Fedora20 or Ubuntu LTS (14.04)

croo

Well the harddisk on my new Thinkpad W540 failed over the weekend. This is a replacement system for my W520 that was deemed to be beyond repair. I have it 3 months and the HD failed... Thinkpads are just not what they used to be

Anyway, that's not the real issue ... I have a new disk and I was about to install ubuntu LTS as per usual but I'm working with a Centos servers currently so I'm considering that I might install Fedora20 instead. I noted that someone here mentioned that IBM use Fedora on their Thinkpads (internally) so thought it might be a better match and would save my brain having to switch between the different filesystems & configuration with Centos/RH & Ubuntu (Debian).

Also I tried the Fedora 20 live usb and it seemed to manage the nvidia optimus & with multiple monitors "out of the box" so to speak... which would be a nice change.

But I've been using ubuntu's LTS versions for about 4+ years now and it's been very stable for me... am I correct in thinking there is no equivalent for Fedora? How long is RH's release cycle and how long do they support older versions after a new release? Is migration easy? Relatively speaking, even ubuntu's user friendly migrations were problematic after some time but does Fedora offer a stable enough environment for a real work/development system? Who has been using it? Do you recommend? Is anyone using it with a thinkpad w540 specifically?

Any info appreciated...

micko45

I have asked my self the same question, I work with RHEL all the time and have Linux Mint on my laptop. Obviously something based on RHEL would be better for me. So when each version of Fedora comes out i try it for a while, but its just too cutting (bleeding) edge and unreliable as a work laptop for me. You will really notice when going from LTS.

So i stuck with Mint and use KVM for some test images.

My 2c is to stick with LTS or install Centos 6 (or if you can wait 7). I know some guys that work for RH and have RHEL6 on their laptops and use it all the time. Seem to have no issues with it.

Rgds
MMG

syklops

croo wrote: »

Well the harddisk on my new Thinkpad W540 failed over the weekend. This is a replacement system for my W520 that was deemed to be beyond repair. I have it 3 months and the HD failed... Thinkpads are just not what they used to be

Anyway, that's not the real issue ... I have a new disk and I was about to install ubuntu LTS as per usual but I'm working with a Centos servers currently so I'm considering that I might install Fedora20 instead. I noted that someone here mentioned that IBM use Fedora on their Thinkpads (internally) so thought it might be a better match and would save my brain having to switch between the different filesystems & configuration with Centos/RH & Ubuntu (Debian).

Also I tried the Fedora 20 live usb and it seemed to manage the nvidia optimus & with multiple monitors "out of the box" so to speak... which would be a nice change.

But I've been using ubuntu's LTS versions for about 4+ years now and it's been very stable for me... am I correct in thinking there is no equivalent for Fedora? How long is RH's release cycle and how long do they support older versions after a new release? Is migration easy? Relatively speaking, even ubuntu's user friendly migrations were problematic after some time but does Fedora offer a stable enough environment for a real work/development system? Who has been using it? Do you recommend? Is anyone using it with a thinkpad w540 specifically?

Any info appreciated...

I think that was me and I said Red Hat use thinkpads internally so Fedora has (usually) good support for drivers etc. and Issues get found relatively quickly.

Why don't you run Cent OS if you don't want the bleeding egde-ness of Fedora?

I am typing this from Fedora 20 which is my work machine. My only problem is the stupid NetworkManager that comes with KDE now(but thats a KDE issue). Otherwise it is very stable and I've had no issues.

hooplah

I'm using Fedora 20 and enjoy it. No real problems or issues [I have an nvidia optimus video card which is problematic for all Linux variants].

I have occasionally thought about moving to Ubuntu, one thing that would tempt me is the amount of software available through PPAs but to be honest it's not a big enough temptation to switch.

One plus for Fedora is the range of similar OSs - RedHat, CentOS etc. if you're using CentOS in work I'd say that its a big enough reason to go with Fedora. It's nice to know the commands and locations for various things without having to look them up.

We may start using an Ubuntu server soon on the job and if we do I'll probably switch to get the hang of it a bit

croo

Thanks for all the input guys.

> Why don't you run Cent OS
Well, once upon a time I did (and RH before that) but I found I spent a lot of time on things ... like setting up projectors or multiple monitors.

Sometime in the mid 00s I decided to have a look at this Ubuntu everyone was taking about and when I did everything on the laptop just worked .. so next I installed it on my main workstation and it recognized the multiple monitors without having to manually create the xorg.conf file which I'd always had to do before... so I switched.

Now, as hooplah points out, with nvidia optimus getting multiple monitors working can again be problematic. Shouldn't have bought an optimus laptop you say - yeah, but this was a warranty replacement so I had little choice.
Anyway, if I thought that centos would install and just work for me with little effort (as ubuntu has these last years) I would go that route again.

I am also one of those rare creatures that actually likes gnome 3 ... I know, shock horror
So that was another reason for considering Fedora - though after micko45's comments on Monday I decided to just stick to LTS so installed the Ubuntu Gnome 14.04.

I might create some small partitions and install centos & fedora to see how the work with the thinkpad & ultradock. But I was unsure what the typical fedora life cycle is... and if you must upgrade to newer versions and how reliable that process was. I don't want to be setting up every 6 months! From what I read, the cycle is 6 months, any given version is supported for 13 months but there are migration tools - how reliable they work I don't know.

thanks again for the input.