Looking to dip my toe in the Linux waters again, and am wondering about your experiences with Ubuntu and/or Fedora and how they compare. No need to get all exhaustive -- just your opinions on their strengths, weaknesses, and if you have used both, how they compare.

I'm looking to order a DVD with the latest version of one or the other, since I can't afford both right now. I am a bit familiar with Ubuntu, but I think Fedora is worth looking into as well, but it would be nice to know some of the wrinkles. If anyone wants to volunteer to mail me a burned DVD disc, let me know via PM and I'll let you know what I need (basically it sums up to a direct, non-extracted ISO image and a tool to make bootable USB drives with Linux live ISO images).

_________________
What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

I use Ubuntu at work. Never used Fedora. It reminds me alot of Mac OS in that it's great if all your'e looking to do is surf the internet and occaisionally use notepad/calculator. Beyond that, you're better off with Windows. Some of the core functionality lacks polish. As an example, searching for a particular folder in a list of folders. Buggy.

i.e. Lets say I have folder called "GPWiki". I pull up the main directory of the computer, and do a search for folders called "GPWiki" or even containing "GP".. it will not locate it, even though it's sitting there right infront of my face in the list.

It's implementation of WiFi may be a little sketchy, as we couldn't get our WiFi printer going with it. Had to resort to a USB cable.

At any rate, I regard Ubuntu as yet another user mod to yet another 'alternative' to Windows. Nothing more. I use it on my machine because it is free, and that's the only reason.

Just my 0.02

_________________
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
"Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment." -Jonah Orion
http://tankzgame.blogspot.com

Well, over the years i tried more then 20 different linux distributions, currently i am working with fedora and mint. I personally would recommend mint, as ubuntu now more or less forces you to use the unity desktop, which might be good for a tablet device, but it sucks for desktop pc.

Linux Mint is like ubuntu without the unity desktop, therefor i would recommend it.

Well, as of ubuntu or mint vs fedora, my experience is, that both of them are very much bleeding edge distributions, which means, that you always have quite new software versions, while on one side this is good, as security holes get fixed fast, on the other it is bad, as you get quite untested software. Just recently for example, i ended up under fedora with non working sound of my thinkpad while in docking station for several weeks.

Package management in fedora is yum, which sucks noodles, its so unstable, you often end up with unresolvable conflicts, using third party package providers (security, anyone?) or even having to compile software from source.

Package management on ubuntu/mint is apt-get from debian, which works like a dream. Used it at least for a decade without ever having a single problem.

So unless like me you do not have a reason for using fedora (like as you have to do something that you have to ensure that it works on redhat), i would strongly recommend a debian based distro like linux mint or ubuntu. Of course there are other great distros like archlinux or gentoo, but on this distros you have to do a lot of things on command line and read man pages and stuff, if this is not your thing, i would recommend debian based.

_________________
My projects: Gamvas Web - html5 canvas game framework| sge2d - C/C++ 2D SDL game framework

GPWiki runs on Ubuntu. It's the server version though, no GUI.

There seems to be a wealth of info on the web for Ubuntu. I'm not sure if this is due to people having problems with it, or just because it's where most people start and need the most help.

I haven't used Fedora, but I have been playing with CentOS which is based on it. Like Heiko says, the differences are very noticeable. Cent is targeted at enterprise setups though, so I don't think you'll have much use for it.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but I spent a long time playing with Red Hat back in the dial-up days, and never got my modem working properly with it. Knowing your situation regarding Internet connectivity and knowing how modern Linux really needs a web connection to install packages and do updates, I think you may struggle whichever distro you choose.

_________________
10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

ive just moved from mint to xubuntu (ubuntu running xfce). Mint had some bugs i felt affected me too much, though knowing linux, ive only swapped one set of bugs for another set.

Well, I don't plan on using it for the Internet -- just a home-based ad hoc server. That said, I have managed to get a USB modem working under Ubuntu in the past, so I was able to surf the net and use IM.

Of course, I might go with Mint... I don't like the sound of the Unity interface (last I used Ubuntu was the release just before Unity became default), and sounds to be more stable (which is what I need, as opposed to bleeding edge). I've used Mint in the past (unlike Xubuntu).

Well, since we've gotten to this point -- any distribution you find particularly well-suited to networking/home server setups? I mainly plan to use it as a home Web and file server. (The Web server is for development/testing purposes.)

_________________
What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

TurnKey LAMP is a pre-built web server. Based on a Ubuntu, it has a small footprint and nice admin tools built-in too.

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/lampstack

_________________
10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

My God, Ubuntu sucks. I had been using a copy of 10.04, which was okay to me, but they have really gimped it in the past couple years. I installed 12.04 after not liking some of Fedora 17's quirks, but that was a huge waste of time. I'll take Fedora 17 over Ubuntu 12.04, thankyouverymuch. Unity is ghetto OS X.

(By the way, I did get to try both. Found a deal on a set of DVDs with Ubuntu 12.04, Fedora 17, and openSUSE 12.1)

I'm probably going to slap Fedora 17 back on. I don't know if I want to mess with openSUSE yet. Either way, I'm not going to screw around in Ubuntu now. I finished installing it about half an hour ago, and am just about to walk over there and reboot it with the Fedora DVD ready for takeoff.

If Fedora doesn't play nice, I'll just wait until I can afford to get a Linux Mint disc or something (Linux Mint discs cost twice as much as most other distros for some reason).

_________________
What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04, and I like it. The problem is the Unity interface, but it is easy to change, just need to install the Gnome interface(Gnome 3 is the last).

UNITY interface sucks...

_________________
"Life finds a way." - Ian Malcolm
My WebBlog: PixelDeveloper
English is not my native language, so excuse me for any writing mistakes.

Yeah, Unity is what killed it for me. (Though, it was the Fedora install DVD that did the dirty work.)

Of course, I had no option to install Gnome (or any other desktop). The Ubuntu install DVD didn't give any options for different desktops, and dial-up doesn't cut it for downloading much of anything.

_________________
What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

Dude,

everytime you pose a problem i'm like "well, just download it, easy" and then i remember that you're still stuck with that dated hardware.

My sympathies man. I really don't wish slow internet to anybody (except maybe those flaming gamers in dota2).

_________________
Long pork is people!

wzl's burrow

_________________
"Life finds a way." - Ian Malcolm
My WebBlog: PixelDeveloper
English is not my native language, so excuse me for any writing mistakes.

It's not the hardware that's the problem -- it's that I'm stuck in the sticks where we are lucky to have electricity and running water. (If it weren't for federal law, we probably wouldn't have those...)

_________________
What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

you should buy a cheap Wi-Fi card and pack up your rig and set up in a corner of the nearest McD's for a few hours of downloading. They almost all have free wi-fi.

_________________
The path to hell is paved with clever code.

The problem is perhaps connection to where :p

_________________
My project: Messing about in FreeRCT, dev blog, and IRC #freerct at oftc.net

Yeah, I've used McD's wifi before (the nearest McDonald's is about half an hour away, but worth it ). I already have wireless cards in all my computers (just no broadband to hook it all up to), so no need to buy more.

Last time I was there though it must have been congested or something, as it took about ten minutes to download a song (in comparison, it usually takes me 30 minutes to download a 5MB file at home). I dunno if they'd let me stay long enough to download anything as large as a Linux DVD image.

_________________
What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

The solution is obvious: set up a chain of solar-powered, directional wireless repeaters, made out of Pringles cans, between you and a friend with 10Mbps+ uncapped broadband.

_________________
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve

I could never get Fedora to run on any of my hardware, so I always tinkered with the other distributions, though I tend to stick to Debian and Ubuntu. I've always preferred KDE to Gnome, so I have Kubuntu installed in a few places and love it.

_________________
The only difference between genius and psychosis is that society accepts the genius.

The good thing with Ubuntu is it is targeted at beginners, Fedora on the other hand is for people who are ready for problems, when you boot up your Fedora machine, be ready for some dumb trouble (of course this isn't always the case, Fedora isn't just a bunch of problems ). One of the main points about Fedora is innovation, Fedora Project's packagers always try to include latest software in repositories. So, basically if you want simplicity of use, Ubuntu, if you want fresh awesomeness - Fedora.
P.S. Fedora was my first distribution, though i have had problems with it, but i stayed on it, because i was comfortable with it. You can dualboot both Fedora and Ubuntu on the same machine and see which is better for you.

I've been messing with MEPIS recently. Its Debian based with a KDE frontend. Very nice, even recognised my old 2200n wireless which Ubuntu never did..

_________________
10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10