Although I am a developer on Windows platform, mainly with .NET framework, I still try to keep up with what is happening in Linux community. Among all the major Linux distributions, Fedora Core is my favorite, and Ubuntu comes next. One of the reasons that I like Fedora Core is there are many developers supporting it by building many useful applications for this distribution. Another feature of FC that attracts me is that it makes the process a lot easier of installing and uninstalling applications. I still recall when I first used Linux I had to change lots of configurations before I could install a new application, and sometimes I had to compile the source code of the application myself. It was a nightmare! All Linux distributions, including all the major distros, used to requires users to have enough knowledge of Linux commands in order to use it, but now things changed. In order to compete with Windows, easy installation and easy-to-use have become the focus of the Linux development, which I think it is the reason of Linux getting popular for home users.
Fedora Core released its latest version Fedora Core 8 on November 8, 2007, after its major competitor Ubuntu released Ubuntu 7.10 on October 15, 2007. I have downloaded FC 8 and will give a try when I have free time.
Ideally, if I have the budget, I will purchase a high-end PC with powerful CPU and lots RAM, and install Fedora Core as my OS. Then I will set up a virtual machine with VMWare and install Windows on my virtual machine for my Windows development.
