Fedora Project or Enterprise?

greeno76

I'm running RH9 for a home web server and I'm very happy with it's stability and performance (although I haven't got a CLUE how to configure sendmail but that's another story/thread).

I've got a couple of questions about Red Hat's new positioning.

1) Which RH distribution should I be using?
Obviously Fedora is free but does it still offer me all the applications/functionality that RH9 does currently & how well is it supported. The up2date agent on RH9 has enabled me, as a linux newbie, to keep my system secure and current. If the RHN no longer supports Up2date what alternatives do I have?

2) Is Red Hat the new Microsoft? Enterprise Linux is prohibitively expensive for the home user. How have they been able to re-package Linux and not allow free distribution under the GPL?

Curious.

Kind regards,
Jason

LordShryku

1) Go with Fedora. It's basically the same as Red hat 9, but a couple changes here and there. I run some Fedora servers and haven't have a problem. Just be sure to get the right version. Fedora Core 1 is good. They just released Fedora Core 2 test1, and the word on the mailing lists is that there's a lot of bugs to fix. As far as up2date, Fedora has it, but I don't use it. It also comes with yum, which is a lot easier to use (one command: yum update), or apt-get, ported from Debian for use with RPMs. I'm an old time Debian user, so this is real friendly for me.

2) Anyone can create a flavor of Linux and sell it (Mandrake does it too). Not exactly sure how much this applies to GPL, since it is customized. Consider it like PHP. A lot of people use PHP to create apps, then sell them. Same rules apply here.

greeno76

Ok, I'll have a go with Fedora 1. I think I'll do a laptop install first just to test it out When RH 9 expires I'll transfer my server over.

Can you install Fedora over RH9 as an upgrade without losing files and settings?

I was thinking about trying Debian, actually. I'll try it out on a spare computer, I think.

I think Linux is great but I generally feel a bit lost with most of it.

Thanks for your advice.

LordShryku

Yeah, you can upgrade directly from RH9 to Fedora. Most geeks have a problem with Red Hat like they have a problem with Microsoft. They think it's just not a geek's Linux. I've been using Linux for a long time now, and I think Fedora/Red Hat is one of the better Linux's for a beginner. It's not too much trouble to install, it gives you a all of the command line options that any other Linux would, it comes with some decent tools to configure things, and is all-around stable. I actually have a Red Hat 7.2 box here that hasn't been rebooted in almost 2 years.

Anyway, good luck with it, just post back if you have trouble 🙂

frymaster

er... since when is fedora "basically the same thing" as rh9? fedora is a development distro used to suss out the bleeding edge techs. rh9 was a stable distro that leaned towards newer releases.

if you are a hobbiest or are the type of person who was willing to use rawhide rpms on their production servers, then fedora is fine. if you want a desktop os, fedora is great. if you have a server that runs anything reotely important or if you are responsible to anyone else for their data or services.... well, look for something else.

my company spent three months choosing a distro to replace rh9 when the end of life was announced. ultimately we chose rhel es for the public servers and suse for the private servers and desktops.

fedora failed the first round of tests.

LordShryku

Yes, yes, linux won't do everything for you. EL does come with support contracts. Though, if you ever decide to upgrade to a version of software that's not on their list(they do not, nor have they ever supported latest stable Apache/PHP), you can wipe yourself with that contract. And if you're like me(and many other admins), you like to keep latest stable in. But hey, just my two cents..

greeno76

Ok Fedora Core I installed on a laptop.

My requirements of the system are pretty low, admittedly, but it seems to be running ok.
Couple of questions from a linux ignoramus:

Any idea how I get a wireless PCIMA card working (in graphical mode, of course!)

Is YUM part of up2date or does it need to be run independantly. If so how?

I'm still keen to try other linux distributions. Will almost certainly start with debian. I'm just waiting for work to cough up a new laptop!

Cheers.

Jason

LordShryku

Yum is seperate. Just open up a terminal session, su to root, type "yum update", and it'll kick.

The PCMCIA card has always been pretty hard. REally depends what type of card you're using. Some are already supported, and can be set in the Network Configuration (look under Settings off the main menu in X). I happen to use a Linksys Wireless G card, which has a broadcom chipset. This wasn't supported, so I had to use ndiswrapper to set it up.

greeno76

It seems like everything I try to do in Fedora is a F&*@%£g can of worms..:mad:

I've finally managed to get flash working on Mozilla after scouring the net for a solution.

The wireless set up seemed straight forward on paper but immediately ground to a halt when I tried to "make install" on NDisWrapper and got "make[1]: cc: Command not found". Is this because of something I haven't installed like the kernal source code?

Other problems include Xmms mp3 support ("pkg Xmms not found" ??), Chillsoft, Xine, Totem....

Generally, I'm surprised at how different Fedora is to RH9. I'm not finding it very accessible at all.

I think I'm lacking in a fundamental understanding of the linux system... v. frustrating. I'll persevere...