6 ms·

So how "light" is a default install of Fedora these days? The thing I don't like about Ubuntu is that they take the kitchen sink approach and install a bunch of

So how "light" is a default install of Fedora these days? The thing I don't like about Ubuntu is that they take the kitchen sink approach and install a bunch of stuff I don't believe should be installed by default, such as Open/Libre Office.

cturner 15y ago
I've had the same objection. Now I run installs from the server edition. You can add stuff afterwards.
gnaritas 15y ago
An office suite most certainly should be installed by default in a distro aimed at ordinary users. That you'd think otherwise is stunning.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- vault_ 15y ago
  Neither Windows nor OS X comes with an office suite installed by default. It wouldn't be unprecedented if a linux distro were to come without one.
  - eitland 15y ago
    For distros targetting ordinary users the office suite should come preinstalled as long as you can't buy one at Staples. That said this is also part of what makes Linux shine compared to especially Windows: Usually everything is installed and Just Works in 20 minutes after started installation. (Have been fixing peoples borked Windowses from '95 to '08 so I'm allowed to be opinionated here. : )
  - gnaritas 15y ago
    That's mostly not true, nearly every windows install from a store bought machine has trial versions of office already installed. Word and Excel are expected programs for most people.
- vilya 15y ago
  What's your reasoning? FWIW I always thought Fedora was aimed at more tech-savvy users, not "ordinary" users (whatever that may mean).
- maratd 15y ago
  An "ordinary user" is incapable of installing an operating system. They don't even know what an operating system is. A linux distro should assume that if the user is installing the OS himself, he isn't ordinary and should quite simply ASK what the user wants to install, instead of assuming. This sort of stupidity forces me to look for the most minimal install ISO for every distro I deal with.
  - dextorious 15y ago
    """An "ordinary user" is incapable of installing an operating system. They don't even know what an operating system is.""" No, that's a "strawman user", or some grandma. There are tons of ordinary users that can install Windows. And almost all Mac users can install OS X (there's not much to it). They are no programmers, they are no superusers, they are no admins. They just know how to insert a DVD, answer a few questions and press next. There's no reason to not be able to do the same with Linux, or for a linux distro to assume "that if the user is installing the OS himself, he isn't ordinary". Doubly so for Ubuntu, who wants to be the people's friendly distro and change all that "Linux is for geeks" mentality.
    - maratd 15y ago
      > No, that's a "strawman user", or some grandma. I'm willing to bet you never worked in technical support. The average person is lucky if they manage to turn on a computer.
      - dextorious 15y ago
        And I'm willing to bet the kind of users that tend to call technical support are not the kind of users that install their OSs. That doesn't mean that users that can install Windows and OS X are in the minority. It's just selection bias.
      - einhverfr 15y ago
        I have worked technical support. I have done it in person, and I worked the phones at Microsoft before they shipped all these jobs to India. I think most users are quite capable of installing an OS. Most users never call tech support. Otherwise MS woudl be broke.
- technomancy 15y ago
  Who said he was looking for one aimed at ordinary users?
  - DanBC 15y ago
    He was talking about Ubuntu. Are you suggesting that Ubuntu is not aimed at ordinary users? > The thing I don't like about Ubuntu is that they take the kitchen sink approach [. . .]
brown9-2 15y ago
At least with Fedora 15, the install DVD's default option of "Desktop" install does indeed install Office tools, Graphics/Image editors, etc. On the bright side, the installer (again, for 15) offers a "Minimal" option in the same dialog box, which skips Gnome/XWindows/OpenOffice/etc. With Ubuntu I recall having to search for a special minimal installer ISO.
nodata 15y ago
Are you against an office suite being installed for normal users because you don't think they are useful to normal users, or because {libre,open}office are pretty big?
- RexRollman 15y ago
  For normal users, Open/Libre Office are probably fine, but I dislike having to install unneeded stuff on my computer. Luckily, according to a couple of other people here, Fedora does provide ways to avoid this.
rplnt 15y ago
Last Fedora I installed was Fedora 14 (which I'm still using) and you could (un)select the packages you want to install.
tchol 15y ago
None of the LiveCDs ship LibreOffice, though KDE ships KOffice and I think XFCE and/or LXDE ship AbiWord. At any rate, I strongly recommend doing a netinstall. Then you don't even waste bandwidth on stuff you don't want.
ajross 15y ago
Is this serious? Both Ubuntu and Fedora install from a CD-sized ISO file which doubles as a live booting environment. In the modern world, that's less than 1% of the storage of even a "small" laptop. And it's only slightly larger than iOS5 or Android installation bundles. How much "lighter" do you really want it to be? If you really have storage requirements that won't fit a desktop distribution, try something like buildroot (http://buildroot.uclibc.org/ http://buildroot.uclibc.org/) or Yocto (http://www.yoctoproject.org/ http://www.yoctoproject.org/), which are better targetted at that kind of environment.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
DanBC 15y ago
There are plenty of light distributions - TinyCore; LFS; Arch; Gentoo; and so on. "Interactive installs" are not great for users. You end up with dependency hell; or users aren't clueful about the difference between a KDE and Gnome environment. Sane defaults, and allowing people to uninstal stuff, are better for most users. There are other distributions which claim to be small, and which are cut down versions of Ubuntu (usually) but which are actually quite large. See, for example eeebuntu (now called auroraos) which installed a bunch of OpenOffice language stuff, but not OO itself.

cturner 15y ago

I've had the same objection. Now I run installs from the server edition. You can add stuff afterwards.

gnaritas 15y ago

An office suite most certainly should be installed by default in a distro aimed at ordinary users. That you'd think otherwise is stunning.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
vault_ 15y ago
Neither Windows nor OS X comes with an office suite installed by default. It wouldn't be unprecedented if a linux distro were to come without one.
- eitland 15y ago
  For distros targetting ordinary users the office suite should come preinstalled as long as you can't buy one at Staples. That said this is also part of what makes Linux shine compared to especially Windows: Usually everything is installed and Just Works in 20 minutes after started installation. (Have been fixing peoples borked Windowses from '95 to '08 so I'm allowed to be opinionated here. : )
- gnaritas 15y ago
  That's mostly not true, nearly every windows install from a store bought machine has trial versions of office already installed. Word and Excel are expected programs for most people.
vilya 15y ago
What's your reasoning? FWIW I always thought Fedora was aimed at more tech-savvy users, not "ordinary" users (whatever that may mean).
maratd 15y ago
An "ordinary user" is incapable of installing an operating system. They don't even know what an operating system is. A linux distro should assume that if the user is installing the OS himself, he isn't ordinary and should quite simply ASK what the user wants to install, instead of assuming. This sort of stupidity forces me to look for the most minimal install ISO for every distro I deal with.
- dextorious 15y ago
  """An "ordinary user" is incapable of installing an operating system. They don't even know what an operating system is.""" No, that's a "strawman user", or some grandma. There are tons of ordinary users that can install Windows. And almost all Mac users can install OS X (there's not much to it). They are no programmers, they are no superusers, they are no admins. They just know how to insert a DVD, answer a few questions and press next. There's no reason to not be able to do the same with Linux, or for a linux distro to assume "that if the user is installing the OS himself, he isn't ordinary". Doubly so for Ubuntu, who wants to be the people's friendly distro and change all that "Linux is for geeks" mentality.
  - maratd 15y ago
    > No, that's a "strawman user", or some grandma. I'm willing to bet you never worked in technical support. The average person is lucky if they manage to turn on a computer.
    - dextorious 15y ago
      And I'm willing to bet the kind of users that tend to call technical support are not the kind of users that install their OSs. That doesn't mean that users that can install Windows and OS X are in the minority. It's just selection bias.
    - einhverfr 15y ago
      I have worked technical support. I have done it in person, and I worked the phones at Microsoft before they shipped all these jobs to India. I think most users are quite capable of installing an OS. Most users never call tech support. Otherwise MS woudl be broke.
technomancy 15y ago
Who said he was looking for one aimed at ordinary users?
- DanBC 15y ago
  He was talking about Ubuntu. Are you suggesting that Ubuntu is not aimed at ordinary users? > The thing I don't like about Ubuntu is that they take the kitchen sink approach [. . .]

brown9-2 15y ago

At least with Fedora 15, the install DVD's default option of "Desktop" install does indeed install Office tools, Graphics/Image editors, etc. On the bright side, the installer (again, for 15) offers a "Minimal" option in the same dialog box, which skips Gnome/XWindows/OpenOffice/etc. With Ubuntu I recall having to search for a special minimal installer ISO.

nodata 15y ago

Are you against an office suite being installed for normal users because you don't think they are useful to normal users, or because {libre,open}office are pretty big?

RexRollman 15y ago
For normal users, Open/Libre Office are probably fine, but I dislike having to install unneeded stuff on my computer. Luckily, according to a couple of other people here, Fedora does provide ways to avoid this.

rplnt 15y ago

Last Fedora I installed was Fedora 14 (which I'm still using) and you could (un)select the packages you want to install.

tchol 15y ago

None of the LiveCDs ship LibreOffice, though KDE ships KOffice and I think XFCE and/or LXDE ship AbiWord. At any rate, I strongly recommend doing a netinstall. Then you don't even waste bandwidth on stuff you don't want.

ajross 15y ago

Is this serious? Both Ubuntu and Fedora install from a CD-sized ISO file which doubles as a live booting environment. In the modern world, that's less than 1% of the storage of even a "small" laptop. And it's only slightly larger than iOS5 or Android installation bundles. How much "lighter" do you really want it to be? If you really have storage requirements that won't fit a desktop distribution, try something like buildroot (http://buildroot.uclibc.org/ http://buildroot.uclibc.org/) or Yocto (http://www.yoctoproject.org/ http://www.yoctoproject.org/), which are better targetted at that kind of environment.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

DanBC 15y ago

There are plenty of light distributions - TinyCore; LFS; Arch; Gentoo; and so on. "Interactive installs" are not great for users. You end up with dependency hell; or users aren't clueful about the difference between a KDE and Gnome environment. Sane defaults, and allowing people to uninstal stuff, are better for most users. There are other distributions which claim to be small, and which are cut down versions of Ubuntu (usually) but which are actually quite large. See, for example eeebuntu (now called auroraos) which installed a bunch of OpenOffice language stuff, but not OO itself.