amazingly I no longer had questions because everything worked. Now this is not to say that something was wrong with Fedora. I understand where they put their time and efforts and greatly appreciate it. But at that time I needed a working system that I could use everyday. Now you can call that years behind if you want but I call it progress. And OpenSUSE has just run like a complete DOG everytime I tried it.

The other thing that gets me is the ridiculous hate that comes out of some Fedora folk from developers to users towards Ubuntu. Is it jealousy that Ubuntu receives so much attention? Well buckle down, make sure everything works out of the box and build a helpful community and then your distro can have the same attention. Ironically when you visit Ubuntu forums you can find help for all the other Linux distros because it looks like Ubuntu users are very open to Linux period. You don't see this type of distro bashing towards other distros over there very often.

[2nd_KS]

I'm extremely impressed with Fedora 11.
I just tried a Fedora 11 Live CD on a Dell laptop that has wireless internet.
I did NOT have to install any drivers, all I had to do was click on a button that said, "click here to connect to wireless network." Choose my network from the list, and it connected! That's it! It worked. Everything worked. WOW. I didn't have to type anything or answer any questions about my hardware. Linux has come a long way. Much better than Windows.

[ikanpar1]

I just replaced the XP on my old computer to a Fedora 11 and this is what I think :

A fully tweaked XP can boot and run faster than Fedora 11 out-of-the-box. Of course this is not a fair game, as I have no experience in tweaking KDE/Gnome desktop. However, on my personal experience, the statement
"(Ironically, if Windows hopes to catch Linux in boot-up performance, it's going to have to turn to Linux, like DeviceVM's Splashtop, for help.) "
is not true, with some massive registry cleaning, unnecessary services disabled, BootVis and shell replacement.. it is possible to race Linux on boot-up performance (from power off to login screen, even to fully loaded desktop.

I observe both OS desktops from 4 perspective, ease of installation, speed, how "user friendly" is the desktop, and look/special effects.

Ease of installation:
Windows wins hands down. Even I have to repeat the install of my Fedora after 1 hr of bad install, cause during partitioning, I made 2 partitions (ext3 and swap) instead of 1 partition and use LVM. The result is I have superblock error, run fsck and unable to fix the problem so I just do it over. Package selection is hard, especially for new users, as the purpose of some packages are not clear (I just go ahead and install them, with the risk of making my fresh install bloated more than necessary). I even have language supports for languages I never use even once in my entire life, lucky I saw them and uncheck them all.

Maybe if there are packaged linux as there are XP releases that target specific usage, it would be easier, like XP Home, Server 2003.. etc etc. On linux case, maybe linux for corporate desktop, linux for web server (with nothing but a pre-configured apache/php/mysql and other web-server related technologies.. ruby support.. all that stuff), linux for corporate server (samba/LDAP/mail/whatever that relates).. Other than having a bloated OS :)

Speed:
Comparing fresh installs on XP and Gnome/KDE.. Gnome can ALMOST catch up with my previous fresh XP, with slight lags now and then. However, KDE lags like hell.

User friendly:
Gnome is easy to use.. I would even say that it is as easy to use as Windows desktops. You can see what's where. But KDE is harder for first time user. The add/remove software is not working without internet connection (there's way to change this but u have to use some googling first).

Looks:
Gnome is ugly. Fast, usable but ugly. KDE is beautiful.. It has more special effects than XP, and widgets, sliding this and that.. I think KDE is comparable to Vista and MacOS X... with one weakness..
Fonts on GTK apps wont follow KDE themes without some sort of gtk-qt engine.. and I end up with small fonts on desktop but huge fonts on my firefox, pidgin and other apps. I have no time to fix this yet so I will have to work with gnome desktops for now, to avoid straining my nerves :P

I run all these OS on :
Pentium IV 1.8A, 768 MB RAM, 32 MB NVidia graphic card.

[datcompros]

It amazes me how fast linux gains momentum. You see something linux is doing and you are just saying "Wow, this is really cool." Then you wait just a few short months and then you are saying the same thing all over again. I guess in a nutshell it is refreshing to see something as amazing as linux and as the community.

We have tested Fedora 11 recently with some of our builds of our customized phone systems and security appliances (which we use Fedora for the base OS). We were using ubuntu up until about a year ago when we really needed something more solid.

Nonetheless, Fedora 11 has proved this to be true once again. It provides us with solid stability and a true server OS. The boot times with KMS+Plymouth are actually very good and they work with all of our binaries that we use.

If you haven't used Fedora in sometime I really encourage you to give it a shot I think you will be very happy.

Thanks,
Jeremy
[e-mail]