Frank writes: “A new beta recently appeared from RedHat and this article has in-depth analysis of the release and finds many different problems with it.” Please note that OSNews also published a preview of Red Hat 8.1-Phoebe3 a few days ago, accompanied by screenshots.
Impressions of Phoebe, the Latest RedHat 8.1 Beta
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Too bad vbrad.com doesn’t want to talk to me
Works fine from here.
I’ve downloaded 8.1 over the weekend to give it a spin. Overall, I really, really liked it. To me it seemed snappier, more refined & the font rendering is just amazing. Mozilla fonts were gorgeous. All the 8.0 packages I tried installed without difficulty. I did see a little instability in Evolution & Mozilla, but it’s still beta. I’m a Gnome user, so I can only speek from that perspective. Mozilla flew open on my machine, much faster than before…
Final release should be sweet…
Oh yeah, there is the option to have windows roll-up or minmax on dbl clicking the title bar in Gnome 2.2…
Did I mention the great font rendereng?
Too bad vendors are too scared to produce DRIVERS GRRRR! 🙁
Nautilus is slow on my boxen too. Same thing. Konqueror and most kde apps just fly.
I have been thinking about upgrading.
Will menu editing be enabled? I went through some of the hacks to re-enable editing on RH8 but I hope it ships in a waorking state. I have heard that Havoc was holding this back or thinking about getting it included at various times.
Also, I hope that many of nyquist gtk2 gnome2 rpms of various apps will work. I think I will email him on that. I got gnumeric, Beta of Abiword and a number of other apps from him so I hope his stuff will still work.
Are they including any new config tools? I love RH’s config tools but they need more of them. A boot config to adjust grub parameters, DMA tool for HD settings and syconfig editor is needed badly.
Though the article is still not viewable from my connection, i still like 8.0.94 a lot, it seems very stable and has a couple of very neat improvements.
I downloaded and installed it and was impressed with the improvements. It actually found my old Acer scanner and got it going with SANE-without any exercises in configuring, a first for RH, Mandrake, Lycoris, and Xandros. Fonts are nice, too.Hope the final release is as good or better.
Also a visual way to install fonts (which is already easy, but a tool would be nice), GRUB/LILO configuration tool, menu editor and a website called apps.redhat.com where people can upload binaries for RH in a similar way as in bebits.com, without dependancy problems. Sure, there is psyche.freshrpms.net, but it is not as good as bebits, and it is not part of red hat (the idea would be that Red Hat would have a *real* application manager and a link that would say “download new software” and that would automatically go to apps.redhat.com that would be the ONE place for software, for free). This can greatly help dependancy hell in apps, if it gets a bit “formal” and developers are instructed to upload binaries that don’t have big dependancy probs. After Red Hat does all that, I think they will be an even better contender in the desktop market.
BTW, there is not a way currently to share an internet connection via wireless or normal ethernet, right (not sure)? That would be great too.
Also, a “Start up apps” tool would be nice, Gamma correction tool, energy saver tool, better Camera app, and for Christ’s sake, please include a good media player than can play most common formats, INCLUDING DVD and mp3. Yes, Red Hat would need to shave off some money to get the licenses, but it is needed, as every modern OS does those, even if these licensed apps only get included in the commercial versions.
I am using the Mandrake Galaxy theme with the Redhat icons and it makes a really consistent looking desktop. The GTK, GTK2, and KDE apps actually look like they belong together.
As for the overall inconsistant look on most Linux boxes, Windows had this problem for years. This is just growing pains, and eventually there will be more adoption of the freedesktop standards so everything will fit together.
Font installation
KDE Font Installer. I have no idea what individual package it was under but I had a launcher in Extras for it. I want fontilus to have a Font control panel hook and an option to install fonts system-wide.
Also, a “Start up apps” tool would be nice
This is Sessions in Gnome for RH8 it was under Extras and then Preferences but I have no idea what it is in KDE.
BTW, I agree on the multimedia stuff.
On the dependency and apps stuff, I think that the Redhat program manager thing needs to have an apt backend and a configurable option to enable support for freshrpms with warnings and dislaimers galore indicating that RH offers no support for those installed packages. This would fill a big need in apps and dependency resolution.
I wish RH would include common browser plugins like SuSE and Mandrake (I believe) does.
How did the nautilus-media work for you? I thought it would play many common formats.
The DVD stuff is sticky business legal-wise though. After setting up the right parameters for their DVD device I have a friend that got ogle working very well. This is another place where apt connected to a good package manager would be really nice.
With proper warnings and disclaimers I think that RH should also allow through their update tool the download and installation of 3rdparty hardware drivers like Nvidia, ATI and even ltmodem stuff but this one is debatable.
This is a Gnome thing so the KDE folks can tune-out on this one. A default set of generic nautilus-scripts would really be nice. This is one of the great forgotten tools available in Nautilus. It is really nice to be able to highlight 8 files and scp them across the country with a few mouse clicks for example or convert jpeg to pngs the same way. It is funny people keep mentioning the speed because I have heard it is much improved in Gnome 2.2. I have not felt speed was an issue in Gnome since I Gnome 2.0.1 but that is me.
Also, I want graphical boot messages. On SuSE as the system boots the messages have a nice graphical frame and this looks very nice and professional. Wish RH had it. Yes, its eye candy but so is a graphical login screen. Eugenia might know what I mean. I think the transfer from the console boot messages to the GDM screen is harsh.
A graphical GRUB, Hard Drive options (DMA for us geeks out there) and a sysconfig editor would all be really nice.
Oh yeah, give me a better gtk2 style kudzu app instead of that console thing (frambuffer mode or something) when the system detects new hardware. Once again, it is eyecandy but it is consistent interface style eyecandy.
As a scripter and a software configuration manager it would be nice if they included Apotheke which is a nautilus CVS view.
> I think that the Redhat program manager thing needs to have an apt backend and a configurable option to enable support for freshrpms with warnings and dislaimers galore indicating that RH offers no support for those installed packages. This would fill a big need in apps and dependency resolution.
Nope, that doesn’t solve the dependancy problem, it just hides it. Developers should learn to statically link *sometimes* when the application has way too many deps, and the application is indeded for desktop consumption. I am not always for static linking, in fact I believe that BeOS had it right when you could put the needed libs on <app folder>/lib/ and everything would work fine, but under a Unix, I wouldn’t mind some thinking before releasing an RPM that has 30 non-default-system dependancies. Also, I don’t want third party RPMs to replace system libraries, I want a halt on the hell that could generate to a newbie. Red Hat should have a system like Apple’s for OSX where via the web you can download new libs that are PROPERLY tested and they don’t break existing binaries.
> A default set of generic nautilus-scripts would really be nice.
YES! Especially that “Open Terminal Here” script, which is _super_ useful.
“and for Christ’s sake, please include a good media player than can play most common formats, INCLUDING DVD and mp3…”
AMEN!
just in case that someone is still looking which videoplayer he/she should install, i can only recommend XINE-it eats (nearly) every format that’s out there, there are nightly builds in rpm-format which have installed painlessly on my rh 8.0 (thw whole installationprocess is very easy-just follow the instructions).
you can choose between different skins and a frontend for gnome as well as a plugin for mozilla (which ranks no.1 on my overall wishlist!) is also in the works. XINE is not just simply a player, but a whole modular media framework-makes one wonder why gnome has opted for the imo much inferior gestreamer…?!
check it out:
http://xinehq.de/index.php/home
download for red hat
http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/
of course, there’s also mplayer, but its pita to install, and there are also no rpms for redhat (actually, the programmers hate! red hat)
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design5/screen.html
it’s really strange that red hat refuses to include oone of those, even if it would be just the basic player without the “illegal” codes like they already do with XMMS.
best regards!
I plead ignorance on my part. Why has the plural for box become ‘boxen’? I have read it a couple of times on various sites and can NOT figure it out.
“Box”, according to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, is an old English word. Why would it take a modern German plural?
Intrigued… anopenscroll, can you fill me in on this one?
Yes, we know about all these players, plus the Totem, GStreamer player, and 3-4 more ones… But the _important_ point here is that codecs and well designed player to be included with the OS… Nobody wants to go hunting and solve RPM deps just to get mp3 or Quicktime to play… (and please don’t tell me about apt under RH, I know it, I use it, but it is not the answer for Red Hat’s business
It’s just 1337 speak.
The proper plural of “box” is “boxes.”
Boxen just sounds better. 😉
it’s really not _such_ a big problem to get XMMS or XINE playing-i didn’t need to solve any rpm-deps manually, but i agree that red hat should include the missing codecs/players from start-otherwise, especially for very unexperienced users, the first encounter with linux and multimedia could be very frustrating!
…well, at least in the boxed ones.
for people like me who downloaded the isos from the internet, it’s likely not needed and would maybe even make getting red hat for free impossible (wonder how long red hat will provide the newest versions for free anyway, suse provides just the next older version. but then, there’s still debian, and from 3.1 onwards with an easy intaller that allows even me to get it up and running;-))
Fair enough! Thanks for bringing me up to speed. 😀
English is a funny language, especially when it comes to construction of plurals. The usual
“foo” -> “foo + s”
rule doesn’t always apply. E.g.,
mouse -> mice
fish -> fish
and especially
ox -> oxen
Given the above, why not
box->boxen
????
🙂
(Or, given
goose -> geese
you can get
moose -> meese!
Redhat -8 runs great if you DO NOT let Gnome or KDE install (only X & twm) then get ICEwm-1.2.6 and use it instead, i am thru hoping that KDE or Gnome is going to finally make a desktop worth using…
Mozilla’s browser with xft sure makes for some good looking fonts now, better than M$FT’s IE now if you ask me, i do use Redhat but i allways build my own desktop up with other stuff like ICEwm, i tryed Blackbox but it does not like the newer X (probably needs some adjusting)…
this review is hardly a red hat review, it’s a kde, gnome, OO, mozilla, … review.
When it comes to red hat the author only shows lack of information
> Finally a front-end for samba: you type in smb:/// into the file manager
> and go network browsing.
he must be talking about 8.0 where you could type in smb
> Perhaps, for newbies a Network Neighborhood icon pointing to smb:///
> would be good.
how about one that’s called “network servers” in the menu when you click the hat
> However, none of the applications seem to be able to
> access any files sitting on the remote shares, which makes the feature kind
> of useless. One has to copy the file locally and open it that way. PITA.
this is indeed an issue and should be fixed in gnome-vfs, i personally think they should either hold back the final release ’till it works, or remove the shortcut to avoid misleading.
> Lack of NTFS support is also pretty ridiculous. I would even settle for
> read-only. Other distros have this too.
c’mon, anybody knows the reason for this
> Lack of Shockwave plugin for Linux.
bash macromedia, not redhat
on the side:
this guy seems to have an issue with the fact that redhat clearly chose gnome, as much ppl had when suse crippled gnome.
i think distro’s _should_ make choices on the packages included, that’s their way to differentiate, imo they shouldn’t offer the other packages at all. distro’s like redhat and suse have to provide an integrated environment in which everything “just works”.
if redhat polishes a great gnome desktop, and suse a kde one, then everyone gets choice. you pick redhat for the redhat way, suse for the suse way, and mdk for the mdk way.
there will allways be enough hobby distro’s (gentoo, debian, …) which offer both in decent shape.
Do you want my Camera script? It mounts, moves, opens a nautilus window pointing at the drop off point, and then unmounts. Just send an email my way if you want it. I’ll probably put it up on fewt.com eventually. My wife has been using it forever heh heh.
just l33t-speak and hax40r-speak english dialects, dude. Get with it…
Even with the so-called “difficult” install, I think mplayer is the best option as a default media player for RH 8.0, simply because it have support for every known video format available out there, even the exotic ones (Real media and QuickTime using the Sorenson V3 codec).
And it already have a working plug-in for Mozilla. It works very well (I tested it in most of the trailers embedded in pages available in QuickTime format at Apple’s website and in http://windowsmedia.microsoft.com :-)). You can get it in http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/.
It have a very small footprint (except when running from its GUI interface… Weird!), supports OSD, subtitles, DVD playing (with a little help from libdvdread and libdvdcss), etc. Also, it has a KDE front-end called KMPlayer, which can act as a Konqueror plug-in for viewing videos in the browser.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for simplicity, then Totem is what you look for. It uses the xine-libs and is really fast. It is my option for viewing movies without subtitles (like my anime collection ;-)). And, it can be installed using apt-rpm. If “apt-get install totem” is too hard, the ease-hungry people can use Synaptic to do it too.
Cheers,
DeadFish Man
Thanks Aitvo, yes please.
That new package system I forget the name for non distros packages is the better solution.
However, I was trying to address the reality of current situations. After all, many projects do not even bother building packages of their newest releases.
Sometimes, I feel that the situation with dependancy hell is real but overstated. Mozilla, OpenOffice come with installers. Most of the plugins come with rpms that have no dependencies. I can update xchat and many other smaller programs from rpms on the website with no issues.
The problem rears its head in reality for large apps like for me Gnumeric or Gnucash or multimedia apps where I do not have some format lib the thing links off of. For the multimedia part is usually just a matter of additional rpms that I have to hunt down (apt is good for this) or true conflicts where my Gnucash wants an older version of the lib than the Gnumeric wants. Evolution is bad about this unless you are astute enough to install everything in their RH8 or whatever directory. Gnucash has gotten pretty good about including every dependency you need in the directories underneath the distro.
However, other projects should catch up with this and installing eight things is not good when you just need one. I know this but I remember a nasty arguement I got into on this website with someone who hated the idea of static linking.
I remember back in the day you could hardly find a Solaris end-user program that did NOT list a static version of their app if they included binaries at all.
“Finally a front-end for samba: you type in smb:/// into the file manager
> and go network browsing.
he must be talking about 8.0 where you could type in smb
…
this is indeed an issue and should be fixed in gnome-vfs, i personally think they should either hold back the final release ’till it works, or remove the shortcut to avoid misleading.”
yes, like in my case-i haven’t installed samba or smbclient repectively, but i nevertheless thought to give it a try (i’m networked with one win 2000-, one win 98- and one win xp-pc), so i typed “smb:///” in nautilus and voila, at least the win 2000-pc shows up (btw, why can’t i see the win xp-pc which is also online?).
i type in the password to get access to it, and after that, i can see the shared folder. but when i want to get access to it, i get the message :”You do not have the permissions necessary to view the contents of “Shared”.”
but after what the guy in his review told, i should at least see and copy the content to my pc, or is that just in 8.1 (i’ve got red hat 8).
in order to do so, do i need to also install smbclient, or do i have to wait for 8.1…?
thanks for clearing this up for me:-)!
I have mentioned some of these in past threads or even this thread but I keep a RH wishlist on my home box and I wanted to share.
1. Framebuffer console frame for boot messages. Yes, it is eye candy but so is a graphical login screen and I have used it on SuSE with a laptop and no it does not slow down the boot process. I own a laptop and reboot a lot and the transition from the graphical boot menu to the console boot messages back to the graphical login is harsh and unprofessional and just damn ugly.
2. Faster Services startup. The hardware detection through kudzu takes forever and xinetd hangs there for a extra 5 seconds. Yeah you can turn kudzu off but I like kudzu. I like the fact that RH8 found my laser printer right off the bat.
3. i686 compiled packages. Redhat needs better optimized package sets. Packages should be compiled for the extremes. One set for the i386 compatible low end and for the normal range of the high end or the i686 compiled packages.
4. Package management. Tie the package management system to apt. The gui for the package management is really nice. However it needs to be tied to an apt backend to help resolve dependency issues and to give end users a higher number of packages than Redhat can or will. On first run, prompt the user if they want to use freshrpms warning them that redhat is NOT responsible for the content legal waiver blah…blah…blah. Also, if the package requires parellel installs of certain libraries (apt does not like this) the user should be prompted to add the package to the Allow-Duplicates and ask the user if they still want to continue the install.
5. By the same token, the up2date system should be enabled to allow for the download and the install of drivers from Nvidia and ATI and even enabled to handle MS fonts installation. Other online update systems handle this bit or that bit of my list but Redhat is the priemer linux distro and should handle all of it.
6. Include plugins and multimedia stuff. The plugins that Redhat can legally include like the Java stuff, Realplayer, and plugger should be included. Pay the mp3 licensing fee and for god’s sake risk to wrath of Microsoft and include avilib, and any other multimedia libs that do not spell obviously trouble like libdvd and other stuff.
7. Figure out the prelinking stuff or preloaded tricks or whatever is needed to get the large slow pain-in-the-butt c++ projects like Mozilla and OpenOffice to launch with some sort of half way reasonable speed. This is not an issue with C++ or mozilla or OpenOffice. It is a problem with linking and BAD_RELOC calls or something related to gcc,g++. Prelink came with RedHat 8.0 but was not implemented by default.
8. Crossover Office or at least Codeweaver’s version of wine should come with Redhat 8.0 to provide the linux user with something resembling a compatibility layer to ease the transition.
9. Include more system config tools and server config tools. I love the look and feel of RH8 configuration tools. The problem is that there is just enough of them. Boot config tool, Sysconfig editor tool, and HardDrive config tool for DMA would all be good additions. Other Server config tools that would be nice would be a client/server config tool for NIS/OpenLDAP, mail server config included pop3 options, and mysql/postgres database config tools. The Redhat tools are very nice and user friendly and there should be more of them.
To the points about slowness…
I’ve got Pheobe 3 and Mandrake 9.1 RC1 installed side by side on two different partitions. Both are stock, default installs. I timed a few different apps in both distros (from a clean reboot into each system) just for some nonscientific comparisons. Obviously, this is all on the same hardward (athlon xp 2000+ cpu, 512 MB pc2100 ram).
OpenOffice.org writer
RH: 11 seconds
Mandrake: 19 seconds
Mozilla
RH: 3 seconds
Mandrake 8 seconds
Evolution
RH: 5 seconds
Mandrake: 7 seconds
Now, I have no idea what all this means. But, for me, RH is significantly faster than Mandrake.
Well, that’s funny, Eugenia, cuz all my content is ogg or ogm and I have no problems playing my media on RedHat. Perhaps you should use a less proprietary media format or purchase a decent mp3/DVD player, like Microsoft Media Player, for Linux.
No, there is not a single reason why I would want to use less proprierty media formats, when all my music is in mp3 and when the RADIO stations I listen to are all MP3 (so even if I convert my songs to ogg, the radio station issue remains). And I also need QuickTime support and MS Media Player support under Linux, as I go and watch trailers on apple’s site and I also watch video clips at launch.yahoo.com
Sorry, but this is not right. The user should not do what the company wants, but the company should satisfy the user’s needs.
my dad is using RedHat. Ripping and burning CDs with grip and using ogg files for better sounding music and better file sizes. He needed a few hours of tech support from me to do this and some custom scripting on a RedHat 7.3 system, but I hear by the time 8.1 is ready most people should be able to do this with a default install and no scripting.
I’m saying this to show that there are alternatives to mp3s and DVDs, and it is possible to convert your mp3s or DVDs into the alternative format with little to no quality loss. It just takes time and patience. It is quite unfortunate that mp3s and DVDs were not created with the legal backing to allow them to become industry standards, just like MS Office. I feel sorry for all those poor people stuck on these old obsolete proprietary formats.
I hate this attitude. Not everyone wants to convert their entire collection of mp3s to ogg. The mp3 licensing thing is just another indication of Redhat’s quest to be big business while at the same time not alienating the zealots in the Open Source community. It is lame. Just buy the damn license and get over it. Include avi and cut a deal with Codeweaver’s wine and stop being so damn chicken sh*t about the letigation stuff.
Personally if they want to show how cool they are the should include the libdvd stuff as an option on the first u2date with a waiver not to download if they do think it is right, legal or whatever.
Give me a break. Maybe I am not purist enough.
both users and companies must obey the law, which we have all agreed upon. So DVDs cannot be decrypted legally without a license from the DVDCCA and mp3s require some royalties for the patent on decoding, is it? The problem with this is if RedHat decides to include this in their desktop distribution they will no longer be allowed to give their distribution away for free, like they do now.
Is that really the proper course of action for a Linux company to take? Remember Linux is about more than just money.
Funny you should say this Eugenia about the quicktime stuff. One of the 5 compiles I have done since I got RH8 was to get a mplayer on linux. Watching the Janie Porche quicktime video right now.
(in Homer Simpson voice)
mmmm…Janie Porche…. mmmm…
I have hooked into plugger but I believe there is also mplayer plugin out there somewhere. I watched the DareDevil trailer the other day.
Still, yes I would love it if there were rpms with all the codecs and QT6dlls.
Jonathan Bailes: VERY WELL SAID. Exactly, this is the point. People should not make such excuses to themselves, products should just be full featured. There is no way around it.
Me: You are wrong, sorry. Be was half-dead and they still purchased codecs and licenses for their users. And Be had way less money that Red Hat has today. Also, no, the distribution can still be free. The licensed items should only be found in the commercial vesions of the OS, not in the free version. This is how Be did it too. The Real Player and Codecs were NOT part of BeOS 5 Personal Edition, but it was in the commercial edition. So, there is a way around it. Only thing is missing is Red Hat putting its hands in their pockets and give out some royalty fees to better their products.
Blasphamy!
Nah, you and Eugenia are right, users should be getting their money’s worth. But the RedHat desktop distro is a work in progress, obviously, and I wouldn’t expect a newbie to pay for it. Its what I “give” to newbies to show them the “value” of Linux. Its worth more than you pay for it, obviously. So when we all finally recognize that, as we are very slowly learning, it will improve and become more commercial and mainstream. Perhaps RedHat will release a multimedia distribution that has all the features you are asking for, but isn’t free like Phoebe.
Until such a time we all have to suffer. So while we’re sufferring might I suggest that a small perl script and ogg123, mpg321, etc. can help convert those nasty mp3s into a more suitable format. *duck*
The kind of user that downloads ISOs and such are the kinds that can get the mp3 stuff on their own. So, RH does not include the xmms-mp3 stuff on the freely downloadable version. No big deal. I like ogg too and use Naudilus (a nautilus script) to convert mp3s that I get from radio stations and such as promos. But not everyone likes that option. Making it an optional up2date option after install.
What about the DVD stuff? This is where corporate america should take a stand. I do not believe (please correct me people) that this action has been completely determined in US courts so it is time to take a stand. In other words, if they want to be leet and pure, include the libdvd stuff and stand behind the code in court. What I am saying is not to pay those buggers a thing for decoding content that users have already paid for. To make the issue even muddier it should NOT as I stated above be included on the CD but be an up2date at the discretion of the user.
Yes, but RedHat 8.x is still a free product. Until it becomes a commercial distribution like BeOS 5 Pro or whatever, it would have a very difficult time adding that functionality into the product legally. Perhaps that has been the holdup all along: finding some way to get around the DMCA while cracking DVDs. But that doesn’t explain mp3s. Maybe there’s some law somewhere that says you can’t give away a product that contains patented algorithms without paying royalties or something. Laws are so complex, you know?
There’s always the possiblity that RedHat is just greedy, like all the other capitalists I know. What do you think? Do you really get your money’s worth?
8.0 cost me around $15 cuz I had to burn about 20 copies of it for everyone in the office. And 8.1 is probably going to cost a lot more… too many people are getting interested in this software for some strange reason. Wonder what that could be… hrmmm.
No, Red Hat is not a free product. The Personal version costs $35 and the PRO costs $120. It is 100% commercial IMO. The fact that they have a free version to download without support, doesn’t mean that all Red Hat Linux editions are free. Additionaly, the fact that the source code is available for most of the apps included doesn’t make their commercial versions less commercial. And this is why they could license codecs, and not open the source code that are used against those codecs. And ofcourse, these apps should only be included in the paid versions of Red Hat Linux.
Eugenia, I’m sorry about my first post on this thread. I just had to vent and grabbed the first comment I felt was worthy of debate. I do enjoy arguing with you. You’re so creative and seem to poke holes through all my arguements much easier than most. In short I just didn’t wanna to aggrivate you personally. You know… I’m just some weird communist at heart.
What I feel Red Hat should do is to support reading of MP3 files. Ogg files, IMHO, have higher audio quality, better compression etc, should be the one used for ripping CDs. But if the user wants to create MP3s, just like Windows XP, he would have to find his way. But as the prevalent technology, I find it very disturbing MP3 support is out.
I like Redhat 8 a lot. I like the uniform look and even with the Extras submenu it is better organized. I really like the system tools ( I just want more! ).
I have always been a bit of a ui whore. The amazing part of RH8 is I can’t get myself to change themes like I always do on my box at work. It all just feels so right together.
Installation was easy. I made a postinstall CD with the browser plugins, apt, ltmodem drivers, MSttcorefonts, mozilla xft rpms from mozilla.org and some rpms of Beta Gnome2 apps from a site run by a guy called Nyquist.
I install the plugins and apt. I use apt to get Synaptic and the multimedia stuff. I install the ltmodem stuff from rpms. I install the Nyquist stuff and I did have to run back twice for a rpm that I missed but now his stuff is on apt.
I updated the mozilla and I was a happy camper. I have updated Gnucash, bluefish, xchat, gnumeric (three times), gimp (twice), Evolution gaim and gftp.
The only time I ran into real dependency trouble was when I used some Evolution rpms out of some people.redhat.com directory and upgraded by gnumeric stuff to beta at the same time hosing up my dependencies for gnucash. That was my fault. I updated Evolution with Ximian stuff grabbing all their files and updating at one time.
Yes, I would have had run into more without apt. It really helps out with multimedia stuff that need a half dozen media libraries to work right.
I have compiled five programs since I first installed RH8 all of those except one were from src rpms because I did not like this or that option or I wanted to compile against my own libs or whatever blah.. The only thing I really compiled from “scratch” was Mplayer like I said above.
The postinstallation and the fact I have to use synaptic to install apps instead of RH’s package tool are the two biggest annoying pains.
Actually living in this layout once I got most of my apps up to their gtk2 equivalants. Gnucash and Evolution are my two big standouts. I really like the new beta of Abiword and it may get good enough that I graduate the lovely, nice to work with, app from being the WordPad of the Linux world. I have had to write a couple of technical docs in OpenOffice Writer and I am really beginning to get the feel for the thing. I like it and I know all the tricks for speeding things up too so I got that going on. I still cannot get used to OO calc and use gnumeric the 1.1.6 beta and I love that thing. I use it for inventory reports for servers that I boss has to pass on to his boss’s boss in Excel format.
The newest Gaim 0.6.0 snapshots have notification area support in Gnome and I use it a lot but if you need file sharing use the official aim version (it does not suck).
I had a number of Loki Games which all installed fine and worked in RH8. Castle Wolfenstein worked really well too. Not much as in games to speak of in linux since I don’t have Transgaming.
I found this redhat-config-samba program and that has been really nice to set up a little server out to Win box. I also ended up getting LinNeighborhood and that has done me well for years in terms of samba browsing. I heard that Gnome 2.2 was going to include a new network:// view in Nautilus so maybe I will not have to use it Phoebe.
I kept the same Gstreamer and Rhythmbox packages from Nyquist for forever just upgrading the two as little as possible. I like the last version of Rhythmbox because the little musical note in the notification area lets me get the window out of the way but still control the music.
I have really enjoyed living on RH8. I wish that I did not have to hack up permissions and a few files to get menu editing, apt comes standard and other things I have already mentioned. Still, this is the most natural feeling desktop on linux I have ever experienced.
You can easily drag and drop new fonts onto the system by loading up:
fonts:///
in Nautilus. This should really be more obvious, but the whole VFS situation on Linux is a mess at the moment.
On static linking/dependancies/packaging – look for an interview with the autopackage team on NewsForge in the next few days for some discussion of this.
On codecs: they are being smart about this. MP3 and NTFS have patent problems that could easily bite us all on the ass. By making the users install it, it makes Red Hat legally secure (and we want that, right?) and it takes less than 2 minutes for the user. Unfortunately some new users don’t read the “Red Hat speaks” thing and don’t know where to get these things
I think one day it’d be cool to have a volunteer-run distro like Debian focussed exclusively on making a kickass desktop for the home user. Not Debian though, and not until we have packaging sorted, in any project there are limits on how much time is available, you want to use that time to hack on cool stuff, not on packaging things for your distro.
I think the problem with MP3/video players is not the money RedHat could/should pay, but the fact that most or all of the players are under GPL licence, which incompatible with any royalties model. When they distribute such a player, they *must* give their users the same right to redistribute it, which is impossible under royalties terms, even if RedHat would pay these $90000 to Thomson.
BTW, can you play any video or audio format in windows default install? Because I can’t play Quicktime and DivX video and OGG audio and some other formats on both Win2k and WinMe without installing additional software. I believe even WinXP doesn’t have a DivX and ogg player.
I am currently usin RH 8.0 at home. It is a great distro from Red hat. Thay hav done nice job. but i still can’t beleive some thigs, regarded severel “stoopid” things in UI. For example, (I think Eugenia had pointed to this before too)in KDE when u right klick on Trash icon, it shows Empty Trash still enabled though it is empty. And when u browse your trash trough konqueror, there is no customized menues for that folder. May be I got too trashy
, but it is so. Why people et Red hat do not fix this kind of light problems, some not too intelligent code will do that. It is time to provide customized menus for some dsitinct folders, IMO. Another one, when I insert “Table of Contents” from Insert menu in KWord and change my mind and Undo, KWord sucks. I know these are not “sin” 
of people at red hat, but they schould take care of tese kinds of things and must do thorough tests. Don’t know how thing go in new relese.anyway great job from RH.
Regards
.ya
RedHat has valid reasons for not supporting in their standard release. They have a very strict philosophy for what they include that helps keep them from being sued (they don’t want Thomson coming to them in 5 years asking for license fees for all copies of RedHat. It happens). Also, RedHat is NOT looking at the home desktop. They are looking at the business desktop, workstation, and server spaces. Media apps aren’t really important in these spaces, so it isn’t a high priority for them.
That said, I think they should acknowledge desktop users and provide an additional product that adds full media support to existing distros (installs itself onto a clean system). They should get explicit licenses for everything they include so they can’t be sued in the future. This product wouldn’t be available for free download and they would have to charge per copy. They could probably even make a decent profit off of it. I guess this would be against their corporate philosophy, but I’d buy it (for like $30) just to avoid the hassle of doing it myself.
What I don’t understand is why nobody has provided a script and a list of necessary rpms for adding this functionality to the latest RedHat release. Why don’t the boys at freshrpms just put together a mongo download that contains an install script and all the necessary RPMs to add full media support to the latest RedHat release? If someone has already done this, please let me know.
It seems to me that the guy who wrote that article in the main topic was actually reviewing the apps that come with RH8.x rather than the OS itself. The whole thing devolved into a GNOME vs. KDE/WinXP charade quite quickly as well.
As for mozilla video plugins: http://www.deadlocked.org/dlock.php?main=linux&id=1
Check!
Yo Roy you got any space on a server then?
The minute that Phoebe goes prime-time I am upgrading which means that I make my postinstall CD with all the crap I want to immediately install.
Everything, except for the MSttcorefonts are rpms pretty much which makes for a pretty easy install script.
The only nasty part is that I will probably also want to upgrade some of the Gnome stuff with nyquist rpms. Nyquist lives on the bleeding edge for core libs so I have had to re-compile a couple (gnumeric and gimp) of them from src rpms against my lib set.
Translation:
Some of the tastier parts would end up getting added after I was through with my cd.
I guess I could add those to a CD image afterwards but to test the install script that would mean installing on two or more boxes or doing my own box more than once (not something I would like). I am not one of those people that dig installing an OS over and over again. It is the reason I do a postinstall cd after all. 1/2 hour to download all the crap. 1 1/2 to install the OS and tweak everything like I like. Boom. I am off and running again.
Let me know if you or someone you know has any hosting space.
No, sorry. I wish I had the time and money to host it, but I don’t. I didn’t mean it to sound critical. I’m honestly just surprised that nobody has done this given the popularity of RedHat. If somebody did release a CD that would upgrade a clean install of RedHat 8.1 (when it comes out) to have full media capability, I’d buy it (say $20).
>even if RedHat would pay these $90000 to Thomson.
Actually, it is about $60,000.
And as for the incompatibility with the GPL, well bad luck if you are a Linux distro company and you want to make it to the desktop. The road to the desktop DOES go through royalties and licenses. And if GPL doesn’t play well with it, then GPL will be the DEATH TOLL for Linux on the desktop. Sorry, but this is the reality.
> BTW, can you play any video or audio format in windows
> default install? Because I can’t play Quicktime and DivX
Good point Pavel.
I actually prefer playing media in Linux, because I can
*never* play anything flatly in Windows: it always wants
to download things before playing. Of course, Windows being
what it is, I don’t feel confident doing that. Sometimes,
even allowing for the download things simply won’t play.
This is a call out to anyone with diskspace available.
I have started putting together my postinstall CD for when Phoebe goes live. The deal is that it would simply be a bunch of rpms with a simple install script. I even found a src rpm for MSTTcore fonts. The easiest thing for ltmodems will be to bundle .tar.gz because the build_rpm script is so nice. That way I don’t have to worry if the user has an Athlon kernel or something. I’ll include the Nvidia and ATI drivers but it would take some testing. On one hand it would be cool to script it but I do not have some of this hardware so it might be best just to make it an archive.
Put some src rpms of cutting edge stuff in for fun including Mozilla and Galeon blah..blah…blah.
All the Browser plugins like the Sun JRE, newest flash rpm, Acrobat 5.0.6 rpm and plugger.
Anything else folks would like to have in Phoebe right off the bat?
“Finally a front-end for samba: you type in smb:/// into the file manager and go network browsing.”
Hate tot ell this but that also works fine on my Redhat 8.0 laptop. Not exactly a new feature.
” of course, there’s also mplayer, but its pita to install, and there are also no rpms for redhat (actually, the programmers hate! red hat) ”
Do a little research on apt for rpm. It’s a simple as apt-get install mplayer. OSNews had an excellent article on customizing Redhat 8.0 that covers installing apt and mplayer.
apt-get -f install LinNeighborhood
Works for me. :->
Konqueror network browsing is still flaky.
Nautilus samba browsing is alright but feature-poor to say the least even with the network:// view. Unable to set browse as user by default. Unable to set a full set of different Master Browsers. Unable to import LMhosts file.
I think I will stick with my LinNeighborhood desktop launcher. Set user, Master Browser and file manager options and you are good to go.
What I really want is a way to save all those options I mentioned to be passed to gnome-vfs which controls samba browsing and to also be able to seamlessly browse both nfs and samba shares through the same interface.
That is just me though.
This might have already been covered, BUT:
Is 8.1 going to support ReiserFS or XFS file systems from the initial install?
Is RH8.1 going to have an I686 version?
> Anything else folks would like to have in Phoebe right off the bat?
How about xine + gxine, gxine is gtk2 based and has a mozilla plugin too, could be nice.
I hope you get this thing done – be sure to keep us informed
Very cool of you. I hope you are able to find hosting space. If I can get it, I’ll test it and report back any problems. It might be worth it to try contacting the guy at FreshRpms (Matthias Saou) to see if he would like to cooperate in this project of yours.
I’d like to see Totem, Epiphany, and NTFS mount (read-only) capability. Good Luck!
>And as for the incompatibility with the GPL, well bad luck >if you are a Linux distro company and you want to make it >to the desktop. The road to the desktop DOES go through >royalties and licenses. And if GPL doesn’t play well with >it, then GPL will be the DEATH TOLL for Linux on the
As I already said, I see nothing wrong in downloading a few packages from third parties, You have to to this with any Linux distro and with Windows too, if you want any decent media playing capabilities.
Besides, RedHat can’t do anything to resolve this problem, except pushing either xine/xmms/mplayer teams to release their products under non-GPL licence or Thomson to explicitly allow distribution without royalties. Right now they *MUST* violate at least one licence to do what you want even if they pay $60000
to Thomson.
If RedHat would include apt-get/Syncaptic in their release and point them by default to some third party repositories (like freshrpms, fedora and ccrma) it would be one of the most usable desktops out there.
> If RedHat would include apt-get/Syncaptic in their release and point them by default to some third party repositories (like freshrpms, fedora and ccrma) it would be one of the most usable desktops out there.
This is not viable for Red Hat, because they wouldn’t be able to support this functionality. And people want support for everything that is included.