Any Fedora 8 users? (also: your journey through Linux distros)

I saw that Fedora 8 was just released, and the feature list looks interesting. It has been a long time since I've used a Red Hat/Fedora distro (I used Red Hat 8 and 9, and the first couple of Fedora Core releases). I've been so happy with both Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server that I haven't really kept up with other distros (the polar opposite of my previous approach of habitual distro jumping).

Anyone using Fedora 8? I'd like to hear your opinion on it if you are.

Also, my more general secondary question to the other Linux users, what has your distro history been? Played with any obscure distros?

I can't remember everything I used, but I recall using Red Hat 6.1 and Slackware 4.0 back in 1999. I bounced between them for a while. I would try SuSE every major release a few times, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0... always impressed with a nice default install, only to later tear my hair out over package management that was uncooperative. Also tried Mandrake, which installed every package on earth by default.

I used Debian a bit, but quickly abandoned it due to ancient package repositories. Before Ubuntu, I tried a number of Debian-based distros with more up-to-date offerings and tweaks - I remember Libranet, which isn't around anymore, and MEPIS, which is.

But before Ubuntu, the distro I ended up using for a long time was Gentoo. It wasn't really the geek pride of building everything from source (which was handy at times, though!) or the tiny performance benefit of doing so. Instead, it was the ease of installing "non-free" packages, which weren't banished from the main repository (I imagine the fact that they weren't pre-built binaries had something to do with that). Other than long, long, looooong build times, and a ridiculously involved install process back in the 1.4 beta 2 days, Gentoo was nice.

Then, finally, Ubuntu. The initial release, 4.10, got me to try it and keep an eye on it, but not yet divorce from Gentoo. Then with 5.04 and 5.10, it became permanent. The advent of Server Edition meant I could finally lose Gentoo from my server too (Portage made for easy package management over ssh, and Gentoo's lean default install made a simple "server" build easy).

I started out using RH4 then upgrading to RH5 and RH6 when they came along. I then switched to FC3 and FC4 and have been on FC4 since it came out. I use it on a file server (at one point I ran a second server for HTTPD) so don't really touch it much but is there when I need to play around.

I'm dicking around with ubuntu right now trying to figure out how to setup an encrypted vpn between a store in orlando and one here in miami. Being so bad/new at linux it's taking a lot of time.

I believe I started with Mandrake due to its reputation for being "easy" (which it was.) I used SuSe for awhile, but the enormous kitchen sink installs turned me off from that. I've been using nothing but Kubuntu for the past 2-3 years. Aside from missing SuSe's "boot to windows" option, Kubuntu does everything I need very well. The trouble installing non-free stuff has gone away as well.

Edwin wrote:

I'm dicking around with ubuntu right now trying to figure out how to setup an encrypted vpn between a store in orlando and one here in miami. Being so bad/new at linux it's taking a lot of time.

I just set up an OpenVPN server on my DD-WRT powered router, it's not too tough, at least if you're following a guide that explains what the billion options are.

My situation is a little more complicated and my googlefu didn't find a guide for what I want to do.

I've been mixing around alot with Suse and Ubuntu. Suse has some interesting features since Novell took the reigns. Ubuntu seems to be the most user friendly though for those not familiarized with the linux scene.

Edwin, if you're doing a network to network bridge, you may prefer the kernel's IPSEC implementation. This was actually easier in 2.4... They kinda broke Linux VPN in 2.6 with some rather braindead changes, but I believe it's still okay for net-to-net bridges.

OpenVPN can also do this, and the program itself is very easy, but generating the key infrastructure with OpenSSL is ridiculously difficult. I have copies of good scripts that can make that much easier, if you need them.

I learned Linux on Redhat distros. I find myself abandoning the RedHat lines for CentOS. Pretty much the same thing, but without the annoying RedHat Network.

Debian and Gentoo were too much work every time I tried them.

SUSE did a very good job of making themselves annoying for installation and updating over time.

I keep trying Ubuntu, but haven't been able to commit to it long term.

I'd worked on machines I didn't own with a few different distros, but I was never willing to take the plunge until I had a spare old Dell and an Ubuntu (Dapper) CD image. I think my favorite part of it is that, because of the whole goal of competing with Windows, it doesn't make me fuss around as much with details. Details are fun when I have time, but they're a real pain when time is a factor.

I started on Red Hat in the RH5 days, worked for them through the release of 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1, got pretty fed up with them around the 7.3 timeframe when they decided to screw all their little-guy customers and ditch their brand. I abandoned them for Gentoo around the Gentoo 1.4 timeframe. I've been using Gentoo ever since, and occasionally show my face on the Security team.

I haven't used Ubuntu much, but it strikes me as very good unless something breaks - and then it's Debian. I've worked on CentOS 4 and 5 machines, RHEL 4 and 5, SuSE 9.x, and Slackware. I've also worked on FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

Edwin wrote:

My situation is a little more complicated and my googlefu didn't find a guide for what I want to do.

Start a thread on it - someone might be able to help. I've done both types of OpenVPN with and without SSL infrastructure, so that someone might be me.

While I had messed around a bit with other versions of unix, I finally began to really learn on RH6 or 7 (this only occurred because a reinstall was needed, and the windows 98SE disc we had decided it wasn't going to all an install for a few days, so we said screw and installed linux ... oddly enough the disc worked fine when my Asheron's Call addiction inspired me to try it again a couple of months later). I tinkered around with most of the better known distros, but stuck with red hat ultimately for quite awhile. Somewhere along the way I tinkered a bit with Mandrake and decided that was my new distro of choice. I switched to Fedora Core (maybe 2?) at work when a coworker managed to fudge up my machine and I needed a reinstall anyway. My white-box workstations at work still have some versions of Fedora on them (I think one with 5 and one with 6), but my laptop has been installed with ubuntu for a good while now. The main reason I switched was the relative ease with which I was able to get all of my wireless cards working ... I've hated dealing with linux and wireless for some time now. I still deal with most of the other major distros from time to time at work. For personal use I'm happiest with Ubuntu at the moment.

absurddoctor wrote:

The main reason I switched was the relative ease with which I was able to get all of my wireless cards working ... I've hated dealing with linux and wireless for some time now. I still deal with most of the other major distros from time to time at work. For personal use I'm happiest with Ubuntu at the moment.

The need for "non-free" drivers and firmware (or worse, a wrapper around a Windows driver ) makes wireless a pain depending on the card involved. Thankfully, distros like Ubuntu have become so liberal with the availability of "non-free" software that there's practically a "Click to get the Non-Free Good Stuff" button now (or, at least, a checkbox), and now even a pop-up when it detects hardware that needs non-free firmware.

Also, my more general secondary question to the other Linux users, what has your distro history been? Played with any obscure distros?

I'm not sure, anymore, whether I started on MCC Interim in '92, or SLS. I think maybe I tried MCC and I couldn't get it going, but got SLS running after some pain. I vaguely think this was early in '93, but I'm not sure.

However, at that point, I knew absolutely no Unix; I'd managed to get the system up and running, which was a Herculean feat for someone coming from DOS, but I didn't know what I could do with it. It was impossibly primitive. I ended up wiping Linux and reinstalling Windows... did that several times over the years. One time I managed to get X Windows running, after blowing up one monitor. (manually building X modelines really, really sucks.) When I got SLiRP going on my command-prompt-only Internet host, I saw the Web for the first time. The first site I read was Travels with Samantha, which kept me up all night, glued to my screen. I couldn't believe how neat it was to have the pictures and text all together like that, in a story. Very cool. But I didn't see the commercial uses of the Web. I totally missed all that; I was looking at the biggest opportunity in my entire life and I just ... didn't see it.

Other distros I tried: Yggdrasil (I still have one of their CDs, somewhere), Slackware, and then the very lovely Redhat 4.2. I actually put RH 4.2 into production use for the first time. I really loved kernel 2.2. I'd trust that kernel with my life.

The later Linuxes have never been as good, and the steady slide into mediocrity has continued. They just add too much sh*t, too fast, and never let it shake out.

I used Mandrake as my work desktop for a couple of years, and was perfectly happy there, and have been running only Debian servers for many years now. If you run Testing or Unstable, you can get fairly- to very recent packages, and the upgrade process is smoother on Debian than on any other distro I've tried. dpkg is much better than RPM, IMO.

I've tinkered with Ubuntu, but I'm good enough with Linux that I prefer Debian as a server, and I'm not presently running Linux on any desktops. I just run Cygwin/X for when I need something Unixy, and run it remotely from a server.

Malor wrote:

I've tinkered with Ubuntu, but I'm good enough with Linux that I prefer Debian as a server, and I'm not presently running Linux on any desktops. I just run Cygwin/X for when I need something Unixy, and run it remotely from a server.

There's very little difference between Ubuntu Server Edition and a Debian server (most of the packages are Debian packages anyway, and the ones that aren't are usually tweaked Debian packages). The main difference is that Ubuntu has Canonical providing commercial support.

I have used Linux for nearly three years now and have come to one conclusion: there are very few good ones available. Ubuntu is too unstable, losing my wifi detection, and Fedora, just plain sucky! They have, as of yet, not caught up with the world of technology. The only one I can seem to use is Mandriva. I tried to download and install a movie player for Fedora for over an hour, and still could not get it to work. It took 15 minutes in Mandriva. I had Compiz Fusion in Ubuntu 7.0; but it couldn't handle my card. Mandriva has no problem. I have permission problems in Fedora with which I have no where else. My time zone change would not work in Fedora without a root password; yet it would not accept the one I had. I changed it, and now I cannot log into the os. What a bunch of sh*t! Fedora needs to get out of RedHat and wake up to what is it supposed to do--BE USER FRIENDLY!!!!! It will never happen. Fedora is to used of the "titty" of RedHat and the uselessness of it non-technical contributors! It will never measure up to any REAL Linux distros, and not much better than Microshaft. Fedora really does suck! Fedora is gone!

I'm using Mandriva 2008. They got the bugs worked out, and have gotten rid of the Club. You can pay for the Powerpack, but aren't hobbled to get the rest of the distro anymore....

It's strange to come back to Mandriva after dropping it after the Mandrake 10 series for being too buggy to keep. Now, it's smooth like butter.

Ubuntu isn't even close, and Kubuntu is a joke.