Fedora - The Blue Hat

Fedora  has its roots in Red Hat and it still part of it. What comes through Fedora will generally see itself in Red Hat Enterprise (business) edition. So its basically the testing ground for Red Hat but in saying that it is remarkably stable. Like Ubuntu, it has a 6 month upgrade path and unlike Ubuntu it doesn't have an LTS version as it doesn't fit into their model. What users do is upgrade once a year, or skip a version. Red Hat has stuck with Gnome as it default desktop although others are available. There has be a lot of talk on the internet about the (new) Gnome desktop with it being a "love it or hate it" type of desktop. Personally I think people have got the wrong end of the stick and asking the wrong questions. Gnome 3 works in a different way and people don't aways like change. Gnome 3 helps you work in a different way and I like it, the emphasis is more on getting things done than organising your desktop, Its a working environment rather than something you work on (like a desktop).
Fedora 17 is easy to install and runs smooth. Unlike previous versions, this one feels more light weight and nimble and I don't really notice the desktop which means its doing it job! All the apps I need are to hand. The only complaint I have about Fedora is their package management system or "yum" as its called. I don't know why but it always seems slow. it is improving, but compared to "apt" of Debian/Ubuntu, is crawls along. Overall Fedora is a system I am growing to like and with some other things that Fedora are looking to do in the future to become more business friendly, I will be sticking with this one, for a while at least. Personal rating 8.75.

Ubuntu or not Ubuntu? That is the question.

So I've returned to Linux, not that I'd been away really, but now a decision had to be made, which system, and Linux came out on top. It won on a number of issues, these being security, adaptability, and not being dictated to. Now comes the question of which flavour Linux? Back to the familiar, a choice of Ubuntu, because "it just works", Fedora because it has great backing, and debian because it is one of the most stable. I am looking for something that I can set up with a minimal fuss, works with the hardware I have, and can interconnect and work with the other stuff I have, phones, tablets, cameras, audio players, a NAS and a TV. The three above should be able to do this. The hardware I have is a Lenevo Thinkpad R61 laptop with Intel everything, which makes life a little easier as Intel has fairly good support in Linux.
I first tried Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I decided on the LTS version as I didn't want it fully cutting edge with updates all the time and a virtual reinstall every 6 months. Set up was easy except for the wireless card being slow and needed some adjustment to get it up to speed, thank you Ubuntu Forums for helping. The Unity desktop took a little getting used to. I liked the way the menus moved to the top bar in a mac-esque way when moused over, but not all apps obeyed. Everything else was the normal Ubuntu experience of being pleasant and fairly efficient. Personal rating 7.5 out 10.

Next up was Fedora 17.