Fedora Test 3, is, most certainly, as the name says, a test. In my experience there are a few problems and a few bugs that would keep me from recommending it as an everyday desktop replacement, but nonetheless, Fedora is an Operating System (distro) worth watching out.
First Things First
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First, a few things about me. I’ve been using Linux for quite a while now, with my first experience being an old Mandrake version that I bought to install on my very old Packard Bell. Since then, I’ve been using Linux off-and-on. I will usually run some version of Linux as my primary desktop for a few months until something happens on Windows that makes me want to switch, and vice-versa. What I’m getting at is that I believe my self to be fairly knowledgeable on Linux.
Next, about my install. I installed Fedora Test 3 on a Dell Dimension 4400 with a 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 and 512 Mb of RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. A fairly normal setup, I believe. At first I tried upgrading my earlier RedHat Linux 9 install, but decided, ultimately, to perform a clean install.
The Install
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Upon starting up my computer with the first CD in, I was greeted with a very familiar install screen. And that’s really the best way to describe the install, no, make that the entire OS: “familiar.” However, that’s to be expected, I suppose, considering that Fedora is, essentially, Red Hat Linux with a new logo. The install process it’s self is very easy. The Anaconda installer does a very good job of explaining what’s happening and helping you to make the decisions that you need to. Over all, my install was very uneventful, and I was very pleased. At first I was going to allow the installer to upgrade a previous version of Red Hat Linux that was on the machine, but went back and decided to perform a clean install. The installer defaults seemed good, so for the most part I left them alone. I opted to allow the installer to take care of the partitioning by itself, and soon I was ready to install.
Selecting the default packages, the final size of my install was about a gigabyte of space. I hit continue, and away it went. This portion of the install took about 30 minutes. After this, it rebooted and began probing my hardware. All of it was found without trouble, that is until it came to my video card (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro). Fedora was unable to properly work with my video card, and stuck me with the VESA driver. While I could set the resolution as high as I needed, the
horrendously low refresh rate that I was stuck with made using Fedora a pain. However, all in all, the install was excellent, and had it correctly setup my video card it would have been all the better.
Software
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By default, Fedora comes loaded with all the software that you’ll need for daily activities. It includes all your standards: Gnome 2.4, KDE 3.1, Mozilla 1.4 for Browsing, Evolution 1.4 for email, and all the text editors one could ever ask for. Fedora was supposed to come with OpenOffice, I even went back and made sure that I had selected it, yet I could not find it at all. Fedora also includes an FTP program and the ability to burn CDs. Following Red Hat, however, Fedora is lacking full multi-media capabilities, but that’s not really an issue that I can fault it for. Fedora also comes loaded with all of the standard games, and several configuration utilities, notably, a new (at least since Red Hat 9) Screen Resolution dialog which is separate from the Display dialog. It allows you to quickly change your resolution and refresh rate, which is good, because I could not get the Display dialog to open at all.
Daily Use
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Fedora does not depart much from Red Hat Linux, it seems very quick and stable. The biggest difference that the user will notice is a new version of BlueCurve (which has been present in Fedora for a while now), and let me say that it looks great. Hands down, Fedora is one of the prettiest Linux distributions out there, and while it lacks the bright colors of Window’s Luna, or the sheer elegance of Mac OS’s Aqua, it has a sort of subdued sense of professionalism, which I find very appealing. Also new is a Graphical Boot, which is very pleasant and gives to user a better idea of what all is going on. This, however, can be turned off if you so desire.
One of the first things that I did was run up2date, Red Hat’s, well, updating software. It ran quickly and easily with no hassle. In fact, despite my earlier video card issue, there’s really little to fault with Fedora, that is except the documentation (or lack thereof). With the expectation of a few basic things and some release notes, there is absolutely no documentation for Fedora, which makes it very difficult to solve problems. Remember my video card issue? I couldn’t resolve it, and because I’m stuck in 1024×768 with a 65 Hz refresh rate, Fedora, for me, was unusable. Granted, it is Fedora Test 3, so I expect documentation to become available by the first general release. All in all, if you don’t have any problems, Fedora seems like a stable, fast operating system, with plenty of eye-candy as well.
Summary
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So, as I said, Fedora Test 3 is, most certainly, a test, and as such, has many issues. Enough, in fact, that I would abstain from recommending for daily use. However, its many benefits force me to keep my eye on it and wait anxiously for the final release. It’s very pretty, and very pleasing to the eye. It’s also very quick, stable and very easy to use. Great care has gone into the development of Fedora, and all it needs now is some bug fixing, and some polish, and we may be looking at a real winner.
About the Author
My name is Jason Parker and I’m from Greenville, SC. I’ve been using computers since a very young age, and am a big Open Source advocate. 🙂
I have been hearing and reading a lot about Fedora. I think it looks very promising and so far I haven’t read too many negative things about it. I might have to give it a spin.
I commend Red Hat for their actions here with Fedora. Basically just throwing in the towel on individual end users while not abandoning them completely, i.e., throwing their weight behind Fedora, is great. I think Red Hat knows there is not much money to be made in the individual end user market (yet?) but they are contributing to the development of that area with this. (Red) Hat’s off to them!
I’ve used test 3, since the day it was released, on my laptop, and I have to say that it works great. rh9 had some problems with configuring pcmcia/wlan but fedora worked immediately. Everything is noce and polished.
This is my official favourite distro now!
Radeon 9600/9800 is not supported hardware. ATI has not released doc for R300 based cards so it is not possible to write a driver. You’re stuck with the binary ones from ATI.
I have a system with both SATA and IDE drives (Dell PE400SC, also Dimension 8300). It was a two day ordeal for me to get Fedora running. grub and the BIOS didn’t agree on the numbering of the drives so everything got put in the wrong places. Much hand editing was required to get a bootable system.
and most of the screenshots i see are the same again and again. this is really not very promising. HOW DOES THE GRAPHICAL BOOTSCREEN LOOK LIKE?
I have openoffice.org 1.1 on my install…. not sure what happened with your install.
and it is great, but then I dont have very modern hardware to test the OS on.
The graphical bootscreen is fairly basic – just a progress bar with some fade-in/fade-out text that mention what is happening. I haven’t checked out the very latest version, but it’s nothing to write home about.
I thought Fedora was going to be built around apt? Has this changed?
the screenshot of the partitioner. which might look terrifying to clueless users is actually the advanced installer. by default fedora has an auto partitioner thats easier to use.
I think it is built more around YUM. I have test3 running very stable and love it to bits. As far as I know there are no apt repositories for Fedora… however yum is included on the 3rd cd and is a very nice way of upgrading the system or downloading new programs. However there is very limited package selection and there are not nearly as many packages in YUM as there are for APT. Does anyone have any good YUM mirrors for Fedora that perhaps I am missing?
Fedora features a good installer as far as system installations go, I prefer it to others.
the review mentions the graphics card issue, yes it has issues, i noticed some massive flicker action going on with my nvidia card but that is easily resolved with the nvidia official drivers. (but the X team need to sort that flickering out, bugreport submitted to redhat)
The nicer parts after the reboot is the grub bootloader screen, nice warm colours.
after it has loaded the kernel it starts the service rhgb which gives the impression of booting into X which is a nice needed feature.
then it takes the user to the gdm screen.
All in all Redhat has included alot of gui configuration tools, anaconda powered (python) some of which need an overhaul (redhat-config-httpd and the redhat-config-network which doesnt like two cards on the same machine)
I’d say the next gen. distributions are going to be _very_ nice for the end users pov.
There has even been discussions about gentoo bundling anaconda with the livecd (?)
so watch out for mandrake, gentoo and fedora they are indeed the best of the -open- oss distributions
in debian. it just needs to display a logo and some fading text is nice. what else does a visual artist want. when i am in hacker mode i can verbose output anyway. even in osX i can have my console bootup
>I thought Fedora was going to be built around apt? Has this changed?
yes and no, up2date supports yum and apt repositories.
>As far as I know there are no apt repositories for Fedora
http://rpm.livna.org
and the http://ayo.freshrpms.net rawhide repository.
god this is going to seem like a flamebait, which its not.
But Debian needs to revitalise itself if it wants to compete.
i.e work a bit on the bootup process and other things the end user will notice and pass judgement on.
all very much imo ofcourse.
RE: Video
Thank you for pointing that out, I wonder what kind of solutions there are in that kind of situation. I mean, on Fedora’s end. :/
RE: partitioner screenshot is the “advanced” partitioning mode
Yes, as I mentioned, I started to do an upgrade from RedHat. That’s the partitioner you get in that situation. But you’re correct, the autopartitioner is great and very easy.
Graphical Boot
As mentioned, it’s fairly basic.
You see a little bit of text, then X starts, and you get a dark grey screen with a picture of a computer, the fedora logo, and a purple progress bar with a short description of what’s going on right below it. I would have liked to get a shot of that, but didn’t really know how. :/
Tried installing it before. Biggest problem I had (and with Red Hat 9.0) was getting around the fact that it can’t handle dual videocards for a dual-head system very well. Installing Red Hat with 2 video cards basically borked the initial installation. It was simply easier to reinstall.
Basically, I had to remove one ofthe video cards, setup Red Hat, and then after it was installed, reinstall the hardware.
Not a big problem, most people don’t have a dual head system. However, I believe enough people do that it should warrant some serious looking-into.
> HOW DOES THE GRAPHICAL BOOTSCREEN LOOK LIKE?
Why does this matter to you?
I’m not being facetious — I really want to know. For me, how my OS looks as it boots is about 957th on my list of priorities, as I only boot it a few times a week.
“Why does this matter to you?
I’m not being facetious — I really want to know. For me, how my OS looks as it boots is about 957th on my list of priorities, as I only boot it a few times a week.”
Ah yes, but it’s eye-candy that win’s over some of the non-techies. The graphical bootscreen off SuSE won over one friend of mine. It wasn’t the only thing that won him over, but basically, it was the “Oh cool, what’s that! It looks sweet” factor.
Not a big priority, but something that’s nice, nonetheless.
Tried installing it before. Biggest problem I had (and with Red Hat 9.0) was getting around the fact that it can’t handle dual videocards for a dual-head system very well. Installing Red Hat with 2 video cards basically borked the initial installation. It was simply easier to reinstall.
Basically, I had to remove one ofthe video cards, setup Red Hat, and then after it was installed, reinstall the hardware.
Not a big problem, most people don’t have a dual head system. However, I believe enough people do that it should warrant some serious looking-into.
I have a dual head RedHat 9 system sitting right next to me at work and it wasn’t hard to get working. I didn’t need to take out one of the cards, just went through setup and it only detected the first card, then when RedHat booted I added the second card into XF86Config and it works no problem.
It’s very pleasing to the eye. I’ll see if I can get a few screen shots of it when my review is done. I’m using it as my main home OS for the next 2 weeks (officially starting today). I also convinced my fiance to use it. So in 2 weeks there will be a nice run down of how we use it, some screen shots on how we set it up, what we liked/disliked, features we’d like to see etc etc. By then fedora core should be released and we can see if they fixed any of the problems.
–John Powell
“Radeon 9600/9800 is not supported hardware.”
i assume you ment the 3d acceleration, because 2d works with all new ati cards.
god this is going to seem like a flamebait, which its not.
But Debian needs to revitalise itself if it wants to compete.
i.e work a bit on the bootup process and other things the end user will notice and pass judgement on.
all very much imo ofcourse.
Debian has apt. Debian has the best repositories with high quality packages. There’s no yum, apt-rpm, or urpmi that can compete with that. In other words, Debian rocks.
Victor.
“Debian has apt. Debian has the best repositories with high quality packages.”
Except, as of right now, according to my system admin, the Debian security servers are down right now…essentially preventing him from setting up the servers with the efficiency of apt. =)
Just a little food for thought.
What I want in a distro is something with a decent apt or yum repository that can be easily updated, is reasonably up to date, and just stays out of my way.
Debian is no use for this because it is so ancient. The standard debian party line is “track unstable”, but the problem there, see, is that its unstable. I don’t want to update and find that the package is broken or a bunch of dependencies are messed up. I used to run debian unstable but it kept on breaking my system completely, so no thanks.
Gentoo is source based and I can’t be arsed with waiting 12 hours for KDE to compile or messing about with hundreds of config files.
Fedora seems pretty great to me, been running it since Test1 and its always updated without problem and been a breeze really. The only problem is that the package database is quite small – 700 packages or so. I often need little bits and bobs that’re not in the package database and result in a massive netsearch for appropriate RPMs. I don’t know if they plan to grow the package database to large proportions, but I doubt it somehow. They dropped galeon from Test3, which suggests that they’re not concerned with having a huge repository for users to choose from but rather in providing a standard out of the box solution with little legroom.
Ach. I might just go back to SuSE. All I want is a large, reasonably recent binary repostory that can be quickly and easily updated via apt/yum. I’m not sure if SuSE embraces this sort of stuff (??) – mandrake does but whenever I’ve tried it it has been full of annoying bugs. What to do, what to do!
I don’t know if Debian has the best Apt repository. Stable is rather boring. Testing and Unstable are constantly broken.
Does the graphical boot work with the 2.6 kernel yet?
I do like Fedora’s implementation, w/ the the show details arrow.
As I understand it, this is going to cost way more the SuSe enterprise server.
I think redhat may be pricing their stuff a little too high.
>>>As I understand it, this is going to cost way more the SuSe enterprise server.
Fedora is free.
>>>All I want is a large, reasonably recent binary repository that can be quickly and easily updated via apt/yum
http://freshrpms.net
For all your redhat rpm and hopefully to continue for all your fedora core rpm needs, works with apt as well.
I can’t understand why this can’t be done better. Look at Suse and Mandrake. They both have graphical boot and shutdown also without displaying kernel messages first. Yes, Fedora (Redhat) has the greatest looking desktop in my opinion, but I dislike the fact that they can’t do a propper graphical boot and shutdown. There is no need in a modern operating system to show that. I hope they will fix this before the release, but doubt it. Just my two cents!
For 2d: The 9600/9800 are newer than xfree4.3 so they are not supported in that release. They are supported in xfree cvs right now, so we will have to wait for a new xfree release to get 2d support out of the box. This is why xfree should seperate into a core project and a drivers project, with more frequent release for drivers.
For 3d: Ati has released their own drivers that support the 9600/9800. I have not tried them, but I think they would be the best bet for getting a 9600 to work with fedora. Get it from ati’s site: http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html
my unstable setup rocks but i cheated i installed morphix live cd which IS debian then i just apt every so often
i like it but [flamebait] its not the great commercial fedora or mandrake no cool fancy anaconda/python config apps or boot screen just a rock solid toaster setup (toaster means it just works) [/flamebait]
fresrpms is good
I do use it – its grand for stuff fedora doesn’t include due to licensing foibles, like mplayer. However, I was thinking more of *obscure* stuff that you can often need out of the blue. For example, I know a girl who likes to irc through my computer, and only uses ircii, ever. Or, I needed to try out MythTV due to TV card problems, but the public rpms they provided have nasty clashes, so it resulted in a hellish hunt around CPAN and elsewhere to fulfil dependencies and compile from source. I like freebsd for this – it seems to have *everything* I could possibly want in its packages, meaning I save loads of time on these odds and ends. Unfortunately, its java1.4 support isn’t brilliant, and fedora really is better (nicer looking, more responsive etc) for desktop use, and I can’t give up JPackage (a great repository for java developers, saves tons of times and solves nearly all of my finicky java needs).
All in all, fedora+JPackage is great for my needs, I’m just moaning really because occasionally I have to piss about searching for an age when I need one of the other, non-top 700 packages. Otherwise, its about the best linux distro I’ve ever used – keeps me happy, looks fantastic, and sensibly laid out.
apt seems to work well in test 3 as long as the packages are “signed”. Unfortunately, it won’t work if the packages aren’t signed. I did find however, that it still downloads the packages and all dependent packages, it just doesn’t install them. This can be overcome by launching the packages from konqueror. I hope this is changed before version 1 is released. This has the potential to be a killer distribution!
“For 2d: The 9600/9800 are newer than xfree4.3 so they are not supported in that release.”
sorry, this is still not true. all ati radeon 9600 and 9600 based cards (includes fire x2), do definitely run in unaccelerated 2d mode with the stock xfree 4.3.
i know this, because i have used some of these cards.
Thanks to RedHat for further opening up the development process to their linux distribution.
As for recommending or not recommending test 3, remember the purpose. Test 3 is a beta release, during the install it tells you specifically that it is not suitable for daily use and gives you the option to exit or to install.
I have been impressed for the most part with test 3. I encourage folks to give it a try and if they find a bug to file it in bugzilla. This is what you can do to help improve the final release.
But I still cannot install the Nvidia video drivers, also, the same problem happened with OpenOffice. I installed OO with Synaptic, since it wasn’t in Rawhide.
I’d like to see a review one day that didn’t cover the install at all. Hell, I’d settle for a review that wasn’t 50% about the installation…
I agree, and how about some screenshots that don’t look like every other review?
Or you could install SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux, which does support the ATI 9600 pro and 9800 pro (and about 150 others) Note; that these cards are not only supported under XFree 4.3 but also all versions of XFree back to 4.0.2.
I also agree with your assessment that drivers should be separated from the release of XFree;)
whoever it was that said the Fedora Graphical Boot isn’t that nice is right, the mandrake one i used years ago went straight from Lilo to the GFX. The Fedora one (when i tried Test II) spewed out a load of ugly stuff first. Why is this? Is SuSe’s like the Mandrake one?
Shame because it looks shit hot after that.
#FEDORA …
<earthworm> what’s going on with the Fedora Graphical Boot? the mandrake one i used years ago went straight from Lilo to the GFX. The Fedora one (when i tried Test II) spewed out a load of ugly stuff first. Why is this?
<ska-fan> It’s a different GFX.
<earthworm> they used a different system to Mandrake then?
<ska-fan> With mandrake you have got the ugly stuff in gfx.
* mull was so happy when he read about how to disable graphical boot…
<earthworm> i hear the SuSe one is even nicer than Mandrake’s
<ska-fan> they probably de-uglyfied it, but it’s basically the same stuff.
<earthworm> are there plans to completly get rid of the text output before Fedora 1.0 or is the graphical boot staying as is?
no comment ….
looks like the people in #fedora at that point didn’t think this was a problem
not that those lot can be 100% relied upon for quotation, but i got the feeling they thought it was ok as it is.
Am currently updating Redhat 9 to Fedora Test 3 (0.95) through apt. seems to be going alright, so far but got lots more to download.
http://download.fedora.us/fedora/redhat/0.95/i386/RPMS.stable/
download apt (or yum if your that way inclined)
apt-get update && apt-get dist upgrade
and your on the way of running Fedora Test 3
Or you could install SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux, which does support the ATI 9600 pro and 9800 pro (and about 150 others)
I notice that, according to your site, that SciTech is an Official Driver Development Partner with ATI. Does that mean ATI will be abandoning their own binary releases and supporting XFree86 through SNAP exclusively?
[NOTE: I didn’t realise this was so long. Lol – oh well, I think it’s reasonably on topic, and I’ve written it now so I might as well post it. <shrug>]
“Debian is no use for this because it is so ancient. The standard debian party line is “track unstable”, but the problem there, see, is that its unstable. I don’t want to update and find that the package is broken or a bunch of dependencies are messed up. I used to run debian unstable but it kept on breaking my system completely, so no thanks.”
“Party line”? Oh great, another “Open Source developers are Communists!” troll. 😛
Try installing apt-listbugs (http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/apt-listbugs.html). It will warn you if you’re about to install a package with a serious bug filed against it. It will then display the bug and ask whether you wish to proceed (it might be filed against a different architecture, or whatever). For what it’s worth, I’ve experienced remarkably little breakage, and certainly nothing severe enough to bork my system. In addition, the Release Manager plans to reduce the amount of churn in Unstable by encouraging developers to upload the *really* bleeding-edge stuff (which tends to be what causes most of the breakage) to Experimental instead. Get it from the horses mouth if you’re interested (http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/debian-devel-ann…).
Besides, different strokes for different folks, and all that. Personally, until Fedora has a packaging policy to rival that of the Debian Policy Manual (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/), an equivalent number of packages (10,000+) and a QA process of a similar quality to that of the triple-tiered Unstable–>Testing–> Stable release process, then perhaps I’d be willing to see it as being in the same league. Those with different priorities will no doubt see things in a different light.
While I run Unstable on my desktop and laptop, and am entirely happy with it in said capacities, it’s important to remember that Unstable and Testing are (whilst fully-functional in themselves, as well) really only there as a means to an end for producing the next release. And the end product rocks! Debian Stable is, IMO, the best distribution for a server or workstation.
It’s incredibly low-maintenance, has timely security updates, is rock-solid, and supports seamless on-the-fly upgrading from one stable release to the next. Since the only updates allowed in are security patches, it really does practically maintain itself; after the initial setup and securing of the box, install cron-apt (http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/cron-apt.html) and have it poll for updates daily from security.debian.org. Best practice would be to give the updates a once-over first (and indeed, apt-cron’s default behaviour is to download without installing, and notify the sysadmin via email) but I’ve personally had no problems with having it install the updates automatically.
[Aside: whoever complained about security.debian.org sometimes being down made a good point. There are *still* no official mirrors, and an unofficial mirror would be highly suspect by definition. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.]
Anyway, I don’t think Fedora’s going to be rivalling Debian in the server/workstation department in the foreseeable future, and meanwhile Debian is actively seeking to remedy some of its biggest shortcomings with regard to the desktop end-users, as well. The new installer is probably the most visible example of this, and is on-track for being included in the next release. There are plenty of other efforts underway, as well, e.g. a “tags” database for packages which will allow a much more flexible approach to browsing the package tree – an end user will be able to view just the KDE/QT applications, for instance.
To conclude: Debian’s already pretty much a sysadmin’s dream (IMO) for the workstation/server sector, and in the future it’s going to be a whole lot more appealing on the desktop and to the end user as well. In the end, though, there’s always going to be a trade-off between having the very latest software and having *stable* software, even in Unstable, and Debian most definitely makes the latter its priority. Those that don’t like it can either a) be patient b) pitch in and help fix the issues that are preventing the software from migrating to Testing (and thus the next Stable) or even from entering Unstable in the first place, as was the case with KDE 3 or c) find a different distribution with different focus/priorities. Fedora sounds like it will be perfect for those who would opt for category c) and thus don’t share Debian’s focus on quality control, or at least not to the same degree.
Gnome 2.4 hauls ass compared to 2.2
Put this in your apt sources.list..
rpm http://download.fedora.us fedora/redhat/0.95/i386 os updates
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
so far, I’m impressed.. (Including apt is a big deal for me.)
i couldn’t find open office in the menus, either, so i just pulled up the terminal and typed this:
oowriter
the program started up, and then i just created a launcher.
Any unbiased recommendation of course 😉
I generally speaking suggest that anyone who wants hardcore performance and is running *NIX, they’re better of grabbing a copy of Accelerate-X and Summit. XFree86 is suitable for most people but for those who want the extra “oomff”, they’re better off with a commercial X server and drivers.
Even if you download a freebie Linux distro and install the commercial X server, it is still going to work out cheaper than buying Windows, and in some cases (according to xigs benchmarks) will perform better.
“Or you could install SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux, which does support the ATI 9600 pro and 9800 pro (and about 150 others)”
I notice that, according to your site, that SciTech is an Official Driver Development Partner with ATI. Does that mean ATI will be abandoning their own binary releases and supporting XFree86 through SNAP exclusively?
Well XIG has a strong relationship with ATI, Matrox and Nvidia, yet, these companies haven’t stopped developing drivers for Linux.
The problem with SNAP is that it doesn’t have 3d acceleration or hardware OpenGL, until those are fixed you might as well stick to the standard 2d accelerated drivers included with XFree86.
If you have inadvertently installed Linux over your Microsoft Windows installation, it is usually very easy to re-install Windows. What you basically do is you put the installation CD-ROM to the CD-drive and a screen pops up saying that it is going to wipe your hard disk clean and install Windows, and it asks your permission to proceed. Then the installation program auto-detects your hardware and once it’s finished it dumps you into a desktop that is ready to run out of the box. This is the kind of installation procedure that I think Linux should also have. RedHat/Fedora could really learn something from Microsoft considering the ease of installation.
Damn GNOME 2.4 on Fedora is fast. I’m trying it out to see who far GNOME has come since 2.0, and I must say I’m impressed. Redraw performance is *very* fast. The nice synchronization between the window frame and window contents makes for a very solid feeling. Very impressive.
I am wondering if this distribution will be available in stores or only for download. I don’t mind downloading but I prefer to buy a good copy that i know that works and at least i can support the community developement. So, if anyone knows if this will be sold post some info. I am trying to decide wether to buy suse 9 or wait for fedora release.
If you add a –force tag to the apt or rpm command you use it will install without complaint.
It won’t be, AFAIK. But since you’re posting from a college campus, would it be possible for you to do an FTP install from there? No need for CDs, you know?
FTP installs are _highly_ under-rated, even for RedHat (which can’t do them in graphical install, IIRC).
-Erwos
hi Jon,
you mention the dimension 8300/with SATA raid and fedora test 3
I tried this in Fedora core test 3
http://www.promise.com/support/file/driver/1_ft3xx-rhb18.zip
followed the ‘howto’ and booted into fedora ‘expert’ install mode,
pointed it to the driver in /dev/fd0 and it said it couldnt find a driver matching my hardware so no hd’s found
is that becuase i already have the two hd’s running raid 0 ?
or is it because the driver is for rh9 and not fedora
please email me and let me know how you got SATA/promise raid card working with fedora core test 3
cheers
anyweb AT hotmail DOT com
http://anyweb.kicks-ass.net
Redhat Magazine includes CD-Roms with fedora, but i’m afraid it’s only available in german and italian
http://www.redhatmagazine.com/
I build Windows systems every day, and I would much rather install a consumer Linux than Windows. Linux is easier to do the basic install in most respects.
With Windows you partition the drive just as in Linux. (Linux does ask for a swap partition though)
They both if you want to format the partitions and with what filesystem. (can’t we settle on a good one for the desktop?)
They both ask you for your language, timezone, networking, etc.
They both reboot and dump you on a desktop.
You have a small chance of having a good video card driver at this point in Windows. Many of the good drivers are included in XFree. With either one, you still have to set the resolution, color depth and refresh rate. If the video driver is not perfect you still can’t get DDC info from the monitor and get the default, safe, flickering refresh rate.
Now Windows needs chipset drivers. Linux has almost always them.
Then you need sound card drivers. Linux usually has them, especially if the distro uses Alsa.
Maybe the network card was installed with Windows, maybe not. Linux usually has them.
You may need USB2.0 drivers for Windows. That needs a 100+MB service pack first. Linux has them.
Go through a few reboots and 40-60MB of downloads from Windows Update. Linux needs only one reboot and the updates tend to be much smaller.
Now install usable CD writer software. Linux usually has it already.
Now install Office on Windows. Linux usually has OO.org, KOffice or similar.
Now update Office from the net. Linux office suites usually don’t need updating.
Install an antivirus program for Windows. Linux is an antivirus program.
Which sounds easier? Where a good Linux distro has issues, Windows often has a similar problem and then some.
Mutiny
Any distro that doesn’t have a serious package manager will not get a thumbs up from me, simple. Because that’s the only feature that seperates linux distros. And that’s why I consider 97% of Linux distros as silly and plain nonsensical. Fedora at present fall into that category.
I apologize I may sound a little repugnant, but I hope you understand my perspective. Give me a call when any distro beats portage(currently the best feature rich package manager) robustness (6000 packages) and debian apts(haven’t used it in a while, I’m sure it’s improving) QA and security (10000 pacakges). Mind you both gentoo’s portage and debian’s apt suck. They only suck less than anything I’ve seen resembling a package management system. Which is really sad.
LSB is also silly for adopting RPMs as it’s package manager standard. I’ll give Red Hat/Fedora one thing though, they are relatively painless to install. My hat’s up for that and nothing else.
My guess is that Suse and Mandrake use lpp (linux progress patch) combined with bootsplash, or something. Lpp for hiding kernel messages, and bootsplash for hiding init messages.
Just guessing here though, but theoretically that could be a solution.
stop the gentoo trolls. yeah youre l33t. yeah you have the s3r1o4s c0mput1ng p0w32 to compile xfr33 every week. stay with your l33t g3nt00. the performance advantage is really worth it. next!
“Any distro that doesn’t have a serious package manager will not get a thumbs up from me, simple. Because that’s the only feature that seperates linux distros.”
With such a bad perception and one of which I must think that it makes you disabled you shouldn’t post. Really. In a perfect world accessibility should be the number one differenciating feature between distros for you. No point reading the rest of your comment.
So far so good! I admit, that RH has issues with packet management! How to uninstall off-cd RPM’s rpm via GnomeRPM PM still basles me! I do it through console, but that’s not it for most of newbies. Apt works great (console or synaptic) YAST PM also knows what to do with them, but RH…
And still I’d love to see editable start “hat” menues
I’m not really drawn to gentoo by having to compile my own applications, I would really like there to be a binary portage too. Luckily in new versions of Gentoo the cds have compiled packages for your archatecture so you can get right into GNOME from the start.
I’m drawn to it by the control and simplicity of it. I like having total control of knowing what’s on my system and getting read of applications and utilities I don’t want or need. I did the same thing when I used windows.
I also find gentoo’s dep management system great too.
“Any distro that doesn’t have a serious package manager will not get a thumbs up from me, simple. … And that’s why I consider 97% of Linux distros as silly and plain nonsensical. Fedora at present fall into that category.”
Not good at reading, are you?
up2date now supports YUM and apt archives.You know that up2date supports yanking packages off a channel with all dependencies, right?
No, you probably didn’t. Go educate yourself before stunning us all with your inability to read the article.
For the record, portage is not all it’s cracked up to be, either.
-Erwos
Are you kidding me???
What windows are you installing? Sounds like 98 since XP has all that for you.
> With Windows you partition the drive just as in Linux. (Linux does ask for a swap partition though)
> They both if you want to format the partitions and with what filesystem. (can’t we settle on a good one for the desktop?)
> They both ask you for your language, timezone, networking, etc.
> They both reboot and dump you on a desktop.
So far all the same.
> You have a small chance of having a good video card driver at this point in Windows. Many of the good drivers are included in XFree. With either one, you still have to set the resolution, color depth and refresh rate. If the video driver is not perfect you still can’t get DDC info from the monitor and get the default, safe, flickering refresh rate.
> Now Windows needs chipset drivers. Linux has almost always them.
> Then you need sound card drivers. Linux usually has them, especially if the distro uses Alsa.
> Maybe the network card was installed with Windows, maybe not. Linux usually has them.
All of these drivers are installed for you. If you want the latest drivers, then go get them. The Windows CD has all these drivers for you.
> You may need USB2.0 drivers for Windows. That needs a 100+MB service pack first. Linux has them.
Windows XP has the bult in. If you install 3 year old Windows, then you should compare it to 3 year old Linux distros.
> Go through a few reboots and 40-60MB of downloads from Windows Update. Linux needs only one reboot and the updates tend to be much smaller.
Windows only needs 1 reboot too, if that. And Linux has tons of patches too.
> Now install usable CD writer software. Linux usually has it already.
Built into Windows.
> Now install Office on Windows. Linux usually has OO.org, KOffice or similar.
Windows does not come with a Office suite. Go install one. OO.org is easy to install.
> Now update Office from the net. Linux office suites usually don’t need updating.
Then don’t install Office and install OO.org instead, no updating.
> Install an antivirus program for Windows. Linux is an antivirus program.
Nothing wrong with doing this.
> Which sounds easier? Where a good Linux distro has issues, Windows often has a similar problem and then some.
What about messing with Xfree when it doesn’t work right the first time (very common)
What about never getting some hardware working (very common)
What about never getting ACPI working correctly (especially on a laptop, very common)
Let me know if you want some more.
# up2date –installall –channel redhat-linux-i386-9
“What about messing with Xfree when it doesn’t work right the first time (very common)
What about never getting some hardware working (very common)
What about never getting ACPI working correctly (especially on a laptop, very common)
Let me know if you want some more.”
Actually those are all very common issues with installing Windows XP as well. Bottom line is both OS have issues, and both have strengths. Use whatever is right for the job. Just because I can use the 50 pound sledge to drive a nail does not mean I should, as the basic claw hammer would be right for that job.
Radeon 9600/9800 is not supported hardware. ATI has not released doc for R300 based cards so it is not possible to write a driver. You’re stuck with the binary ones from ATI.
There are new drivers out for the ATI cards (someone here on OSNews was nice enough to provide a link to them about a week or so ago), but I couldn’t get them to work. They appeared to be updated Firewire drivers
I have a system with both SATA and IDE drives (Dell PE400SC, also Dimension 8300). It was a two day ordeal for me to get Fedora running. grub and the BIOS didn’t agree on the numbering of the drives so everything got put in the wrong places. Much hand editing was required to get a bootable system.
Same problem here… Even if I disable the SATA drives in bios, Linux still reports that there’s problems with the first IDE drive and wants to format it before proceeding.
The only distribution I’ve found that worked in this setup was Gentoo.
I don’t know why the big Linux pushers are taking so long to address SATA, especially considering how the Canterwood chipsets are selling!
> “What about messing with Xfree when it doesn’t work right the first time (very common)
What about never getting some hardware working (very common)
What about never getting ACPI working correctly (especially on a laptop, very common)
> Let me know if you want some more.”
> Actually those are all very common issues with installing Windows XP as well. Bottom line is both OS have issues, and both have strengths. Use whatever is right for the job. Just because I can use the 50 pound sledge to drive a nail does not mean I should, as the basic claw hammer would be right for that job.
When is installing XFree an issue in Windows? The GUI just works in windows. If hardware doesnt work in windows, it doesnt work anywhere (x86 only). ACPI just works in windows.
But you are correct. Both OS’s have jobs that they are better for. The original post stated it is easier to install a consumer linux then windows. I just called him/her on that point alone.
I’ve been using linux since 1997 and cut my teeth on RedHat, but after installing SuSE (i started with version 7.0, currently running 8.2 and waiting for 9.0 to ship) I will never go back to redhat.
I’ve tried everyone of RedHat’s new versions 7.x – 9.0, including Fedora, but it just’s lacks the polish and integration that SuSE has. Not to mention the sheer number of applications.
I’m not saying RH stinks, it just doesn’t work for me and I prefer something different. If you haven’t tried SuSE, maybe you should and you may not go back to RH either
i have a few issues with these ones…
>> Go through a few reboots and 40-60MB of downloads from
>> Windows Update. Linux needs only one reboot and the
>> updates tend to be much smaller.
> Windows only needs 1 reboot too, if that. And Linux has
> tons of patches too.
i think what he means is that, you download the patches for linux, install, and reboot. done. you download the patches through windowsupdate for windows, reboot, check windowsupdate again, more patches, reboot, done. i hate that i update once. reboot, then have to check windowsupdate and discover 5 new updates for the patches i’ve just installed.
>> Now install usable CD writer software. Linux usually has
>> it already.
> Built into Windows.
usable, which he probably means, being able to write data and audio, writing multisession, writing an ISO file, writing mixed data, actually being given the option to use the files again for a different CD, etc. don’t you hate that the first time MS built cdburning into winxp, that it didn’t burn all the files? you would have thought they actually tested it.
PLUS::: Please stop doing a Linux Installation Review. The next time I see another review where the majority of the review is about installing Linux, I’ll scream. Seriously, it makes us Linux people look like all we do with systems is install it, not use it.
“Seriously, it makes us Linux people look like all we do with systems is install it”
I dunno about you, but I feel cleaner installing my OS every morning..
LOL!
This is not really important, perhaps not even a UI issue, just punctilious. Gnome in RedHat used to have the same home icon on the desktop and on the Nautilus toolbar, since they introduced the unified Blue Curve theme (which is very nice) they messed up some things and ended up having two different home icons. This is no bug, they know well, so having a polished UI it makes me wonder why don’t they simply change the toolbar icon.
I have not re-installed my OS on my home box since I switched to Redhat.
Sure, I have done upgrades and updates but no re-install.
I re-installed my Suse box at work when I switched to 8.2.
Keep the home dirs on a seperate partition and that helps a lot.
However, I know what the original commentor meant. There are a few l33t haXors out there that feel the need to change distros every other day twice on the weekends. It is annoying.
I set up my box and run it as long and as hard as I can.
What is the fascination for normal folks (not OSnews folks doing testing) to constantly re-install?
I don’t get it. Once I get my setup tweaked I run that setup for as long as I reasonably can.
It is my workstation for goodness sakes. I have work to do and such.
It was a joke. 😉
I installed Fedora last night and it was a nice simple install but I actually still prefer Mandrakes. Mandrake asks you if all the configurations are right, if everythings setup and THEN you can load into the OS. Redhat just does it and then I found out that…alot of it wasn’t configured correctly. Not too large a deal, especially since Fedora is still Beta but…its irritating.
I do like the look of Fedora though and it IS quite zippy, especially on a Raptor drive. However, it only sees my drive that I installed too. The three other drives I have are all NTFS, which wasn’t a problem with Mandrake. Do I have to compile in a module for NTFS support in Redhat? Or is it just being gay on my setup?
Thats honestly the only downside I’ve seen so far.
NTFS with Fedora: You may have to compile NTFS support into it, best make sure its patched right up to that latest version. With RedHat 9 you can download RPMS from the NTFS project
I wouldn’t use NTFS through linux through it is very dangerous, I would rather convert a few NTFS partitions to FAT32 which has been proven safe.
Um, what you’re describing isn’t a Windows install disk. Its a system restore disk. When your computer manufacturer (Compaq is notorious for this) makes your computer, they make a disk image of the default installation and label it a restore disk. The restore disk simply boots into an OS on the CD and copies a disk image over to your hard drive. The reason Linux distros can’t provide something like that is the same reason Microsoft doesn’t provide something like that — the disk image will only work on the machine that it was originally dumped from. Nothing stops manufacturers from doing the same thing with machines that have Linux preinstalled.
Well XIG has a strong relationship with ATI, Matrox and Nvidia, yet, these companies haven’t stopped developing drivers for Linux.
Perhaps XIG has been unable to provide these companies with sufficient reason to do so;)
I believe I have said this before but… If you are in the market to spend between $39.95-$200 per unit (depending on features and supported chipsets), and are in the mood to replace XFree86 with a non-standard and or cusotom X-server, than XIG has the only *commercial* solution that I know of. However, if you are looking for a graphics driver solution that works well with all versions of XFree86 4.0.2-4.3 with the same supported features and chipsets for $19.95 than SciTech has a great solution available today. But dont take my word for it compare both products and support show your support for the one that fits your needs best.
SciTech offers a 21-day free trial of Scitech SNAP Graphics for Linux. Download here:
http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/ent/snap_linux.html
“XIG has the only *commercial* solution that I know of”
There are _at least_ 2 commercial X server solutions: AcceleratedX and MetroX.
Additionally, SNAP doesn’t have 3D support. AcceleratedX does. There’s a non-3D version of it, so you’re not entirely wrong.
If you don’t need 3D support, SNAP can be a good deal. But if you do need it, you’re just out of luck without buying a commercial Xserver.
However, it’s really quite unlikely that anyone’s going to need any of these solutions in the future. Both ATI and nVidia have committed to Linux drivers, and S3 recently did a full source release of _all_ their savage chipsets’ drivers for XF86.
In other words, what with the consolidation in the graphics industry, SNAP/XiG/MetroLink are going to be solving a problem that doesn’t exist.
-Erwos
The_Thunderbird – I don’t have much of a choice at the moment. NTFS is still far better for WIndows XP which is the dominant enviroment I work in. All I wanted to do was get access to my media drives
And there’s no free tool out there that I know of that can succesfully convert NTFS to Fat32 without destroying all data. A kinda important point! 
Just run oosetup at the command line. After you click through the setup, everything will show up in your menu.
Erwos, Thanks for the additional information always appreciated. A quick clarification SciTech does currently support 3D. However, at this time support is software only. Next point, A primary problem we seek to solve is manageability across the enterprise. Some of our larger customers have thousands of systems of various types and configurations (ATI, Matrox nvidia, S3, Intel, and more)all connected and managed on the same network. With SciTech SNAP these customer have the ability to install a single driver on every system with confidence with out the need to individually twaek config files or update individual machines.
Also important to remember is that Linux is not the only kernel in the world (hard to believe but true none the less;) – SciTech SNAP can currently support the following (OS’es/API’s) DOS-32bit, QNX4, SMX, OS/2, Qt/Embedded, WxWindows, WxUniversal, Windows, Linux (X11), Athene, and more all with the *same* accelerated drivers.
I’m using pretty much the latest version of redhat-artwork and the home toolbar icon looks just like the home icon on the desktop (the latter beeing on top of a folder image though). Only the perspective is a little bit different, so this issue seems to be solved.
Ok – Lesson learned, never type http://www.metroX.com when looking for metroX as in metrolink… (msg to scitech sys admin – Erwos made me do it in the name of research;)
Once I realized the error of my ways and found the correct site it became obvious that metroX IMHO should not be considered a viable end-user/enterprise commercial solution as its chip support looks about 3 years behind the curve. No Radeon’s, no modern nvidia chipsets, ditto with Matrox Intel, S3 and the rest).
The other option you mentioned – Accelerated-X is from XIG which I did mention. So I think I am safe to say that SciTech SNAP Graphics and XIG are the two primary commercial solutions available.
XVideo, X Cursors, and IGP 3xxM support yet?
The next release should put a smile on your face:) If you are an existing customer this will be a free update – cheers!
Andrew
I will be one as soon as I can use it. 😉
You may find this link to be helpful:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2003-October/msg00…
It discusses how Fedora supports recent ATI cards (the 9600 and 9800 included) but doesn’t include all of the PCI IDs, which are used to identify specific versions of the card.
It also includes instructions to figure out if your system should work, but just needs to learn which driver should be used for the card in your system. If you find something useful from it, it’s suggested that you file a bug with the pertinent info at http://bugzilla.redhat.com . This process is pretty straightforward – I did it during a beta a few years ago for a different card.
Open Office is installed. Try running oowriter from the command line and then you’ll find the icons under Office in the menues.
This is a noted bug and will be fixed before release.
It seems that everybody here agree on the fact RPM system and specificaly dependence resolution sucks hard.
Nowadays Fedora people try to adapt APT and DEB packages to RH distribution. This seems quite complicated, as those same people still want to stick with RPMs too.
The question is: why nobody try to adapt the only good thing in RH (installation part) into Debian? Would not it be much simpler? Is there copyright issue (as in SuSE Yast)? Is RedHat installer closed-source?
Don’t upgrade to Fedora from RedHat 9 if you’ve installed Ximian Desktop.. I spent 2 hours cleaning up the mess I found w/ several borked packages. There were issues with evolution, gimp, openoffice, redhat-artwork, fontconfig, etc. Just do a fresh install instead.
A new Debian installer is in the works, and you can check its progress and download testing images at http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/getting_started .
I believe the main hurdle has been in porting the code and getting it up and running without problems on all 11 of Debian’s supported architectures. Additionally, it has had to be made sufficiently flexible to support Debian HURD, Debian-BSD, and any other non-Linux ports that may appear in the future.
RedHat’s installer simply wouldn’t be up to the task.
<rant>
People say Debian need’s a graphical boot, but debian is not a desktop oriented distro (like mandrake, fedora…). If you want your boot screen, install it your self (like I did for my family) or get lindows, xanderOS, Lycoris… Or join the debian-desktop project and make a difference instead of complaining…
</rant>
Just installed Fedora, and I must say, any desire I had to install Debian is dead for the forseeable future.
Fast install, graphical boot, beautiful desktop, AND it caught all my hardware devices, including my USB WiFi. OK, I had to install the nVidia graphics and nForce drivers, but I had to do that in Windows, too.
The speed is awesome, too, and I haven’t even turned on DMA yet. Dual boot with Win98 works like a charm as well, right out of the box.
I cannot recommend it highly enough when it goes to release.
-Erwos