OT: Running Linux with filePro

[D. Thomas Podnar]

Having read the prior email, I'd like to make a comment about Linux in general and Fedora in particular.

Fedora is NOT really an operating system. It is a collection of the latest and greatest, most bleeding edge Linux development technologies wrapped up for testing to look like an operating system.

BAD parts of Fedora are discovered during testing and fixed or discarded.

GOOD parts (and fixed parts) of Fedora are moved into the development tree that becomes Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Fedora changes so often, with so little regard for backwards compatibility, that it is difficult and very expensive to try to support it as a platform for commercial software. We stopped trying a long time ago.

Those who like the Linux base under Fedora should strongly consider using Red Hat Enterprise Linux if they are looking for vendor support, and CentOS Linux if they want the same product, but with community support, i.e. free unless you feel like sending something to the maintainers.

These present a MUCH more stable operating environment. Of all the Linux products, my personal feeling is that they are the easiest to adapt to from UNIX.

SuSE, openSuSE, ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva etc. are nice and pretty stable also. ubuntu tends to be released often enough that it supports new device drivers the quickest, which means that it is usually first to run on new notebooks with wierd NIC or video needs, but RHEL / CentOS tend to work very well and are easy to maintain in the server world.

FWIW, based on long Linux experience.

Tom Podnar
Microlite