Fedora Coverstory in Linux Format

[Chong Yu Meng]

Actually, I find all discussions concerning the relative merits of each
distro a bit misleading. I have not yet installed a Linux distribution
that did not require a lot of tweaking, and I've tried a lot of them --
Slackware, TurboLinux, SpectraLinux, Suse and Caldera (before it went
over to the Dark Side). Not one worked the way I wanted it to, on first
boot, after installation. I remember way back in 1996, when I tried
Slackware for the first time, and it took me 3 months to get it setup
just the way I wanted it. Of course, now it takes me a much shorter time
to get Linux to a "productive" state, but there is still a ton of
tweaking -- that hasn't changed. You only have to look at Stanton
Finley's guide to installing Fedora to see that this is not restricted
to my experience.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. I got my start in UNIX on Solaris,
and the one thing that I miss in Solaris is the incredible flexibility
of Linux. Certainly, Solaris can be tweaked -- as can that Other OS from
Redmond -- but not to the extent that Linux can. This makes Linux suffer
in terms of usability -- if you were just getting started in Linux (any
distro, it does not matter), it can be daunting to get everything setup
just right, and there will be niggling problems. All distros have their
own peculiar little problems and quirks -- I'd be surprised, and
suspicious, if Ubuntu did not have any. The good thing about Linux is
that, when problems come up, the community will come up with ways to
either solve the problem or work around it. What some reviewers see as
complexity and usability issues, I see as opportunity and flexibility. 

To say that one distribution is better than another is, I think,
misleading to new users because it raises false expectations -- better
to tell them that they need to be willing to put in their share of
effort and be prepared to do more than just click the "Next" button.
This way, they won't be disappointed and start to say that something
"sucks". 

Anyway, just my 2 cents...

Regards,
pascal