A lot of water under the bridge on open software. But first I need to make an introduction. When I first used an Open Operative System (and with that I mean Linux, I have had in mind tro try BSD, but I never took that into action) I tried the Mandrake Linux 9.0 distribution (for more info about why this is called a distribution I refer you to wikipaedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution) I dropped it because of security issues: you needed administrator privileges just to connect it to the Internet. So I kept using MS for a while until I got Red Hat 9. It was a good product and I used it a lot, but some time later, Red Hat Inc. ended the product life and changed to a project, the Fedora Project. I didn't know if a project was going to be a success or not, so when I needed to format my hard drive, I changed back to MS for a while, until I get a copy of SuSE 9.1. I installed it and It was just good. Worked well. I got just one big problem when a patch in the kernel crushed the X server (the desktop, so I got just the black screen with text) but I solved the issue. The real problem began with Novell. They bought SuSE and began to changed the way things where managed. At first it seemed that it was good, they opened YAST (the software manager) so anybody could use it and they also offered a free DVD download of the complete system (before that you just could download using a not so friendly FTP installation), but then things got back in time and was even less comfortable that before. They stop offering the DVD download of the complete system (just a live DVD) for the new release and the older releases where poorly patched and without new versions (as an example the last Firefox patch changed the cookie administration so it will accept all cookies by default, a thing that you could change later, and it won't open your bookmarks or activate the find as you type unless you open a new window, in which those functions will began to work).
And my father got a problem with his PC so I used that situation to use that computer as a test field so I installed my old Red Hat 9 and updated the system with yum (an update tool which is part of the Fedora Core Project, the project created by Red Hat) using the repositories in Fedora Legacy (http://www.fedoralegacy.org) . It was not good, it was better, better than SuSE. As an example I updated and I got the Instant Messenger Gaim to it last version (1.27), in SuSE I am still with 0.7, patched with the security issues but older than the one I got in Red Hat, and with no new features like buddy icons or file transfers.
With all that I wanted to say: Open Software is good and some 'freak only OSs' are good too. Fedora Core is something like a freak-only OS, with Red Hat (the corporate sponsors) strongly against including any software which not allow to offer the source with the software, they said this is because a legal reason (and that's why other projects like Mono are not included in Fedora, considering that Mono offers the source code), but is more easy to install and run and, as the GNOME motto said, just works. I liked that and that is what I want in a system. To just works. You need to circunvent some problems like install Flash, Real Player or Java after you have finished the system install, but after that works great and updated, without any problem. I'm gonna give Fedora a try, replacing completly SuSE on my desktop.
And, finally: Talking about GNOME. Since my father's computer doesn't have enough memory or hard disk to use two both windows managers. I have been using KDE since I first began to use Linux, back in the middle of the 1990's, with the SuSE Linux 6.1 of my uncle, so I like KDE. But I kind of like GNOME. It's less fancy, but a lot more prepared to the work space
So I think I will began to use GNOME in the moments when I will use the PC for work and KDE for less important things.
Well.
I want to write more often on the blog so I will try it.
;-)
If you want to take a look at the sources:
http://www.mandriva.com/ Mandriva, formely Mandrake Linux.
http://fedora.redhat.com Fedora Core Project.
http://www.redhat.com Red Hat Home Page.
http://www.debian.org Debian
http://www.fedoralegacy.org Fedora Legacy Project.
http://www.suse.com SuSE.
http://www.novell.com Novell
