Linux.com

Fedora is often described as a GNU/Linux distribution "for enthusiasts and developers." It is sponsored by Red Hat, and some people see Fedora as the "beta" version of Red Hat's official releases.

If you want to learn the ins and outs of Red Hat without spending money for the official Red Hat distribution, your best choices are CentOS and Fedora, with Fedora perhaps tied a little more closely to Red Hat's apron strings.

One thing notable about Fedora is its free software purity. In its natural state, it includes no proprietary software at all. This is good in one sense, but it also makes Fedora less useful for average consumers than "less free" GNU/Linux distributions, because it doesn't include software that will play YouTube and other Flash videos or music available in the common (but proprietary) MP3 format.

There is, however, a way around this problem (if, indeed you consider it a problem) called Codec Buddy. We did not include Codec Buddy instructions in the video tour because it is not currently downloadable as a core part of Fedora, but it is not hard to install. And yes, for those who are willing to compromise their free software integrity in order to use proprietary or patent-encumbered media codecs that are not included in Codec Buddy, a little Web seaching will turn up many possibilities.

These are choices that individual users must make for themselves. Please note that the Linux.com Fedora 8 tour videos are available in both Flash and Ogg versions so that virtually anyone can view them in virtually any (free or proprietary) operating system.

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