Using the default Gnome desktop, Fedora 9 generally felt solid and polished. Previous versions of Fedora have generally been hit or miss in this respect, so it's good to find a Fedora release that actually feels like a stable one,
says Techiemoe. DesktopLinux has a mini-interview about Fedora and some additional info too.
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Member since:2007-01-06
Member since:2005-11-05
Yes, I was waiting for someone to fall into that trap, as you've obligingly done. A better comparison would be to something like Debian Testing vs Unstable. Or, launch with stuff that is is slightly less bleeding edge, then release upgrades when the betas or RCs go gold and when third-party support has caught up. I do realize that the latest and greatest is one of the points of Fedora, but I'm looking at this from the angle of usability. It seems to be that there is now so much competition in the Linux world that poor usability will increasingly run the risk of being punished by the market. An example would be Firefox 3, also used by Ubuntu. Yes, nice to have, but if your favourite extensions haven't yet been issued for v3, perhaps not so nice to have.
The irony is that while Linux as a whole is becoming more and more complete and polished, the race between distros to stand out means that some are, in fact, becoming less polished and complete.
Member since:
2005-11-05
I tried Fedora 8 not long ago and really liked "the Red Hat way" so I'm sure I'll be trying Fedora 9 soon, too. As someone else suggested, though, I rather wish they'd offer a not-quite-bleeding-edge spin as well as the very latest beta stuff. From what I've read of the reviews, usability does take a hit (until some upstream or third-party packages have caught up, and for some of us the Livna/multimedia repo stuff too). One of the nice things about my current distro, Debian Testing, is that it works so well I don't even notice I'm using an OS any more.
A really good OS should be invisible, imho, and if it isn't then a rough edge is sticking out somewhere. On Linux, the rough edges tend to be beta stuff or poor user interfaces. On Windows, it's Microsoft telling you what you can or can't do 'cos, you know, we own you. The nice thing about the betaware is that it gets debugged soon enough. The other stuff needs a complete head transplant. I know which one I prefer.