The Holy Linux War : Fedora vs. Ubuntu

Since long there has been an ongoing war between fedora users and ubuntu user claiming their distro to be better than others. In this post I try to show various pros and cons of these two distributions.

• Free Spirit : Here by Free I mean freedom. If we talk in terms of making a distro comprising only of free software then guys no one can beat fedora community. Its distros are packed with free softwares only and they work great. I think here is a plus one for fedora.
  
  
• Stability : Ubuntu is a clear winner of stability. No doubt about it and even fedora user will agree to it. Ubuntu crashes are so rare that you will hardly remember about when it crashed last. On the other hand fedora crashes more often. While Ubuntu is throughly checked for bugs, there is a romour that fedora is being used by red hat as their testing distro. +1 to Ubuntu.
  
  
• Community : Both of these Linux have huge community but personally I would give a +1 to fedora because of their various projects and sub-projects which attract a lot of people, both developers as well as end users. Ubuntu community does not offer any such incentives although both communities are very helpful. +1 to Fedora.
  
  
• Release and Distribution : Both the distros are release a new version twice an year. Ubuntu 9.04 and Fedora 11 are the latest. Ubuntu gets the major credit of making linux popular among common peopleby shipping cds across the world for free. Fedora, on the other hand, has a program called "free media" where volunteers distribute fedora cd/dvd to nearby people for free or very nominal charges. Since Fedora depends on their volunteers a lot for distribution, sometimes they are delivered late or not delivered at all but their effort is worth noting. So +1 to both, to Ubuntu for excellent delivery system and to fedora for their system + spirit.
  
  
• Looks : Since both the distros use GNOME desktop environment by default, looks only vary in the terms of booting screen, wallpapers and screen savers. Again this is a matter of personal choice. I like the booting screen of Ubuntu and screen savers of Fedora.But overall I would say that Fedora looks are better than that of Ubuntu. Personal +1 to Fedora
  
  
• Repositories : Both of these distros have huge repositories. But let me tell you this fact that perhaps Ubuntu has the largest repository you will ever find. If you ever find one, just let me know!! Since fedora follows FOSS principle strictly, users sometime do not get the desired software in repo and are forced to do a manual install. +1 to Ubuntu.
  
  
• Softwares and Tools : Fedora provides some out of box tools which I have never seen in anyother linux till date. Fedora Live Usb Creator is one such tool. As the name suggests you can create live-usb of most of the Linux distros. Another handy tool is "Revisor". It can create custom installation media, so that you don't have to download and reinstall every package from repo everytime you reinstall Fedora.
  
  
• Distro Customisation : Can you think of a linux optimized for gaming or for robotics? No? Well let me tell you, Fedora has this thing which they call as a spin or special interest group. Its a bunch of contributers having a similar taste. These group roll out modified fedora which are available on fedora website itself. No other linux, in my knowledge, support this, though ubuntu has many modifications such as kubuntu, xubuntu, mythbuntu, nubuntu etc. but still fedora wins on customization. Also customization is very easy in fedora due to availability of tools like revisor.