Slightly OT: bad rap for Fedora, and realistic effects

[Temlakos]

Chris Mohler wrote:
> [snip]
>> Fedora has to
>> compete with a one-disk install of Windows XP, that can be installed
>> in an hour with no babysitting. Fedora installs require one to switch
>> disk three or four times.
>
> No way.  Win XP comes with NOTHING.  You can't even open ZIP file. FC
> includes thousands(?) of programs.  Not a fair comparison.
>
> Since FC5, I only download the first two discs and do a minimal
> install.  I then yum groupinstall Gnome, KDE, etc.  Actual time I need
> to be present is about an hour - do XP and say 100 applications and
> tell me how long it takes you.
>
> Chris
>
I'll second that. With Fedora, you can get a complete word-processing 
suite (though why they disabled the Replacement list in AutoCorrect for 
OpenOffice Writer, no one has ever explained), compilation and linking 
tools for nearly every programming language of any consequence, your 
choice of two database managers, and a complete set of network 
diagnostic tools.

Whereas with Windows XP (I can't vouch for Vista) you're limited to one 
each rich-text and plain-text editors, a very crude and non-robust 
firewall, /no/ development tools (and you're lucky to get a Java Runtime 
Environment), and a browser whose chief or only recommendation is that 
Microsoft has convinced a lot of Web sites to "optimize" their content 
for it.

Updating can be set to automatic, but it is like walking a tightrope 
stretched over a bed of swords (as you can see in the Joan Crawford 
motion picture /Berserk/) while wearing a blindfold. Once in fact, a 
Windows XP update broke every applications' ability to save new 
documents, or alter old ones. I had to /roll back/ some updates--by 
/trial and error/--to correct this fault.

At least with Fedora you can use a package manager that reads repository 
metadata and tells you what it wants to update, what that package does, 
and what it requires.

Now I'd certainly like to see some programs that can help me do certain 
things better than I can do them today. I tried for a week to set up a 
decent environment for creating and burning DVD-Video disks. No joy. And 
right now, an awful lot of sites, many of which are very popular, are 
offering multimedia content in proprietary formats. Until YouTube, for 
example, at least allows an Ogg Theora option, you still have to 
go--er--elsewhere to find reverse-engineered codecs that permit you to 
read more on the site than its text and still images.

Nevertheless, I do the bulk of my work on a Fedora machine, including 
writing and development. And if RH gets ready to implement a 13-month 
security-update support cycle for F7 and beyond, then it will definitely 
become the distro of choice for building a HIPAA-compliant server of 
laboratory and other medical data--which is my current project.

Temlakos