The first release of Fedora Core is now available. Download from here or use BitTorrent. Changelog.
Red Hat-sponsored Fedora Core 1 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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if I am running fedora 0.94 … can I just do a YUM UPGRADE to get me up-to-date?
Good, solid base of stable kernel, glibc, gcc and XFree86 releases. Not sure how the 8-month no-backport security fix policy is going to work though; it could be a right shambles having to update all sorts of stuff and dependencies just because of hole in nano requires upgrading to the latest version etc.
Still, looks like RH’s first-rate QA has been put into place (unlike in Mandrake), and hopefully they’ll keep that up as the community gets more involved.
M
Ok I really do understand peoples concern over stability and consistancy in the operating system. But this 8 month development cycle is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I get all the updates and features I want without having to wait years for a new build. I’m really excited about being able to be on the cutting edge with a minimum of work, sure things will break, sure some parts will be frustrating, but the over-all experience should be quick easy and move at a break-neck speed. I applaud RedHat for having the guts to turn over the project to the community.
Finally, we get -march=i586 -mcpu=i686 binaries!
Finally, we get apt-get in redhat… right?
Nope, it’s still 386 opcodes with 686 ordering, as can be seen by the snippet below from rpmrc:
optflags: i386 -O2 -g -march=i386 -mcpu=i686
It’s a bit weird that all RPMs are compiled with the debugging option (-g) on; no doubt explains why RH 9 was pretty slow. Can anybody explain why they do this?
M
I would suspect that they do that to get decent bugreports with backtraces – tools such as bugbuddy works best with such symbols enabled.
I think even Windows XP ships with some symbols enabled, I think it’s quite common these days.
> It’s a bit weird that all RPMs are compiled with the
> debugging option (-g) on; no doubt explains why RH 9 was
> pretty slow. Can anybody explain why they do this?
This is still the case with FC1 final? Maybe it was just the test releases?
Uhmm.. debugging is useful, and it actually adds no (I repeat NO) runtime penalties.
To anonymous, yeah, there is no reason that you can’t just yum/up2date a Fedora Core Test 3 (0.95) system to FC1 status. If you’ve kept up with rawhide, there’s only about 20 packages that needed updating today to get to the FC1 state.
If it’s older, you should still be able to do it (esp. FCt2), but with all the glibc/kernel/gcc updates it may not be fun. I’d guess run up2date up2date (and yum) and get the latest and move the conf .rpmnew files over. BUT, I did a clean install of FCt3 so take with a grain of salt.
One final note that I learned recently: you can’t use a RH9 rescue CD for Fedora. So, it’s probably a good idea to grab Yarrow CD #1 for that purpose.
Looks like the Fedora site hasn’t been updated with this information! I’m getting good speeds with BT, about 40 kB/s down and 40 kB/s up.
Looks great. Now just need to upgrade my RH9
>>Uhmm.. debugging is useful, and it actually adds no (I >>repeat NO) runtime penalties.
does that mean that debuggin symbols are non-executable, just embedded documentation strings??
—
i thought Fedora was gonna come with both yum and apt…
“Uhmm.. debugging is useful, and it actually adds no (I repeat NO) runtime penalties.”
Erm, as I understand it, it makes code larger, and thus leads to more CPU cache misses. That impacts performance.
It’s a waste of disk space too. And properly tested, reliable software should be designed to run without debug stuff in all the time!
quoth: i thought Fedora was gonna come with both yum and apt…
No, it comes with yum, but up2date is able to interact with both yum and apt servers. In fact, up2date now uses yum servers for the “official” repos.
I haven’t been keeping score here .. is Fedora just a new version of Redhat renamed? Are there any differences besides the fact that it seems to be not officially supported by Redhat?
I need to dispel a myth here. RedHat generates a seperate debug package for it’s RPMs, calling a -debuginfo package. Compiling with debug information should not in any way detract from performance. RedHat does the same thing in the Enterprise Linux version. From my understanding the debug information isn’t used or available unless the corresponding -debuginfo package is installed for a piece of software and you’re using a debugger to run the executables.
The second myth that needs dispelling is that RedHat is somehow much slower because they use i386 instructions with i686 ordering. There is very little difference in performance for the average application. Before you say “Dude, I run gentoo and it’s way faster!” I say it’s mostly a placebo effect. I’ve run gentoo on my Athlon XP 1800+ before and I really can’t see much difference in performance. What I can see is a very unpolished version of Gnome I don’t enjoy using.
I sincerely doubt that RedHat would choose to enable debug RPM and i386 instructions with i686 ordering if it significantly reduced their performance. If it did, surely people would use SUSE server exclusively instead of RedHat’s Enterprise offerings since they would supposedly be so much faster since SUSE does i586 packages.
True, GCC optimisations don’t make an enormous difference — they’re most useful in the kernel and glibc. Still, Red Hat 9 was sluggish; my Slack boxes boot in about half the time and its GNOME setup is considerably more responsive and snappy.
Hey, don’t get me wrong, RH 9 is a top-notch distro.
M
@5YrLinuxUser:
The two biggest things that I have personally found slowed down RH8 and RH9 are two things that almost everyone wants.
I found that by disabling unicode support (Commented out unicode_* services in rc.d), recompiling freetype with the bytecode interpreter enabled and disabling font antialiasing the system was substantially more responsive in Gnome and some file operations (grepping) were noticeably faster.
Obviously Font Antialiasing is a big slowdown because it’s graphically intensive.
The unicode stuff surprised me, but apparently is to be expected, things like grep on a true Unicode based Linux distribution can run as high as 20-40% slower (according to something I read, been a bit though don’t know where it was) than a non-unicode based system.
But I suppose that’s the cost of internationalization.
Yes, I would say RH8, 9 are slower than RH7.3 which I still use quite a bit for development because it’s the only distribution I can build binaries on that work on almost any new Linux distribution and several of the older ones.
Redhat has pretty bloated init scripts from what i’ve seen. Since these run in serial, the more they have, the slower boot will be. Slackware uses bsd style scripts, or one big script that does everything for the most part. Try booting a fresh FreeBSD install and it will be the fastest boot you’ve ever gotten I can almost guarantee, but it doesnt do much.
Just my two cents. I also agree with the gentoo placebo effect.
This is a brilliant move by Red Hat. The foundation looks very solid. The best of both worlds, a test bed for the “current” revenue streams and the continuing development of a potentially exciting new stream. Don’t try to think too much into the whole thing just enjoy Fedora and smile.
they are on fedora.redhat.com
here
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/
doh !
well tell everybody why dont ya, no wonder my download speed went from 85kb a second down to about 35kb a second lol…
It seems more people are downloading, cause my download speed was originally 23kbps now it’s around 170kbps, and upload is well around 120kbps on average. Looks like I’ll leave this on all night so other people can get the download as well.
Just because I feel nice today
A bug was found that exsisted in RH8 and RH9 that for some hardware configurations (and from what I understand it differed on certian motherboard versions and things like that) that originated from lm_sensors. It was fixed fairly recently in Rawhide. I am sorry but I dont remebr the
So if you had problems with RH being sluggish an dnot understanding why no one was believeing you
you should try Fedora!
Does anyone know if KDE will get timely updates on Fedora? The last test had uptdated Window Decorations for KDE. I am hoping that builds for KDE 3.2 beta will be available on Fedora. Does anyone know?
what is this bit torrent and where can i get it and how do i run it…
RPM or binary or source, i do not have gcc or make installed at the moment so i don’t want to compile it…
Can someone post a proper YUM.CONF (base, updates, and extras) and links to any GPG keys that need to be imported? I’m using this one: http://www.xades.com/proj/fedora_repos.html, and it simply does not work because of GPG key errors (yes I imported the key it mentions).
i downloaded & installed bit torrent, tryed launching it from a terminal, and i don’t know the command, tryed BitTorrent, bit-torrent, torrent, i am a lost puppy with Bit Torrent…
a little help here please, i got a pretty fast pipe and will leave bit torrent running for two weeks for other users if i can get fedora-1 downloaded
I feel so behind. I just upgraded my RH 8 laptop to 9 like 2 weeks ago.
And who is reporting all these posts? On the first page like 80% of the comments say “Already Reviewed”.
I ususally download iso’s. How do you show support for RedHat’s Fedora without buying CD’s now? Well, nobody said life was simple.
btdownloadcurses.py –max_upload_rate 350
–url http://torrent.dulug.duke.edu/yarrow-binary-i386-iso.torrent
Why do they have both yum and apt? What advantages do they offer over each other?
🙂
its working…
My father is currently using this BitTorrent link, the upload is maxed with about 16kb/s, but the download is only around 5kb/s. What’s the point? Are we doing anything wrong, will this get better or should we cancel the download?
Redhat does not do those sort of upgrades. It seems like some sort of rule. Generally, if they ship KDE 3.1, they will only update to 3.1.x, not 3.2. I do not think you will be seeing KDE 3.2 on Fedora, unless someone makes third party packages. I think their concern is that too much changes between big releases.
When my download first started I was getting about the same as you are now. But after about an hour it jumped to around 160kbps dl and now it’s riding in the mid 200’s as far as downloading goes. The Upload has stayed at a constant 120kbps. But I was just as discouraged as you were when I started it, I didn’t have any other sources so I stuck with the BT it hasn’t let me down yet.
The head CEO of Redhat stated to just use ‘Windows’ why even bother with yet another version of Linux that is not going anywhere.
I am sick of hearing about how wonderful Linux is, I have used it and it is a disappointment to say the least. Time to just use Windows XP like the head of Redhat stated to do.
You’re right Anonymous (if it’s your real name
), enjoy WinXP ! I’ll enjoy Fedora instead and I don’t care what other people do or say…
Yeah I’ve also used Windows XP and to say the least it’s a major dissapointment, even when i’m on top of Security patches I have to remove a virus every bloody month that screws up YADLL (yet another DLL). Linux is a disappointment too in some areas but atleast I can work on those without a virus or worm ravaging my system all the time.
Damn do I ever regret selling my Dual G4…..
I thought the CEO of Redhat uses a mac at home…
Anyway, Fedora is very nice, have been using it since Test 3. One thing I don’t quite understand is that… what’s the official stand point of Redhat for package management? Yum? Apt? Or should I just download the rpms myself? Oh maybe it is Up2date or something like that… Can anyone give me some clues?
I have been using apt4rpm, but too often I can’t find what I want there and end up downloading rpms or compiling from source.
It would be wise to chose another distro or just use ‘Windows’ like the CEO of Redhat stated to do. Linux is just a hobby operating system, since the comment from Redhat it will not become anything.
How come there is only 1 verly large iso and not three, how can this be copied to 3 disks if its just one iso on bittorrent?
>The head CEO of Redhat stated to just use ‘Windows’ why even >bother with yet another version of Linux that is not going >anywhere.
That’s the point, to help improve Linux. It’s definitely not
for every one, and everybody makes a choice. Mine happens to
be using multiple operating systems, ultimately for adversity.
>I am sick of hearing about how wonderful Linux is, I have >used it and it is a disappointment to say the least. Time to >just use Windows XP like the head of Redhat stated to do.
Yeah, that would be disappointing. It’s better to use Linux for Linux, which is after all, per Szulik’s thesis,
young.
Linux is in itself its own worst enemy. They do not have any standards, the functionality of the operating system leaves a lot to be desired. Updating the system is a nightmare because of dependencies. No software of any value, like a Office suite that has a mail client, ect…
Pretty much, desktop linux is over. MS has a better operating system and they won. Linux needs a overall of the underpinnings to get it to be more like Windows. Like clicking on applications to install them, ease of use, and getting away from the command line. This is where the train derailed, trying to make it something it was not. Like the Redhat CEO stated, just use ‘Windows’…
Although its one iso, it creates a directory with 3 iso’s in it. Clever eh !
if you look in your home directory you will find another directory named yarrow-binary-i386-iso and inside there you will find the three ISOs for Fedora…
The CEO of Redhat just said to pay the SCO for the money you own them and than switch to Windows.
<eom>
I think that the Redhat CEO should step down.
Just use ‘Windows’ like the CEO of Redhat stated to do and your problems are over.
Just use ‘Windows’ like the CEO of Redhat stated to do and your problems are over.
That makes lots of sense considering that’s where the problems started. So maybe I should just keep on doing circles… cause it’ll get me somewhere?
Yes, the RedHat CEO said Linux is not ready for the home desktop. You know what? He is right as long as you take the “home desktop” in the context of the average user (most OSNews readers are NOT average users).
The average home user will simply not be satisfied with Linux right now. I think a lot of the OSNews readers underestimate the hassle of moving to Linux and overestimate the hassle that users are willing to put up with. You can’t just buy any printer/digital camera/scanner/MP3 player and expect it to work with Linux “out of the box”. Most new games don’t run on Linux. You can’t buy some random software at Best Buy and install it on Linux. The average home user’s eyes will glaze over the moment you start talking about packages or dependencies. Linux just isn’t there YET.
That doesn’t mean this it isn’t right for anyone’s desktop ( I use it at home) or that it will never be ready for the average user’s home desktop.
Also, the CEO’s comments do not mean that RedHat is abandoning the whole Linux desktop effort. They still want the corporate workstation (which looks a LOT like a home desktop). They are still funding a lot of desktop development and part of the point of Fedora is to help advance Linux toward the goal of the home desktop. When/If Linux IS ready for the average user’s home desktop, I’d expect RedHat to be there selling a product.
I’d be surprised if Redhat wasn’t dissolved by the end of 2004. If you are the CEO of a company that’s bases it’s business on a Linux offering, you should not recommend that people use MS Windows. A CEO should show leadership and support to the customers. If Redhat does not have a desktop strategy at this time than that is fine, but he went over the line by recommending MS Windows, and he should step down immediately.
if you consider each distro its own OS then things clear up. instewad of having one messy OS you have lots of different OSes with *A LOT* of transferrable skills between them.
As for using Windows at home… I do school projects that are meant to be run on Solaris… i’m not quite sure how windows would help? not to mention that i find freeware in the windows world sorely lacking… the biggest feature of linux*BSD(and now by Fink OSX) is the software that you can get for it.
Agreed. Just because Linux makes a great desktop for some people, doesn’t mean its ready for your average Windows user (or for your set-in-his-ways power Windows user!). Its suitable for some people (extreme newbies, office users) because they usually have fixed application requirements and somebody knowledable to help them, but for many people the applications just aren’t there.
For starters with all the supposed creative of the open source movement they would have at least come up with a better name for the operating system. That name is horrible, it sounds like an old woman’s name and it kind of does fit Linux because it is impossible to install, does not work with hardware and has no functionality other than themes and icons.
After a comment like that from the CEO of Redhat, one has to realize that Linux will probably most likely never make a true desktop operating system replacement. I have used Linux for years and it has too many shortcomings such as: applications software, standard user interface, dependencies resolution and so on. To me it would seem like the logical solution would be to start from the ground up with a solid effort instead of a fragmented movement. In order for it to gain any ground, bringing the developers together on one project instead of 50 distros with no standards. Basically this is the state of Linux today, very confused.
So inclosing, the tidal wave has come ashore and the fallout from this is still in the air. It will settle, but the damage is done. The excitement of Linux on the desktop is pretty much over, and it time to move on to the future operating system, Longhorn.
By your logic, Bill Gates should step down for telling people to run the enterprise critical servers on Windows.
The truth hurts sometimes, just ask the people on the linux kernel mailing list that Linus, Alan, or some of the others that have explained the painful truth to people that were submitting patches that were not up to par.
Many of these people got angry and did things the right way…some of the others simply quit.
Red Hat is not going to quit on a potentially lucrative market…there is a lot of money on the home desktop, but the truth is Red Hat is not ready for the “average” home user.
It’s getting closer (I use it right now,) if you are a noob (like my wife) and it is the first thing you learn…then you can still get along fine (please step away from pysol…there is nothing to see here.) For a person to migrate away from Windows that is used to buying the latest and greatest apps from Best Buy (as mentioned by another poster,) then Linux apps are not in Best Buy yet…hold your breath and you will not have to die before they get there.
What was the song, maybe Rolling Stones, about time being on your side…anyway that’s the ticket…where is my Guiness?
A Fedora is a type of hat. I know the average Joe isn’t very ‘edjumicated’ but he should know such a common word. It certainly isn’t any worse of a name than “Windows” or “Macintosh.” It actually has a nice ring to it — it evokes imagery of classic periods of American history.
Besides, you’re completely off-base. If you’ve actually installed both RedHat and Windows XP, you’d know that the RedHat install is actually a bit easier, because its completely GUI-based, while the first part of the Windows install uses an ncurses-style text-mode thing.
A standard user interface is overrated: you’ve got a valid complaint if you’re a MacOS or BeOS user, but not if you’re coming from the schizo UI that is Windows. Even Microsoft’s own software doesn’t use the same toolkit!
Lastly, Linux has a great deal of functionality for a lot of people. If you just need office apps + the internet, Linux has great programs for those. If you’re a developer, Linux has world-class development tools. If you’re scientist, an engineer, or a mathematician, you’ll find that most of the powerful tools you need have had UNIX versions for a long time. If you’re a 3D artist, you’ll find that many high-end 3d packages (Maya, XSI) run on Linux.
well he is not a schizoid guy of course. As he says something so,redhat has already have a plan for future. So does a FC1 as a rh project community. They are probably on the road of Starsuite or Netscape, expose everything to community to take more OSS advantages. The big picture of IT looks like a MindGame between Microsoft, Sun, Novell’s Linux SCO, and so on (RedHat is still behind a bit due to its capital). But anyway, it is a Newton’s apple, and everybody can grab it and eat it, or share with some of others.
Back to FC1, ya it is nice and hopefully it will help a lot in the revolution of OSS and Home Desktop in longterm. I personally think computer is just a machine to serve some specific functions in the life. If you expect it handles all activities in your life, it gets disorder and become schizophrenia later. Linux will have a brilliant future, or a quite good future atleast, becoz’ Linux is a very flexible OS, easy to convert to become specific systems somehow.
Neither MSWindows nor Linux will win in thegame of Home Desktop Users. And who cares which wins. If you feel happy with Linux on your desk, just let it a go. other wise, keep windows to use. And I think your choice will be alright.
just a personal idea
The company lost all of it’s credibility when the CEO said that customers should use MS Windows. If the CEO stepped down right away and his replacement showed some leadership and support for Linux than the company might have a future. It can say something like, ‘we are sponsoring Fedora and providing learning resources to the open source community instead of customer support for the desktop’ but please don’t tell people to use MS Windows.
Get that guy out of there before he sinks the whole company.
Yeah, I know, I know, Gnome with BlueCurve. But I want some screenshots! I never download anything without seeing screenshots first. 😀
http://mirror.mricon.com/fedora-screenshots/
I didn’t make them. Just some link I found.
Hope that helps.
At the download page it says to download the three installation ISOs. Do you really need all three ISOs or can you just do an install with the first ISO and then individually download packages that aren’t on the first ISO?
Yes. Only the first CD is needed, at least for a minimal install.
but since the moderators don’t think so, here it is again:
Everyone, just use windows like the CEO of Redhat recommended.
LOL!
The problem is that the AC is the moderator.
Or the moderator is using RedHat, which isn’t as good as Windows, and clicked the wrong button.
– Slightly overweight anonymous coward
Ok, it says it needs a 400MHz CPU with 192 to 256mb of ram, plus a couple of gb of hdd (1.83gb download too). That’s mad, worse than WinXP even. How on earth have Linux/XWindows/KDE become so bloated that they realistically take a computer newer than 20 months old just to run at an acceptable speed? Nobody is going to prefer Linux over Windows in a business arena when there’re forced-upgrades this brutal.
The requirements aren’t all that different from XP. XP’s requirements are 300Mhz CPU and 128MB of RAM. Those are seriously delusional numbers. You wouldn’t want to run either OS on a system like that. But in general, a heavy-weight Linux GUI (KDE or GNOME) needs a decently fast CPU to run. Practically, any CPU faster than 1GHz will run KDE (I don’t have much experience with GNOME) quite fast. RAM requirements are comparable to Windows 2000.
As for bloat, you have to consider what those numbers mean. XP’s average install is over a gig. That includes basically a web browser and nothing more. In contrast, my base Gentoo install runs about 1.5GB. This includes pretty much all of KDE, including KOffice and KDevelop, development tools, header files for every library, etc. A basic KDE install on a distro that doesn’t install development packages for every library runs about 700MB.
>does that mean that debuggin symbols are non-executable, just >embedded documentation strings??
Yes, yes it does. And they are not even loaded into memory unless you run the program under a debugger.
Fedora’s GUI is certainly the prettiest looking GUI I have seen under any Linux/FreeBSD installation. Very nice!
here’s my yum config for people using 0.95 who want to upgrade to the final:
baseusr1=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os
baseusr1=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/1
Well…having waited some hours and obtained the isos through bittorrent, I’ve just completed a Fedora Core 1 install.
It’s really funny, considering the amount of “Is Linux Ready for the Desktop” banter that’s been going back and forth on this site, that this is the most polished, tightly-integrated Linux desktop I’ve ever seen.
So as I’m not taken the wrong way — I’m not really a fan of RedHat, or of any of the mainstream desktop-oriented distros. (My preferred distro is Gentoo.) I find them to be too bloated, quirky, somewhat buggy, etc. And underneath the UI, Fedora (so far) feels a lot like RedHat 8 or 9. That said — it’s really, really, really pretty. Takes a billion years to start, compared to my Gentoo installation — but it looks absurdly nice.
It was also a breeze to install. Had I gone for the default desktop installation, it would have been even easier (no package choices, basically). Just click, click, click, wait for the packages to install, restart, and boom — fully functional system.
What this means as far as the “Ready for Desktop” debate, I don’t know, and I’m not really sure I care. All I can say is — for anyone interested in trying out a Linux system with a minimal amount of hassle, easy installation, and very decent default gui — this may be the one for you.
Off to play with this pretty thing for a bit…
XP’s requirements are 300Mhz CPU and 128MB of RAM. Those are seriously delusional numbers. You wouldn’t want to run either OS on a system like that.
I ran WinXP on a K6@300 / 192 for almost two years (until it fried) and it was actually very usable after I turned all the “eyecandy” off (which is something I do also on fast computers, since XP’s vision of “prettiness” is quite far from mine anyway). I also used a recent (at that time) Slackware on the same machine, but GNOME and KDE crawled like hell and forced me to switch to Windowmaker.
That’s generally the case. XP runs nicer on lower-end machines, while the two are pretty even when you get to higher end machines. On the other hand, once you get to the hardware level where Linux is “fast enough” then it behaves a lot more nicely under load.
On the other hand, Linux is great for reusing old machines on which a gui isn’t necessary. I recently installed Slackware on a 60-mhz system with 16 megs of ram. A friend of mine needed a machine to code on while out of the house, and it had been sitting in his closet for years; it was much cheaper than buying a new laptop.
I am personally supposed that The RedHat Logo on Start Menu and on some splashes should be substituted by a Fedora logo in the next version instead. RedHat logo is for its trademark, fedora core (a community project)needs to have something unrelated with redhat logo trademark (though redhat company as a back-end to sponsor project.
DOH, stuck at 99-100% with a failed hash at 1771!
this happen to anyone else? any suggestions?
>Linux is in itself its own worst enemy. They do not have any standards, the functionality of the operating system leaves a lot to be desired. Updating the system is a nightmare because of dependencies. No software of any value, like a Office suite that has a mail client, ect…
Sounds like Linux has an even more fearsome enemy, that being apathy. Linux is best used by someone willing to do a little work. I find this level of usability challenging and rewarding. And on that same note, I find the usability of Windows interesting and fun. This sort of combination is what is known as “the hard and the soft.”
> Pretty much, desktop linux is over. MS has a better operating system and they won.
Odd, I’m still using Linux, as well as Windows, and I love them both. Facts are more vivid than fiction, my friend.
“I am personally supposed that The RedHat Logo on Start Menu and on some splashes should be substituted by a Fedora logo in the next version instead. RedHat logo is for its trademark, fedora core (a community project)needs to have something unrelated with redhat logo trademark (though redhat company as a back-end to sponsor project.”
if you change the default gnome blue curve theme to something else, the red fedora is changed to a black footprint (gnome default.)
the fedora final seems to take much longer to boot than test 3, but then again, i updated test 3 to final via yum, so that may have something to do with it. if you hdparm your harddrive to -c3 -uk1, then the speed is comparible to windows XP, which is good enough for me.
all in all, i’m pleased with it.
I shouldn’t, but I’m going to bite at the AC’s trolling linux.
Maybe linux’s desktop isn’t up to XP in every respect just yet, but it’s well on the way. Look at how far it’s come in the past few years; then look to the future, 8 month release cycles compared to a Longhorn than you won’t see until the back end of 2005 at least. The future is very bright.
Linux used to lack a decent office package, OpenOffice has taken care of that. Installing new apps, just look at up2date, emerge, apt-get and yum.
Linux beats MS in security, configurability, cost, interopability, modularity etc etc. MS can never compete on the cost, would not want to compete on some and is playing catch up on the rest.
In terms of the desktop linux will catch up a lot faster than than MS can pull away. So long as people get involved linux will only get better, making things better for the consumer.