why I'm using Ubuntu instead of Fedora ATM

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Hi!

Thx Luis, I liked you mail. Some comments from my side:

On 03.01.2007 09:59, Luis Villa wrote:
 > [...]

> * support: whether or not it is reasonable/sustainable, Ubuntu's
> support policies for their non-LTS distros are more generous and more
> sane (i.e., all backports, no new features[1]) than Fedora's, which is
> a factor for someone like me who doesn't have much time to screw
> around with installations, re-installations, new releases that
> introduce new bugs, etc.

Agreed. We always point people to RHEL or CentOS and I think that 
becomes more and more a problem, especially now that Legacy is dead.

A Fedora LTS (two years? maybe the server parts ever three?) now and 
then (every second or third release?) from a new Fedora Legacy (needs a 
different name) would IMHO a nice solution.

> * QA: Ubuntu aggressively pushes people to use their development
> branch and report problems, which leads to better, more stable final
> releases. [...]

Agreed. The biggest problem we have in this regard IMHO is that we 
always communicate "you can't get to stable release from rawhide or a 
test release". That scares people aways from the devel branch and the 
test releases. We should provide a clean solution so people at least can 
get from test3 to stable.

> * release cycle: the predictability of Ubuntu's release cycle is nice.
> Not a huge deal, but nice, and reassures me that I've got reasonably
> fresh software all the time.

Strongly agreed.

>  [...]
> * reliable, timely access to GNOME development releases: this was
> probably the prime reason for my initial move to Ubuntu, since at the
> time I was trying to move away from building all of GNOME from CVS,
> but still wanted to use and test the development branch. I expect that
> this is a fairly minority issue. :)

Strongly agreed.

> * liveCD, single-CD: these were useful to me personally, and I get the
> sense that people at least talk about using this to demo things for
> other people. Whether or not they actually use it that way is
> irrelevant; they *feel* that this makes Ubuntu more potentially useful
> to them.

Single-CD would be nice, but what I'd like to see even more is a 
single-sided one-layer DVD (e.g. 4,x GB) that contains a x86-Live-CD and 
is able to install x86 oder x64 to hard disk using anaconda. That would 
be ideal for fairs and computer magazines to distribute as it contains 
all on one DVD what most people need (yes, I know, I'm leaving regions 
aside where DVDs are still uncommon).

 > [...]
> * community growth: this wasn't a factor for me, but Ubuntu has very
> aggressively and very publicly pursued non-engineering community
> involvement. Make people feel wanted and love, and they'll want to use
> your distro.

Strongly agreed. I more and more think we need a "Fedora Experimental 
Kitchen" project where stuff that's not yet covered by the Fedora 
Project can be developed while the users feel as being a part of the 
Fedora project -> this would help getting people involved and grow up.

Kmods, alternate kernels, Firefox2 for FC6, Respins, Live-CDs, new 
Distributions Spins (Fedora Audio, Fedora BrandNewIdea anyone?) could be 
suitable to be done under the hood of the "Fedora Experimental Kitchen".

 >[...]

> [1] New upstream releases/features in a stable release give the lie to
> any claim that the distro is 'stable', or alternately, admits that the
> distro has no substantial QA role. Some might argue that the distro
> has no substantial QA role, but I think most people have that
> expectation. (The testing channel that has been mentioned would go a
> long way towards resolving my concerns here, but until that is up and
> has active users, and hard rules about regressions, the bulk of my
> objections still apply.)

My 2 cent on this: There are a lot of people around that seem to like 
Fedora because you get a lot of new software even for a stable version. 
But yes, there are others that would like a more careful approach.

I'm wondering if we could provide solutions for both users: One update 
channel that only gets security updates and important bugfixes while the 
other is a bit more bold -- we for example could have firefox2 in the 
bold channel for FC6 while shipping the latest firefox 1.5.x in the more 
conservative channel.

 >[...]

CU
thl