Linux distributions

[gusl]

Fedora vs Debian vs others: What are the important differences?

I'm not much of an OS geek (I'm a programming geek and an Internet geek)... I still run FC1, and have to deal with lots of hardware and driver problems (touchpad not working, Flash movies playing too fast, PDA syncing, etc). I've been meaning to update it, but maybe I should install Debian instead (what are its selling points?). Can I install Debian over my Fedora without backing up my data, or screwing up my installed programs? (I mostly care about my Lisp environment: sbcl & slime)... Actually, I might want to buy a Windows-free laptop... any idea how to do that?

Comments

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

Debian is designed to be a more stable distribution for server platforms. Fedora is primarily designed for the end user (workstation platform). So, I would say, no, it's not better to go for Debian. It would be better if you went to Fedora Core 4, as FC1 is rather old and has been updated a lot over the last 3 releases.

I don't think your installed packages will work in a new distribution, but it's usually easy to re-install them (in fedora, 'yum install ...').
As for hardware compatibility, I'd look through the linux forums for user recommendations. There are often hardware compatibility issues as most manufacturers don't release their driver code in the open source, and they don't make linux drivers.

[gaspaheangea.livejournal.com]

These days I say:
Go with ubuntu or freebsd.
Fedora is a little baroque for me.
d(linux kernel compilation)/d(distribution) = (maniacal insanity)