OSNews

Probably the most annoying thing in the AMD64 world is that even though years have passed since AMD released Athlon 64, Macromedia, as far as I konw, has not released any Flash player for AMD 64 (neither Linux, nor Windows). You can try mozilla-swfdec with yum, but for me it worked only once and it didn't show everything. But that's better then nothing, I guess.

Java:

Sun has released java for AMD 64. Go to java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp and look for jdk-1_5_0-linux-amd64-rpm.bin, 39.14 MB. Blackdown has some AMD 64 bit Java: www.blackdown.org/java-linux And here is a guide to installing a java plugin in Firefox . Does it work for you?

32 bit compatibility:

Theoretically Fedora should be like every other 32 bit Linux. Keep in mind that by default 64 bit libraries are preferred. A helpful command is "linux32." It is a shell script that makes the environment look like a standard i686. Suppose you want to compile something to 32bit not 64 bit - you use linux32. Also use it when a program refuses to install saying your system is unsupported.

Games:

Games are important indicator (we talking about a desktop system) as they push system, video and audio resources to the limit. I played UT2004 64bit with nvidia geForce2 64MB and the performace was good. It's hard to make comparison as this is OpenGL and not Direct 3D. The Unreal engine is just good and I think more dependent on the CPU than most engines. Loki Quake3 for Linux was fine too, except for the missing sound. Use linux32 to install quake3. I bought an ATI video card (see above) - for the money it is a good card. I set up the drivers and installed UT2004demo 64bit. It just runs too fast! All weapons are like machine guns and all bots are extemely fast as you are too. I also tried DOOM3 Linux demo just to see how it works. The first time everything crashed but it was maybe due to the fact that I configured everything to maximal. Next time I changed the settings to medium details and it worked. Sound was missing again: "/dev/dsp failed: Input/output error" as in Quake3. ! I tried all sort of hacks but it just didn't work, but I'm sure someone has gotten it to work. In some respects, ID software are to blame.

Recommendations about Fedora Core:

• Faster booting process
• NFS service is in the default instalation running. This is not a good security practice as most people do not use NFS!
• Still no graphical installation tool. That fact is ridiculous in some respects. All other distros have I think. GYUM is probably the best candidate. It’s high time that such a tool be part of the OS.
• Where is the help (the hell)? In the start menu there MUST be a section called HELP. And if it is not built in, there should be links to: www.fedorafaq.org and www.fedoraforum.org and a few more uyseful resources.
• Why are ATI and NVIDIA drivers are NOT included in the CD installation and installed by default? Also xorg.conf should be configured. The drivers should be in rpm format in order to be easier to update. livna.rpms have them in testing. If you install a new kernel - the drivers should be reinstalled automatically. They should have a dependency to the new kernel (?) or at least you should be warned that they are not yet available. Is it copyright laws or what is the problem in this case?

Fedora AMD 64 specific:

• YUM should have a options for 32 bit and 64 bit updates. When there is no 64 bit package it should ask you whether you want to install the 32 bit package.
• People should somehow learn about the linux32 command and maybe this command should be improved. It should be added to the startmenu as “Execute a 32 bit application” and "Tar.gz source to compile 32 bit".

Some cosmetic issues, etc:

• The red notificacation area (Red Hat update tool) in the taskbar(panel) should not be only red and blue. It should be red for critical updates like kernel and selinux and other security patches, green for updates that add new faetures rather than security issues. Blue is fine for everything else.
• YUM is still slow. Shouldn’t it be compiled native by the python compiler or it is already?
• There must be a startup menu entry that install mp3 plugin, flash, java, mplayer. The user to be responsible for using and downloading this software if RedHat are so strict about that. (this is not mine idea actually)
• A Samba service running by default is not a good idea, but if it were so, it might be very useful every user to have a directory in his home directory called "Shared Documents." The samba service to have a read-only access only to each user's "Shared documents" folder. The idea is, people who are not familiar with Linux to share their documents easier.