I pick here Fedora 18 Gnome, KDE, XFCE and LXDE to compare with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu (all 12.10 release). The reason for me to compare all 4 desktop interfaces is to make holistic comparison. The results showcased here are based on my testing, done between Nov'12 to Feb'13 on my Asus K54C laptop, Core i3 2.2 Ghz processor with 2 GB RAM. My assessment is based on Installation, Aesthetics, Hardware Recognition, Applications and Performance. Intentionally, I exclude the repository here as majority of the commonly used applications have both deb and rpm versions.
Installation: Ubuntu 1 - Fedora 0
Fedora installs faster, on average, over Ubuntu distros. I did a benchmarking and I found Fedora installs about 10 minutes faster than Ubuntu. Of course, Ubuntu generally downloads a whole lot multimedia codecs and Adobe flashplugin during installation - which Fedora doesn't. In fact, Fedora repos, by policy, don't have the restricted codecs and I downloaded them after adding the RPM Fusion repos. My assessment is that the extra 10 minutes taken by Ubuntu during installation actually saves a lot of time afterwards.
Complexity-wise, both rank almost equal in my assessment. Both Ubuntu installer and Anaconda are quite simple and even Linux novices would be at ease with both. So, I keep Ubuntu slightly ahead in installation.
Aesthetics: Ubuntu 3 - Fedora 1
Except Kubuntu 12.10, all Ubuntu distros looks way more aesthetically appealing than Fedora 18 versions. Specially Ubuntu 12.10 with Unity strip (however defamed it might be, but undoubtedly it gives a different appeal to Ubuntu) looks much better and attractive than the Fedora 18 Gnome with stock Gnome 3 looks.
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| From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison |
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| From Fedora 18 |
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| From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison |
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| From Fedora 18 |
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| From Fedora 18 |
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| From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison |
At a high level, both Fedora and Ubuntu worked well to detect resolution, sound, Wifi and touchpad, either automatically or with some manual intervention.
Applications: Ubuntu 1 - Fedora 1
I divide it into 4 sections:
Office:
- Both Fedora 18 Gnome and Ubuntu 12.10 have LibreOffice 3.6 suite and document viewer.
- Fedora KDE is more KDE centric and has Calligra Office suite 2.5.3 whereas Kubuntu has LibreOffice 3.6 along with a host of KDE applications.
- Fedora XFCE and LXDE as well Xubuntu & Lubuntu have the lightweight office applications Abiword and Gnumeric.
Ubuntu 12.10 leads here over Fedora 18 Gnome, for being more integrated to social networks as well as online media. However, the same can't be said about Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu and mostly they have applications similar to Fedora 18 KDE/XFCE/LXDE.
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| From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison |
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| From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison |
Both Fedora & Ubuntu have the same/similar applications in Graphics and Multimedia sections. However, Ubuntu allows installation of multimedia codecs and Adobe flash at the time of installation whereas with Fedora, a third party installation of these codecs and plugins are required. I have already credited Ubuntu for the same and hence, won't give Ubuntu extra points in this section as well.
Others: Fedora has a gnome virtualbox application, Boxes, in Fedora Gnome. I haven't used it yet to have a final opinion on whether it is more useful than Oracle Virtualbox and hence, no brownie points to Fedora here.
Linux kernel in Fedora is 3.7 series and is ahead of Ubuntu which still has 3.5 series in Quantal release. Anyway, Fedora is known to offer more cutting edge distros than Ubuntu. So, it is expected. Even Fedora KDE offers the latest KDE 4.9.5 whereas Kubuntu 12.10 had 4.9.2 at the time of release.
Applications Overall:
Ubuntu 12.10 Gnome leads the race in Gnome distros with a whole lot of focus to social network and online media integration. However, there's not much to choose between Fedora and Ubuntu in case of the rest of the desktop environments like KDE, LXDE or XFCE. On offering the latest of the Linux world, I keep Fedora marginally ahead. And it's a tie in the applications section between Fedora and Ubuntu.
Performance: Ubuntu 0 - Fedora 1
Fedora 18 Gnome is actually smoother to use than Ubuntu 12.10 with Unity and consumes about 100 MB less RAM. Xubuntu 12.10, on the other hand, fares slightly better than Fedora 18 XFCE. For the rest, both perform equally good. So, it is Unity which actually pulls down Ubuntu's performance. Ubuntu 12.10 with Unity definitely is a bit buggier and crash prone than Fedora 18 Gnome. However, Unity is actually more intuitive to use over Gnome 3 desktop. If you need proof, try changing a simple wallpaper in Fedora 18 Gnome!
| Parameters | CPU Usage (post installation) | RAM usage (post installation) |
| Fedora 18 Gnome | 1-10% | 310 MB |
| Ubuntu 12.10 | 1-10% | 412 MB |
| Fedora 18 KDE | 1-10% | 300 MB |
| Kubuntu 12.10 | 1-10% | 300 MB |
| Fedora 18 XFCE | 1-5% | 180 MB |
| Xubuntu 12.10 | 1-5% | 160 MB |
| Fedora 18 LXDE | 1-5% | 124 MB |
| Lubuntu 12.10 | 1-5% | 123 MB |
Rest KDE, XFCE and LXDE versions of both Ubuntu and Fedora are very smooth to use and offer comparable performance.
Final Verdict: Ubuntu 6 - Fedora 4
In overall, Ubuntu is ahead of Fedora primarily due to three reasons:
- Simpler installation and providing a complete experience to users by downloading the required multimedia codecs and Adobe flashplugin
- Better social network and multimedia integration
- Gnome version of Ubuntu being more intuitive and simpler to use over Fedora
I know installation doesn't matter for expert users and I would put less importance to it. But, I believe the future of operating systems lies in better social network and online media integration. At least that is where the world is moving today with a more prominence to mobile operating systems like iOS or Android over conventional desktop operating systems. It is here I feel that Ubuntu is moving in the right direction with increased focus on social network integration in 12.10 release. Though it is pre-mature at this stage and not as good as an Android or iOS, but I expect a lot more effort in this direction from Canonical in the 2013 releases for Ubuntu along with improvement in Unity's performance. Hence, it seems logical that Ubuntu will be the distro to watch out for in 2013 rather than Fedora. I am putting my bet here on Ubuntu and it's sister distros and not on Fedora.
If I have to recommend by desktop environment, I would go like this:
Gnome: Ubuntu 12.10 without any doubt
- KDE: I prefer Fedora 18 KDE
- XFCE: I prefer Xubuntu 12.10 any day
- LXDE: Lubuntu 12.10 is more attractive to me than Fedora 18 LXDE, though both offer similar performance
Really nice comparison! Thanks
ReplyDeleteThanks for liking it!
DeleteSuperb job
DeleteI used to use ubuntu 12.04 LTS n I was happy, then thought to try Fedora-18
which appeared to be a bad choice.
thanks for such a nice comparison. getting back to Ubuntu 12.10 now.
cheers
If you had compared Fedora with Mint, instead of Ubuntu, I think that there would have been no contest. I have just tried Fedora 18 against Mint14 and to me there is no contest.
ReplyDeleteMint installs much quicker than Fedora, under 30 minutes against nearly an hour. The partitioning tool is much easier to understand. Boot time is also much quicker. I tried Fedora Gnome, and then changed interface to Cinnamon, also XFCE version. Mint has Cinnamon as standard, but I've also tried XFCE and Mate. Cinnamon is to me the best looking of all three, though XFCE and Mate are slightly better on resources.
Applications wise Fedora is a non-starter. Neither VLC or Chrome/Chromium are in the repositories, no Flash loaded but has to be installed. Chrome just would not work at all, but I installed Chromium and VLC from the rpm's on their websites. hardly a good approach for a novice.
To load my printers, I had to install the required software, whereas Mint recognised them immediately.
Gnome3 is to me a dreadful interface. Not at all easy to get the hang of, whilst Cinnamon (or mate or XFCE) are easily understood.
I have tried the KDE versions of all these distros, but found Mageia superior to them all, but still rather heavy on resources, and like all KDE distros, unstable on my machine.
I agree with you completely. Mint is miles ahead of either Fedora or Ubuntu. Only reason for me to not include Mint is that it is a second level derived distro unlike Fedora / Ubuntu. Given Mint is derived of Ubuntu, expected that it has to give something more than Ubuntu.
DeleteOn Mageia, I found Linux Mint 13 and 14 KDE to be more stable and almost comparable in performance to Mageia. Please check my article on comparison of KDE distros at http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in/2012/12/best-linux-distro-of-2012-comparison-of.html
And thanks for reading my article.
Regards,
Arindam
A pretty subjective comparison. We know what you like and don't like, but that's about it.
ReplyDeleteThe comparison of install times does not wash. You need to account for the actual size of total downloads in each install, and the different download rates from the different servers. You cannot simply say Fedora is faster because it avoid non-free code and then use a magic number to tip the win to Ubuntu.
But, since we are being subjective, I will subjectively say that this is really a comparison of default interfaces and default applications. Linux is mature enough, however, that any contemporary distribution can run any desktop interface.Neither is "better" than any other. Any application not installed by default is also available to users. For every user who laments that ABC application is not installed, there are users who wonder why it is.
I understand your point of view. In that case, Arch is the best one I have seen and used - fascinatingly lightweight, runs like a monster even on low end machines and you can customize it as you (any DE / any looks) like - much better than either Fedora or Ubuntu, IMHO having used it for last 2 years. In that case, every Linux user would have been running Arch - do they? Also, why is Linux Mint number one distro in Distrowatch ranking? Why is a lousy distro like Ultimate OS has so many downloads and installations?
DeleteA section of the users definitely prefer a good collection of applications installed or at least in the repo so that they don't have to spend whole day to install and make it work. Why just focus on the applications alone? Even in looks and social network integration Ubuntu is perhaps making a mark over Fedora.
Also, honestly, do you need anything more than a terminal to get your system ready? Still why distros provide synaptic or software centers? To make life easy and reach to the masses. Otherwise, Linux will be limited to a few geeks and will never be a true opensource competitor to Windows or Mac. IMHO.
I agree with your sentiment that Fedora and Ubuntu are two big distros which epitomize what Linux is today. Both have their pluses and minuses. I tried to be as objective as possible - I installed all 8 distros mentioned here and actually used them at different point in time. I noted that the extra time Ubuntu takes saves more than 20 minutes of time in downloading restricted codecs, VLC, Adobe flashplugin, etc. from 3rd party repos. That is all I can say.
Thanks,
Arindam
They say that any Operating System value is made by the Apps made to run on it.
DeleteNo Apps, the OS is useless.
Windows / OSX / iOS / Android have tons of Apps.
I have to admit that I was totally against Unity, but after using Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity at work since its release, I totally changed my mind.
In my opinion:
- Unity is really productive.
- Gnome 3 is also really productive.
- Unity is more useful than Gnome 3.
See http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/ubuntu-unity-making-the-desktop-seriously-efficient-again/3701 for a good explanation.
Well said. I disagree a bit on the Gnome 3 being really efficient part. For me, Gnome 3 epitomizes what is wrong with Linux today and is the MOST unproductive of all the desktops available right now. No half-cooked techrepublic article is going to convince me that Gnome 3 is productive :).
DeleteI could not imagine a DE without shut down button and thankfully in later, sanity returned. In my mind, Gnome 3 is the worst DE available right now where even simple things like changing a wallpaper requires quite a few steps. Hence, I feel Ubuntu is correct in going for Unity which at least is more intuitive and easy to use. Unity had real rough edges in the beginning but it is actually becoming better with every Ubuntu release.
Thanks,
Arindam
... so the lucky winner is "Aesthetics" winner ... Ubuntu :D
ReplyDeleteEven in performance too, Ubuntu performs as good as Fedora, except for the gnome version which is screwed up due to Unity! In terms of looks, Fedora is not even close to Ubuntu distros, accepted :)
DeleteHi Arindam! It is very nice comparison. I'm using Fedora since version 14, but I'm not glad with Gnome 3 interface. It's hard to me to run away from a good and smoothly interface (even Windows) to a strange and raw interface as Gnome 3.6 in Fedora 18. I have tried so many themes, but I feel I did not fit what I want.
ReplyDeleteI ended here because I was looking for some LinuxMint comparison. I thoght also to install Cinnamon on my Fedora, but I thing LinuxMint with native Cinnamon is the best, as I saw in my searches and the comments here... What do you think?
Best regards,
Rafael
Hi Rafael:
DeleteLinux Mint with Cinnamon is really good and easy to use. You can see my Linux Mint 14 vs Ubuntu 12.10 comparison here: http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in/2012/11/linux-mint-14-vs-ubuntu-1210-who-is.html
It is almost on the same lines as Fedora 18 vs Ubuntu 12.10 comparison.
Linux Mint Cinnamon runs in almost half the resources as Ubuntu and it just works! Plus, there is no drastic change to upset the user's familiar desktop environment with something so radical and ridiculous like Gnome 3.6 or Unity.
Hope it helps.
Thanks Arindam! I'will check it now!
DeleteI've just using LinuxMint14 right now. It really looks better, but, at firts touches, Fedora 18 seems to be more stable, but let me use it more before afirm that.
Thanks again,
Rafael
Fedora 18 is very stable. But, in Linux Mint 14 as well I didn't note any rough edges and found it to be stable too! Tough choice it seems :).
DeleteVery tough!! :) Let us see...
Deletetks!
Arindam, Since we've talked I'm using Linux Mint and I'm very happy with it. Nice look, nice environment and very stable with its integrations and 3rd software, which was getting hard with Fedora 18!
DeleteBest rgds...
Hi Rafael:
DeleteEven I use Linux Mint mostly. And I have a Pentium 4 PC with 1 GB RAM, from 2003 and quite antique. I tried a lot of distros on it in last 1 year. For some I didn't like the DE, for some other distros like Archbang were initially good but crashed after a few updates :). Only Linux Mint 13 XFCE seems to run very decently on the same machine and offer a combination of aesthetics and performance.
Only thing I can say about Linux Mint is that "it just works!".
Thanks,
Arindam
That's it: it just works!
DeleteGreat comparison I am in the middle of a Fedora vs Ubuntu internal debate myself. I like Fedora, it appeals to my geek side, but it seems that of all the distros Ubuntu is being recognized because it is more appealing. The Steam Beta is limited to Ubuntu and even Amahi server now installs on Ubuntu with a Fedora version "in production". IMHO Hardcore Linux users won't need to read this article because they have their favorites already and are knowledgeable enough about Linux to be able to use any distro really. However for new users like myself who are trying to make the jump this article is really, really insightful. I do want to give Arch a try though when I am more experienced I seem to hear it come up a lot in Linux forums. Do you have a recommendation of which Distro the Hardcore Linux users are using? I would like know where to go next.
ReplyDeleteWell, even I am learning Linux myself :). Almost every distro has some hardcore Linux expert using it - I don't think there is any preferential bias towards any particular distro like that. I am using Arch as well, it takes a bit of time and learning to configure but it is fantastic and very lightweight with all functionalities.
DeleteSo... Ubuntu wins the "Installation" by installing proprietary software by default?
ReplyDeleteMother of god! I guess nobody really cares about free open source software anymore, they just want their flash plugin installed ASAP.
I still think this was a good post, you tried to objectively compare the two distros, and you pretty much accomplished it (I disagree on installation and Aesthetics, but I can see why you think that way).
P.S. Keep on posting like this! Just try to be a better free-software activist :)
I can understand your perspective on free-software. Absolutely agree with you on the same. But, from an user perspective it is better if things work right out of the box. Secondly, in this age of social networks, having a distro integrate to facebook or twitter actually helps. Third, Gnome 3 sucks! It is the most stupid DE I have used and no wonder Ubuntu shifted to Unity. At least Unity is intuitive. I am not a big fan of Unity but having used Fedora and OpenSUSE Gnome, I think Gnome 3 represents everything that is wrong with Linux.
DeleteThanks,
Arindam
I am using ubuntu since 3 years just for change from windows as well as to get rid of accidental virus attack while childrens are playing online games. But now I have faced some problems like unity launcher got disappeared after updating. So I was thinging to switch over to fedora or mageia. But after reading your detailed comparision between ubuntu12.1 and fedora18, now I have changed my mind to stick with ubuntu12.1
ReplyDeleteThank you for your in depth analysis.
Thanks for liking my review. Ubuntu 12.10 is good but if you want a more stable Ubuntu, please install Ubuntu 12.04.2 long term support release. It is supported till 2017 April.
DeleteThanks,
Arindam
I must agree that Linux Mint XFCE or Cinnamon just work. You hardly need to add anything to them they just work. But it is a bit boring.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Bernard. The interface is boring as well and amazingly, they are continuing with the same lame interface for last couple of releases. But, I spiced it up using docky, conky and compiz and things look more attractive now.
DeleteI tried Mint and it would occasionally freeze up. I had more problems with it then I would have liked.
ReplyDeleteI guess you must have tried the Cinnamon version - there was a bug with Cinnamon DE. Even my desktop would freeze up and I switched to LM 13 XFCE. It never freezes up and works very fast.
DeleteI tried Mint and it would occasionally freeze up. I had more problems with it then I would have liked.
ReplyDeleteI've found this post very informative. Thanks a lot :)
ReplyDeletei'm more satisfied from discussion comments here [>_<]
ReplyDelete