Moving from Fedora to Ubuntu - am I doing the right thing?

[Darren Mansell]

On Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:37:44 +0100, Chris G <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> I've been running Fedora (7 and 8) for the past year or two, before
> that I ran Slackware for several years.

Hello. I used to run Mandrake and then Mandriva for a while. I've also
admin'd a few Red Hat servers.

> 
> I'm considering moving to Ubuntu and I'm wondering if my reasons are
> right. 
> 
> It seems to me (and this is what I'm asking about) that Ubuntu, when
> compared with Fedora, has:-
> 
>     A much bigger range of software available, I have found quite a
>     few things available in the Ubuntu repositiaries which aren't in
>     the Fedora ones.

Not sure if this is true or not. Although I find the Ubuntu repos to be
very well stocked. 

> 
>     A better software management system (apt v. yum).

This is certainly the biggest pull for me. I think apt is far superior to
yum and debs are far superior to rpms for a number of reasons. I couldn't
run an rpm based distro any more due to this. The Suse servers I have to
admin frequently frustrate me.

> 
>     In many cases more up-to-date sofotware.

I think user share dictates that Ubuntu will almost always have the most up
to date software. There are some exceptions of course.

> 
> 
> I run a pretty standard sort of software mix, basically Gnome based
> but with fvwm as my window manager.  However I have a few things where
> I find I need to be 'on the bleeding edge'.  How easy is it to do this
> under Ubuntu, i.e. when I want the very latest and greatest version of
> (for example) Digikam can I get it easily and/or am I likely to mess
> up my Ubuntu installation.  I suppose in a way the problems are the
> same as with Fedora except that Ubuntu standard packages may be more
> up to date than Fedora's.

apt won't get in the way any more than yum will. But Ubuntu/Debian has
aptitude which allows more advanced package management. If you compile your
own package you can hold it and not update it unless you want to.

> 
> Finally would I be better off with another distribution, say one of
> the Debian distributions?  I am fairly 'techie' - I ran Slackware for
> a long time - will I find Debian more flexible (as in allowing me to
> get out of the way and or latest packages more easily)?

I don't think there's any reason to run Debian over Ubuntu. Ubuntu is
Debian with common sense.

> 
> -- 
> Chris Green
> 
>