> Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:28:51 -0600
> From: "T.J. Duchene" <tj at kewlness.net>

> The "non-free" tree is Debian's answer to the closed source, 
> patented or
> proprietary world.   Fedora Core, for example, makes you recompile
> everything if you want to use NTFS to read your Windows  
> drives.

As a Fedora user, I believe that's not the whole truth.

Like Debian, Fedora is serious about closed source. Fortunately, there is a
large community of Fedora users to fill this obvious gap. ATRpms and Livna
are two well-respected repositories you can use to install most drivers and
other packages. Currently, I'm using ATRpms for madwifi on some laptops, and
Livna for mplayer and xine.

Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never had to compile anything on Fedora Core
unless I want to actually do software development, or use some very new
software.

Chris