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

[Chris G]

On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 05:08:41PM +0100, Darren Mansell wrote:
> 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.
> 
Thanks, all very useful comments.

-- 
Chris Green