For Linux and Open Source in general, choice has always been abundant. However in both the Linux Server market and to a degree in the Linux “Desktop” market only a few major distributions have taken most attention. In my (future) spare time, I plan on evaluating new Linux distributions to see how well they compare for either a Linux Server (preliminary examination) and more critically: the Linux Desktop. I want to develop a common test/evaluation plan for different distributions so I make fair assessments on their comparable value.

Since Redhat stopped supporting their commercially available Linux distribution, they moved to an Enterprise Linux Server (RHEL) and left everyone else to use a community effort (Fedora Core). Considering the cost of RHEL, the source packages were recompiled and redistributed. The resulting CentOS is a free binary compatible distribution of RHEL without the proprietary Redhat only software. I have seen some virtual private servers using CentOS for the virtualized operating system.

The purpose of this article is to explain the potential problems in installing every package that comes included in any given Linux distribution. For the most part, this is a bad practice and is not conducive to becoming proficient in Linux for either a seasoned professional or a newcomer (ie. “newbie”). It is my hope that this will help educate people on this subject matter. There are some abundancy arguments that are commonly used and overstated.

Linux gaming for the most part is non existent. There are a handful of games, but for all the bells and whistles that the gaming industry puts forth, not much of it makes it to Linux. Activision is a good exception to this, I’ve followed their gaming engines since Quake II in the late 90’s. It was with the release of Quake III, a fully native Linux version was available. A full featured FPS (first person shooter) that was a commercial release really showed off the potential of Linux gaming.

I had written a really simple camera mini-guide for how I use my Canon S500 digital camera in Fedora Core 3. The other night I decided to update and make sure everything still works in Fedora Core 4 - and it did. Guides like these, to me, are almost not necessary. I would tell someone, just make sure you have Gnome and gPhoto and your USB setup and your camera will “automagically” work.