Fedora 7 Rivals Ubuntu's Ease of Use

Here at Maximum PC, we've long touted Ubuntu Linux's easy installation and configuration options, which -- for the first time, really -- made Linux a viable OS for ordinary folk. Now the release of Fedora 7 heats up the Linux desktop world with a truckload of cool features that make it easy to get up and running fast, and keep running securely.

If you love the sweet simplicity if Ubuntu's automated updates, Fedora 7 offers the same level of automation, which makes it easy to take advantage of new features, new kernels, and new drivers as they become available. This is a boon to system security, too, because it cuts down the lag time between the time a bug fix is released and the time it's installed on your machine.

Also boosting security is the SELinux security package, which lets you control your permissions and settings through a simple graphical interface. This utility has a lot of growing to do before most users will get much out of it, but it's worth taking some time to get familiar with.

One of our favorite advances with Fedora 7 is the Display Settings menu, which makes it easy to select your system's hardware from a series of drop-down menus. This beats the pants off having to add your widescreen display resolutions to your xorg.conf file manually. Unfortunately, because our Samsung SyncMaster 225BW wasn't listed in the database, we ended up having to do that anyway.

Fedora 7 also offers a graphical wireless configuration tool, which includes settings for a variety of cards. Sadly, most Broadcom cards aren't included, so we still had to hack the firmware with the firmware cutter just as we've always done in Ubuntu.

If you love Red Hat, it goes without saying that you're bound to go nuts over Fedora 7. But this distro is also worth a look for just about anyone who wants to try Linux for the first time. With a noob-friendly installation routine and simple customization menus that make daily use a breeze, we're glad Fedora 7 has thrown its hat into the ring.

[6/13/2007 - typo/formatting edit]