Ok, I’ve had it with Ubuntu. Well, for now at least. I would like to eventually switch back and forth to get the greatest exposure. But, for now, goodbye Ubuntu (11.04)! Hello, Fedora 15.
It all started with Java problems. I have a little time tracker tool that I use to track my billable time at work. It is pretty ugly, but for me, it is critical — I use it to bill my time. Tuesday, I started noticing the program crashing with X errors. To attempt a fix, I tried to upgrade my video driver (Intel) to the latest version. I tried several PPA repositories, but none of them seemed to work for me. Finally, I ended up at the EMGD site. I am still not sure if that driver was compatible with my laptop, but I was desparate and frustrated! Somehow I got part of the packages installed, and I didn’t get the main EMGD installed. I ran the “sudo emgd-xorg-conf” command, and that is where I lost it. My X wouldn’t start; dhclient wouldn’t even connect my eth0. That was the last straw.
Another issue probably lead up to this problem. A week prior, I had attempted to copy a Tape to CD by running an audio cable from my tape player to my microphone jack on my computer. I used Audacity to record. Unfortunately, I couldn’t record anything via the microphone jack. No matter what I tried, it only recorded from the built-in microphone. I tried again to upgrade Pulse Audio with another PPA, but that didn’t help.
So, here’s what I have learned from Fedora in the first few hours:
- I know now why I have stuck with Ubuntu for so long! Ubuntu is just so much easier to get up and running quickly. Command-line is avaliable, but not required.
- Broadcom Wireless: In Ubuntu 11.04, I just enabled the STA driver in “Additional Drivers”. I don’t think I have even had to connect the laptop to the wired connection to download it. In Fedora, I had to install two repositories (easily done from the browser). Then, I ran a yum command from the terminal to install the driver. Finally, I had to reboot. Fedora’s instructions were very easily to follow, but comparing the two, Ubuntu wins hands down.
- Libre Office: Where is it, Fedora? The first thing I do, is create a document and track all the changes I make to the installation so I can do it again on the next release. To my surprise, Fedora didn’t have Libre Office (or, any Document tool for that matter) installed by default. Furthermore, when I went to Add/Remove Software, there were tons of packages. I didn’t see a Meta package that would install a default set of packages. There was an Office package collection, but it said it was already installed. I ended up installing the package collection from the command line, and that did the trick.
- Is RPM/Yum Slow? I haven’t done any comparisons or anything like that, but for some reason, the packages seem to install much slower in Fedora than Ubuntu. It may just be because I am ready to get working on my new install, but even individual package installs seem to take a while.
- Gnome 3.0 versus Unity: it will take some time to form a good opinion. I am glad for the chance to compare.
Hopefully, you will hear from me more as I get to installing and configuring more. Stay tuned…