Fedora 13 vs Ubuntu 10.04 vs Mandriva 2010 Spring vs Sabayon 5.3

[afroman10496]

Ok I posted this on the Ubuntu Forums with this of the intent of a non distroist post

So I replaced the openSUSE option with an Ubuntu option to see what you guys think. And yes, if you wish, you can be a patriot and vote on that forum too

I'm not voting because Im an Ubuntuser by heart cheers

[oxala]

Vote? ....

Voters: 12. You may not vote on this poll

[oxala]

Ooops .... never mind .....

I voted Fedora ... for what I am not sure .... is he running for mayor?

Fedora 13 vs Ubuntu 10.04 vs Mandriva 2010 Spring vs Sabayon 5.3

This is very vague ... it lacks a question, as in "What do you use?", "Which is most stable?", "Which has the best eye candy?", "What is the best bathroom OS?", "Which has the latest version of ncurses?", ......

[ketheriel]

Fedora 13... there's no other option... I specially like the Ubuntu implementation of Plymouth... not to mention the implementation of Gwibber (broken ? lol) and eventually the long update process... the beauty of GRUB2 implementation... amongst other minor things... Ubuntu is miles away from Fedora, but I do like Ubuntu's concepts about modern desktops and some of their software like notify-osd and unity... but the implementation of other things is very poor... not to mention that they contribute a lot to major upstream projects like GNOME (1% from Canonical vs 16% from Red Hat)... they nice at taking hikes from other people

Cheers... gotta go fedora...

[oxala]

Hello ketheriel,

After 10+ years of /suse/i, I'm running FC13 exclusively. I will boot OpenSUSE 11.3 on my netbook occasionally to make sure that everything is still broken ... but FC13 is just sooooo stelar .... I don't really want to boot OpenSUSE on my netbook anymore ......

I have never used Ubuntu and have no desire to do so. 1% ... yep .... that says alot about Canbecomical, the great penguin innovator ....

Furthermore, I have read several articles that indicate Canbecomical does a ()&&*$ job with updates ... things magically get broken ... if that interested me .... well .... I'd run windoZe ...

[Jonathan_R]

Hello ketheriel,

After 10+ years of /suse/i, I'm running FC13 exclusively. I will boot OpenSUSE 11.3 on my netbook occasionally to make sure that everything is still broken ... but FC13 is just sooooo stelar .... I don't really want to boot OpenSUSE on my netbook anymore ......

I have never used Ubuntu and have no desire to do so. 1% ... yep .... that says alot about Canbecomical, the great penguin innovator ....

Furthermore, I have read several articles that indicate Canbecomical does a ()&&*$ job with updates ... things magically get broken ... if that interested me .... well .... I'd run windoZe ...

I have read all your posts about the openSUSE package management. Actually, I have read most of your posts. I find it interesting that you have left openSUSE for the same reason I left Mandrake (now called Mandriva). The main difference for me was that even the Mandrake/Mandriva developers admit that smart package manager is better than urpmi. The Mandriva developers recommend that you use smart package manager. They say urpmi is ok for simple and basic dependencies, but smart is much better for handling the complex dependencies.

I left Mandrake back before Conectiva was bought out. I left when it was still in discussion. This was not my reason for leaving though. My reason was that urpmi borked my system so badly, I had no system left. It uninstalled urpmi, rpm and another 4000 some rpm's. All I was doing was an upgrade. I know/knew about repositories, even back then. That was not the problem. Even the Mandrake people I talked to at the time admitted it should not have happened.

Now then, I have used just about ever package manager there is out there. Package management is one thing I know fairly well. I was involved in the smart package manager project for over 3 years and was writing the documentation for it. I also wrote a plugin for smart.

I have used Fedora's yum, and Sabayon and Ubuntu. Do you realize that the package manager in each of these systems is in python. If you break python, you have a broken package manager. I did this in Sabayon 4.x. I have also used pkgtools in Slackware and *BSD.

ZYpp, zypper is closest to smart. After that it's closest to yum. Both smart and yum are written in python and ZYpp is written in C++. Don't blame satsolver because in rpm5 satsolver is included. I sometimes talk with Jeff Johnson. He used to work for Red Hat and maintained rpm. He developed rpm5.

zypper doesn't have some commands smart does, and I do miss them, but then that's why there is openfate.

What keeps me with openSUSE now, is some of the minor things. 1) I do like the software module in YaST. I like the layout. I also like the way the software module/zypper handle dependencies. Thanks to libsatsolver. Other than that it's the menu. Yes, the menu. Other distros do not do the menu like openSUSE. I like how it's laid out and organized.

[lipk]

After 10+ years of /suse/i, I'm running FC13 exclusively. I will boot OpenSUSE 11.3 on my netbook occasionally to make sure that everything is still broken ... but FC13 is just sooooo stelar .... I don't really want to boot OpenSUSE on my netbook anymore ......

I would also prefer yum to zypper, not counting that yum doesn't have a usable GUI... there are some broken packages here too...

In fact, I left Fedora only because one day all GTK menubars disappeared (yeah, ALL menubars from ALL applications ).
But now I wouldn't go back to Fedora even if I got back my menubars... as for me, I find the Suse desktop much more complete than the Fedora one.

[weighty_foe]

+1 for zypper, its a really nice bit of programming.

[oxala]

Hello Jonathan,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts here ...

While it's certainly an exaggeration to say that I have "left" OpenSUSE, my father taught me well,

never let the truth interfere with a good story

, so let's just say that I have left OpenSUSE for now ... .

None of my criticisms have been directed toward the technical merits of OpenSUSE's approach to package management. I don't think I have presumed so much knowledge as to offer such a critique. My "argument" is actually very simple ... OpenSUSE NEEDS to make XXXYYY a little easier and less error prone. As people are intrinsically defensive by nature ... I ended up in a much deeper technical discussion/argument than I had anticipated ... and across several threads ... and I enjoyed it.

The deeper understanding I have gained from this discussion, including what you have just written, reinforces my preconception that /suse/i has had a superior approach for several years. A better implementation of gnome from /suse/i has been on my wish-list ever since gnome became usable. I am still unsatisfied with my own technical understanding of the issues around ZYpp/Yast/packagekit/gstreamer integration. I can only say, and have said ad museum, the gstreamer/packagekit integration in FC13 is AWESOME! The end result, "ease of use", is what we should work toward, what I am trying to advocate, irrespective of the technical underpinnings.

After playing the irreverent gadfly so often on this forum of late, I actually feel obligated to point out some of OpenSUSE's real strengths over other distributions:

1. Yast ( user admin module )
2. Yast ( samba admin module )
3. Yast ( bootloader module )
4. Yast ( disk module ) --- (VERY INTERESTING TO COMPARE WITH Fedora tool!)
5. Yast .....
.... ( init module )
19. hwinfo (this is just one of those little touches ... NICE! ... and it compiles on FC13 )
20. motd (I appreciate the reminder)
21. toooooo much software to choose from (it's a blessing and a curse)
22. EXCELLENT hardware support ... year after year after year after year
23. build (precurser to OBS I guess ??? I still use it)
24. "/usr/src/packages/...." - nice to have everything in place and ready to play ...
25. packman
26. OBS
27. forums.opensuse.org




I'm still having fun!

oxala

[jclark5093]

I have read all your posts about the openSUSE package management. Actually, I have read most of your posts. I find it interesting that you have left openSUSE for the same reason I left Mandrake (now called Mandriva). The main difference for me was that even the Mandrake/Mandriva developers admit that smart package manager is better than urpmi. The Mandriva developers recommend that you use smart package manager. They say urpmi is ok for simple and basic dependencies, but smart is much better for handling the complex dependencies.

I left Mandrake back before Conectiva was bought out. I left when it was still in discussion. This was not my reason for leaving though. My reason was that urpmi borked my system so badly, I had no system left. It uninstalled urpmi, rpm and another 4000 some rpm's. All I was doing was an upgrade. I know/knew about repositories, even back then. That was not the problem. Even the Mandrake people I talked to at the time admitted it should not have happened.

Now then, I have used just about ever package manager there is out there. Package management is one thing I know fairly well. I was involved in the smart package manager project for over 3 years and was writing the documentation for it. I also wrote a plugin for smart.

I have used Fedora's yum, and Sabayon and Ubuntu. Do you realize that the package manager in each of these systems is in python. If you break python, you have a broken package manager. I did this in Sabayon 4.x. I have also used pkgtools in Slackware and *BSD.

ZYpp, zypper is closest to smart. After that it's closest to yum. Both smart and yum are written in python and ZYpp is written in C++. Don't blame satsolver because in rpm5 satsolver is included. I sometimes talk with Jeff Johnson. He used to work for Red Hat and maintained rpm. He developed rpm5.

zypper doesn't have some commands smart does, and I do miss them, but then that's why there is openfate.

What keeps me with openSUSE now, is some of the minor things. 1) I do like the software module in YaST. I like the layout. I also like the way the software module/zypper handle dependencies. Thanks to libsatsolver. Other than that it's the menu. Yes, the menu. Other distros do not do the menu like openSUSE. I like how it's laid out and organized.

How about Arch? Pacman is written entirely in C (if I'm not mistaken) and if you break C in Linux, well, you've broken more than you're package manager - so C gets treated pretty carefully - other than that, it's customizable like gentoo, binary like everybody else, rolling release, and very fast.

I used Arch for a while, but needed windoze for a college class I took, and after it was over, I went back to linux, but I didn't want to set up arch again, so I found debian, then Ubuntu (8.04). Ubuntu became my easy installer for Debian, and I got lost in the fandom/crowd. And I lost my root(s) (pun intended).

All I know is that if you get an LPI-C you get (for absolutely zero $) Novel certs as well. They are like <$200 each. RHCE costs like over 4k, doesn't it? But for home/end user/desktop experience I have to say (of these choices) Sabayon - if only for it's rolling release style. And the bootup music is pretty spiffy =D