New, Pretty, Same.

october 28, 2006

I have had some more time to play with FC6 and I have to say that it is: new, pretty and about the same. That is not a bad thing, it is just not something that will convince me to move away from CentOS. The biggest feature talked about around the internet is the integration of AIGLX/Compiz into FC6. There are screenshots of spinning desktop cubes and "Desktop Effects" dialogue boxes in every review. But, really, that is just eye candy. It really does not make a difference to a guy like me who just uses my Linux notebook for work -- and even if it did, that stuff would get old quick. So, taking that away the AIGLX/Compiz stuff, the next most talked about thing is the new look. I agree, the new look is stunningly gorgeous. The blue, DNA, underwater thing is really eye catching and a hell of a lot better than the brown, earthy, landscape look of Ubuntu. Yet again though, we have arrived at something that really does not enhance a workstation. Yay, my workstation looks great. But, does that really matter much? Nah. I do give high props to the Fedora Artwork team for putting together such a cool default theme. Other than that, for me, FC6 is a lot like FC5. It is more evolutionary than revolutionary. It works just like FC5. It boots a bit faster than FC5 and for me, FC6 feels a lot snappier than FC5. I am a bit disappointed that FC6 does not include Firefox 2.0, but I'm sure it will be added to the repos soon. Also, the graphical software tool, Priut really...err...to put it lightly...sucks. It really does not matter for me because I use the command-line tool yum, but for newbies, it maybe a big turn off. Would I switch over to FC6 on bare metal? Nope. I know how quickly things move with Fedora and I am not really into that anymore. I can live a slower paced life with CentOS and just be happy. Cutting edge is nice and all, but I am not finding much lately that would be make my life so much easier that I need to go cutting edge. I do love what the Fedora team is doing with the OS and I hope they keep it up. I am going to keep playing with FC6 in my VM. But, for bare metal, I'll keep CentOS running on that and I'll wait for CentOS5.


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