fedora vs ubuntu

[Shalini Srivastav]

hi
i am learning java on WindowsXp but now i think it is not good habit.Software firms work on which one ? Which one should i install fedora or Ubuntu ?

[Vishal Baid]

f you're already a UNIX guy (Solaris, Irix, AIX, HP-UX), you work in a datacenter or you have aspirations of being in that world, you'll probably be more interested in Fedora or CentOS as the behavior of those distros are more like the UNIXes previously mentioned. If you prefer the sexy and polished look of MacOS, for example, or you want to use Linux without having to be as immersed in all the more technical aspects, you'll probably enjoy Ubuntu a whole lot more.

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Shalini Srivastav wrote:hi
i am learning java on WindowsXp but now i think it is not good habit.Software firms work on which one ? Which one should i install fedora or Ubuntu ?

No offenses meant, but I strongly disagree with statements made and questions asked here.

Firstly, Java is a platform independent language. So, it really doesn't matter whether you learn it on Windows XP or some other OS. I'm not sure why do you think 'it is not a good habit'.

Secondly, about software firms - it totally depends. Development platform and production platform are different most of the times. Fortunately, for Java, it really doesn't matter. You can find countless people who work 'on' Windows, but write code 'for' Linux/UNIX. However, there can be some cases when a developer has to write code on target OS only, but practically, there's no such 'industry standard'. There are organizations which totally work on Windows, or Linux, or Mac OS.

Lastly, why do you want to install Linux? I mean, I'm not saying that you shouldn't install it - but every distro has its own purpose. Some are made for high security, some for stability and server capabilities, some are for movies and graphics, and so on. Again, from Java perspective, any Linux distro is fine. You'll need GUI only when you need to install IDE.

You can of course go through countless reviews which tell you how one distro is better than others, and then you get even more confused. Or else, you can specify your expectations out of a distro and find if any distro is doing exactly (or close to) what do you want.

I hope this helps.

[Shalini Srivastav]

OK if i want learn some UNIX/Linux stuff then i should use fedora or Ubuntu, because i think Ubuntu in Debian based while fedora is UNIX based ?

[Peter Johnson]

No, Fedora is not "UNIX based". Debian and Fedora are different Linux distributions. To see the whole distribution hierarchy, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions, or google linux distros

Which one you use to learn Linux doesn't matter all that much, they all have many things in common. Yet they are each different enough to make it frustrating when going from one to another just to find out that they don't work the same (examples: differences in package managers which makes a difference on how software is installed, whether to use sudo or su to root) and I won't even get into the differences in UI (Gnome vs. KDE vs Unity vs Cinnamon vs ...).

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Shalini Srivastav wrote:OK if i want learn some UNIX/Linux stuff then i should use fedora or Ubuntu, because i think Ubuntu in Debian based while fedora is UNIX based ?

Again, as I've previously mentioned, please get your requirements clear. What exactly do yo mean by UNIX/Linux stuff (btw, UNIX and Linux are different things).

Yes, Ubuntu as a distro is based on Debian. It simply means that some of the basic utilities and their behavior were borrowed by Ubuntu from Debian.

However, I won't say that Fedora is UNIX based. First of all, Fedora is a Linux distro. It is NOT UNIX. And so is Debian. You can get a detailed wiki page on how distros are derived from other distros. e.g. OpenSUSE is Fedora based, whereas Ubuntu and Mint are Debian based, and ArchLinux is Gentoo based, and so on.

But, unless you are clear about what exact 'stuff' you want to learn (I won't treat Java as 'UNIX/Linux stuff'), its difficult to choose a particular distro.

However, if you are interested in Java, then, as previously suggested, pick any distro and get going. If you don't like it, you can always change it later on.

I hope this helps.

[Shalini Srivastav]

Anayonkar Shivalkar wrote:

Shalini Srivastav wrote:OK if i want learn some UNIX/Linux stuff then i should use fedora or Ubuntu, because i think Ubuntu in Debian based while fedora is UNIX based ?

Again, as I've previously mentioned, please get your requirements clear. What exactly do yo mean by UNIX/Linux stuff (btw, UNIX and Linux are different things).

Yes, Ubuntu as a distro is based on Debian. It simply means that some of the basic utilities and their behavior were borrowed by Ubuntu from Debian.

However, I won't say that Fedora is UNIX based. First of all, Fedora is a Linux distro. It is NOT UNIX. And so is Debian. You can get a detailed wiki page on how distros are derived from other distros. e.g. OpenSUSE is Fedora based, whereas Ubuntu and Mint are Debian based, and ArchLinux is Gentoo based, and so on.

But, unless you are clear about what exact 'stuff' you want to learn (I won't treat Java as 'UNIX/Linux stuff'), its difficult to choose a particular distro.

However, if you are interested in Java, then, as previously suggested, pick any distro and get going. If you don't like it, you can always change it later on.

I hope this helps.

HELLO.... can i get Solaris for personal use on my lappy??

[Jaikiran Pai]

Shalini Srivastav wrote:HELLO.... can i get Solaris for personal use on my lappy??

You are just ignoring what others have been telling you. Why do you want Solaris?

[Vishal Baid]

Shalini Srivastav wrote:

Anayonkar Shivalkar wrote:

Shalini Srivastav wrote:OK if i want learn some UNIX/Linux stuff then i should use fedora or Ubuntu, because i think Ubuntu in Debian based while fedora is UNIX based ?

Again, as I've previously mentioned, please get your requirements clear. What exactly do yo mean by UNIX/Linux stuff (btw, UNIX and Linux are different things).

Yes, Ubuntu as a distro is based on Debian. It simply means that some of the basic utilities and their behavior were borrowed by Ubuntu from Debian.

However, I won't say that Fedora is UNIX based. First of all, Fedora is a Linux distro. It is NOT UNIX. And so is Debian. You can get a detailed wiki page on how distros are derived from other distros. e.g. OpenSUSE is Fedora based, whereas Ubuntu and Mint are Debian based, and ArchLinux is Gentoo based, and so on.

But, unless you are clear about what exact 'stuff' you want to learn (I won't treat Java as 'UNIX/Linux stuff'), its difficult to choose a particular distro.

However, if you are interested in Java, then, as previously suggested, pick any distro and get going. If you don't like it, you can always change it later on.

I hope this helps.

HELLO.... can i get Solaris for personal use on my lappy??

Shalini Srivastav Use Any OS. It will not harm you. But if you want to learn about OS also and enjoy working then use LINUX distros while working with java.

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Shalini Srivastav wrote: HELLO.... can i get Solaris for personal use on my lappy??

Again(and again), what exactly do you want to learn? Yes, you can get Solaris for personal use. But Solaris is a UNIX derivative - i.e. it's NOT free (rather it is quite expensive - because Solaris is used for heavy-duty server).

There is a free version of it - OpenSolaris. However, please note that you'll need to have slightly more learning curve while using any UNIX flavor.

If this is your first time with Linux or UNIX, I would (again) suggest to install a more user friendly distro like Ubuntu. Also, please do not judge any Linux distro simply by its GUI - because in any Linux distro, desktop environment is a separate component, and can be changed anytime - or even more than one desktop environments can be installed.
I'm suggesting Ubuntu simply for its community support. You almost always get an answer for your doubt there.

So, again, please stop worrying about pros-cons and pick any of those user friendly distros - Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu and start doing the stuff.

If you want to be extra safe, then you can even do this within a virtual env - e.g. by installing VirtualBox etc.

I (really) hope that this will be helpful.

[Tim Holloway]

Technically, Solaris is not a "Unix derivative", it is a full-blown Unix in its own right, based originally on BSD Unix, as I recall. Linux, on the other hand, is considered a Unix derivative.

For the most part, the difference between Solaris and Linux is no greater than the difference between Fedora and Ubuntu. They're all built on the Unix architecture, the main differences being in where some of the administrative files are located. Solaris has some significant load-balancing abilities (which were totally ignored in the last big Solaris shop I worked in, since they didn't want to pay for more highly-skilled sysadmins when they could buy cheap hardware, instead). It also has a very nice semi-virtualization system ("zones"), the ZFS filesystem, and (as of Solaris 10) an intelligent daemon control system. But there are Linux equivalents to most of these.

Whether Solaris is "free" or not depends on the changing whims of Oracle. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. OpenSolaris was spun off in large part to ensure that there would be a Solaris that wasn't hostage to whether or not the bean-counters thought they could milk the platform that quarter.

A bigger issue is that unlike Linux, Solaris did not historically run on generic equipment, since it was part of the Sun hardware universe. So it's usually easier to get a Linux working on random hardware (especially laptops) than it is to get Solaris to do so.

[Shalini Srivastav]

Tim Holloway wrote:Technically, Solaris is not a "Unix derivative", it is a full-blown Unix in its own right, based originally on BSD Unix, as I recall. Linux, on the other hand, is considered a Unix derivative.

For the most part, the difference between Solaris and Linux is no greater than the difference between Fedora and Ubuntu. They're all built on the Unix architecture, the main differences being in where some of the administrative files are located. Solaris has some significant load-balancing abilities (which were totally ignored in the last big Solaris shop I worked in, since they didn't want to pay for more highly-skilled sysadmins when they could buy cheap hardware, instead). It also has a very nice semi-virtualization system ("zones"), the ZFS filesystem, and (as of Solaris 10) an intelligent daemon control system. But there are Linux equivalents to most of these.

Whether Solaris is "free" or not depends on the changing whims of Oracle. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. OpenSolaris was spun off in large part to ensure that there would be a Solaris that wasn't hostage to whether or not the bean-counters thought they could milk the platform that quarter.

A bigger issue is that unlike Linux, Solaris did not historically run on generic equipment, since it was part of the Sun hardware universe. So it's usually easier to get a Linux working on random hardware (especially laptops) than it is to get Solaris to do so.

thank you

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Tim Holloway wrote:Technically, Solaris is not a "Unix derivative", it is a full-blown Unix in its own right, based originally on BSD Unix, as I recall. Linux, on the other hand, is considered a Unix derivative.

For the most part, the difference between Solaris and Linux is no greater than the difference between Fedora and Ubuntu. They're all built on the Unix architecture, the main differences being in where some of the administrative files are located. Solaris has some significant load-balancing abilities (which were totally ignored in the last big Solaris shop I worked in, since they didn't want to pay for more highly-skilled sysadmins when they could buy cheap hardware, instead). It also has a very nice semi-virtualization system ("zones"), the ZFS filesystem, and (as of Solaris 10) an intelligent daemon control system. But there are Linux equivalents to most of these.

Whether Solaris is "free" or not depends on the changing whims of Oracle. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. OpenSolaris was spun off in large part to ensure that there would be a Solaris that wasn't hostage to whether or not the bean-counters thought they could milk the platform that quarter.

A bigger issue is that unlike Linux, Solaris did not historically run on generic equipment, since it was part of the Sun hardware universe. So it's usually easier to get a Linux working on random hardware (especially laptops) than it is to get Solaris to do so.

I don't remember the source, but I read that once Solaris was considered as one of the most stable OS - with legendary ZFS and unparalleled load balancing capabilities.

Fortunately, OpenSolaris is still maintained, but I'm not sure how frequently new development is taking place there. I hope it won't follow the path of OpenOffice(no offenses, but I prefer LibreOffice these days).

[Tim Holloway]

Red Hat has been working on industrial-grade load balancing for Linux. As I said earlier, my former employers preferred to simply throw cheap hardware at problems, but I also recall having to deal with a whole rack full of servers going offline because they added one server too many and tripped the circuit breakers.

Linux has always had a reputation for stability itself. My only real issues there were when I over-committed on Virtual Memory and the system would thrash. Then again, even Windows got to be decently stable once XP came out. Of course if it's stability you want, BSD Unix claims to hold the crown.

Solaris carries two worrisome characteristics. Firstly, both the commercial and open-source versions are at the mercy of Oracle, and they have a history of changing rules and priorities. Secondly, since while Solaris is admirable, it doesn't have any uniquely compelling features. ZFS and dtrace were developed for - and supplied with - Solaris, but they have been ported to Apple and Linux OSes.

Still, if you're looking to acquire skills that will qualify you in a big shop where conservative is the watch-word, Solaris know-how is a useful thing to have.

[Pat Farrell]

Shalini Srivastav wrote:OK if i want learn some UNIX/Linux stuff then i should use fedora or Ubuntu, because i think Ubuntu in Debian based while fedora is UNIX based ?

As others have said your basic premise on "unix based" is incorrect.

As to your basic question, I don't understand why you would prefer Ubuntu over pure Debian. Just run Debian. Its a great distribution.

Personally, I can no longer stand Ubuntu. I hate Unity. I ran Ubuntu for many years as my daily use system, but no more. If you want a distro that changes more
rapidly than Debian, I'd suggest LinuxMint. Its a lot like Ubuntu, without the evil Unity interface.

[Pat Farrell]

I have a standard response to the question of which linux? or which distro:

Pick one that your buddy uses. This is so you can buy him/her a beer as payment for tech support when you get lost.

As a rookie starting out, it makes zero difference which you use. After you have a year or two of experience, you can make an informed choice, and there are real differences.

[Shalini Srivastav]

HELLO.... i am going with Linux Mint 13 "Maya" - Cinnamon (32-bit).I found it looks cool and has less headache as it comes with pre installed codec and applications.Thanks Pat

[Anayonkar Shivalkar]

Shalini Srivastav wrote:HELLO.... i am going with Linux Mint 13 "Maya" - Cinnamon (32-bit).I found it looks cool and has less headache as it comes with pre installed codec and applications.Thanks Pat

Please, do not judge a Linux distro by its looks - because you can always change it by changing desktop environment.

But yes, Mint Maya is pretty stable, lightweight and easy to use. I would highly recommend it as it is a LTS(Long Time Support) distro - i.e. it is supported till mid-2017.

[Tim Holloway]

Beauty is only skin deep. Unfortunately, there's been a double-whammy on the Linux desktop recently, between what was done to Unity and what has been done to the Gnome Desktop. I usually use what's off the rack myself, but Gnome 3 ripped out so many essential everyday functions that I'm using Cinnamon now. What use is a pretty desktop when it doesn't do anything useful?

Fortunately, there must be a dozen or more Desktop Manager systems available under the X Window system for Linux. And most of them work regardless of which distro you use.

Desktops are mostly superficial, but there are 4 primary Linux architectures. They are:

1. Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS, also shaping Suse
2. Debian/Knoppix/Ubuntu
3. Slackware
4. Gentoo

Slackware and Gentoo are for people who like to get down and dirty, and I wouldn't generally recommend them as starter architectures, although when I first got into Linux, Slackware was about the only distro out there. Red Hat and Debian and their derivatives are probably about equally popular, with Red Hat being more business-oriented and Debian being more home-user oriented. Discounting the business-support components, their most noteworthy differences are how they manage packages (RPM versus dpkg) and where they keep their network configuration information.

[Pat Farrell]

Don't forget that there are a whole suite of BSD Unix based distributions for modern x86 systems:
FreeBSD
OpenBSD
NetBSD
DragonflyBSD
PC-BSD
and many more.

[Michael Carrick]

If you are confused which OS to choose, make a shot on Fedora vs. Ubuntu, read that article and then go for the best one.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch

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