LinuxElectrons has a review of Fedora Core with screenshots.
Fedora Core 1 Review at LinuxElectrons
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Anyone else have problems with the Add/Remove applet? It doesn’t seem to want to install software post-install for me.
(Meanwhile RH8 & RH9 worked fine.)
Also, it would be nice if there was an option to inform the installer of what CDs you have available. (Yes, like Debian).
I only downloaded the first two ISOs (hit the bandwidth cap) and it seems that something as vital as kernel development, dhcp servers etc are located on CD3.
When you commit to installing, you then get told that Fedora needs all 3 CD’s – kind of too late! It also doesn’t let you know why you need all 3. (Read: lotsa trial-and-error)
Yes, it’s a small issue ultimately, but it’s a show-stopper if you don’t have access to all 3 CDs!
Also, I’d like to see anaconda have support for ATARAID. That will save a dramatic amount of grief for all of us “suckers” with Promise or HighPoint software-masquerading-as-hardware RAID solutions.
I can’t add any packages off the cd because the package manager crashes everytime it needs me to put in a cd. Maybe they should fix this before going final ? Also there are not enough updated repositories for yum or apt-get. The community really needs to start putting out packages and do so quickly. That is unless they are waiting for the final version to come out after all the core versions to gather up a big repository of applications. Either way sure hope they do not break compatabilty with packages once they go version 1 and above. I hate having to search for correct versions of packages. The Fedora team should make sure that packages from version 1 on up are backwards compatible. This will allow for less headaches when people upgrade from Fedora final version 1 to let’s say 2 or 3 ? Other then this package issue I think Fedora is pretty cool ! It’s a whole lot faster the MDK IMHO even though it’s a i386 distro and the font’s are awesome ! Also hopefully they will upgrade to i586 or i686 packages before going version 1 final.
P.S. A GUI menu editor would be nice but this seems to be a flaw with Gnome. Also I believe that there is a better file-manager interface aviable for GNome and I hope they use that one instead that gives users more options when saving or loading a file.
My desktop begged me to go back to SUSE immediately.
Ever since TexStar abandon all the mandrake users I have been looking for a easy to use distro with a nice large repository of applications that is stable and reliable.
Debian is not easy to use, is not i586, and does not have niffty GUI config tools.
Try installing the GRP set, so you dont have to compile thru the entire process.
<eom>
I too am having problems with Add/Remove. There were a few things I overlooked during the initial install process that I would now like to put on my system. When I hit “update” in Add/Remove, it resolves the dependencies, prompts me for the CD it needs (if it’s not already in the drive), then I get
“Error installing packages
There was an error installing packages.
Exiting.”
I’ve also noticed that I can never unmount a CD. I have to shutdown to single user mode “/sbin/telinit 1 ; umount /mnt/cdrom ; exit” to get the CD to unmount. fuser and lsof always come back that nothing is using the drive too. I’m guessing it’s a problem with some kind of automount daemon, but I can’t figure out what I need to shut off to make it work right. Very irritating.
Other than that though – I do like it a lot.
Agreed about the easy to use and config tools part, but the i586 comment is actually off-base. Compile optimizations make little difference outside of the kernel and the libc. See some (admittedly poor) benchmarks here:
http://articles.linmagau.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&f…
Also, in my experience, a Pentium 4 runs i386-optimized code nearly as fast as P4 optimized code, and usually faster than i586 or i686-optimized code.
It has real screenshots in there..
It may not mean much when you are using a P4 but when you are stuck on a P2 400mhz machine it means a bunch IMHO. I need all the optimazation on this machine I can get to squeeze every bit of power of out of it that I can.
I Have no problem installing a new kernel on Debian.
it is a quick and easy:
make clean dep bzImage modles modules_install, then you move the image over to /boot and edit/run lilo.
however, I have tried compiling 2.6 on FC1 and I get a boot error saying it can not load / on hdc(0,0) or something like that.
I think it has something to do with Red Hats insistence on the use of an initrd for boot, but I can not figure out how the heck to make one for m new kernel anyone know how I make one? is it something like
mkinitrd <path to boot image>
or something?
>Debian is not easy to use
You mean installing Debian isn’t easy? In that case, I found installing it on par with Slackware or FreeBSD (if not easier). The problem with Debian is: it moves like a tortoise. Latest version of Debian (3.0) is stuck with Kde 2.2 and Gnome 1.4. Sure, you can go “unstable” with apt-get, but you’re liable to encounter stability and security problems. Debian’s best merit is how smoothly it handles dependencies.
[quote]Debian is not easy to use, is not i586, and does not have niffty GUI config tools.[/quote]
Debian is a rock solid distro that works. Debian may not have the latest packages but what they do have work. I was talking to another Linux guy the other day and he basicaly said the same thing to me so I countered with how often does your RedHat box crash? He said about once a day. I said if the whole reason you left MS was for stability why are you putting up with an OS that crashes once a day switch to Debian and get back to using your system not administrating it.
We’re talking about the desktop not some 1337 server here guy. I thought that was what Fedora was aiming for ? Maybe I was mistaken ?
I don’t believe having a system that works is an elitist attitude. A system that does what it’s supposed to is easy to use in my book but maybe I’m wrong.
I think Fedora is just a community distro used to use us as slaves to test out and fix the bugs for them so they can put it in RHEL. Hopefully Novell Suse 10 or something or other will include a consumer distro and include a legal dvd player (Like Lindows now has) that and the beautiful Ximian Gnome will kick ass. That’s really the only thing keeping me from using Lindows, I really don’t like KDE.
)
You can use Gnome on Lindows it takes a bit to set it up but it works I have done it.
got the initrd working, and installed, 2.6 runs on it fine, though I will need to par it down (dang it comes with a lot of crap)
Sound is still not working, but this time it is a different problem, I might have misconfigured the kernel or something…perhaps I should use the OSS modules rather than the ALSA ones.
anyway, I will be happy when FC2 comes out and has all the stuff I need in the kernel so it runs out of the box on my laptop with out any recompile needed.
it looks like the author who wrote the review either wants to show of his digital camera or never read Release Note of FC1. Probably he never installs RH8 or 9 before…
Well, I tried unsuccesfully to UPGRADE my RH 9.0 based server to FC 1 and I was amazed… it destroyed my RH 9 install.
Thought this was going to be a ‘ the upgrade went great” comment.
Hah – NOT!
There are a few features in the FC 1 that I like, but there are way to many that are broke and I liken it to using Windows 2000 without a service pack. I actually went out and purchased SuSE 9.0 personal edition and liked it SO much I went and bought the PRO version too (for all the tools).
It isn’t like I have a lot of money to burn – but I have been a staunch support of both RH up to version 9 and SUSE (now up to version 9). I am not a fan of Fedora Core and in fact will not be installing in fresh on any of my servers – forget about the upgrades… learned my lesson the hard way on that one.
Stick with 9.0 if you have it – otherwise for the desktop – I like SUSE and for the server, I like the RH 9.0.
Cheers!
as per topic
Well I also had a problem with the add/remove package tool in Fedora. Also, sometimes when I booted up, the system would freeze at the login screen.
I played around with it for about 3-4hrs and then went and reinstalled Slackware 9.1 (Currently the best distro IMHO!)
Am I the only one who feels that regular Gnome handles the task-bar so much better?
Am I the only one who HATES how almost all major distros that have a GUI automatically set up have a REALLY thick panel? I know you could change it, but I think it looks very ugly as default.
I like how Gnome 2.4 has it… Bar at the top with application, action menus, time, volume setting, and at the bottom there’s a bar with all your active programs and in the lower right the pager.
really. GUI tools and all.
Apparently the definition you have a differrent opinion of a “Linux newbie” then the rest of the world. By far Fedora is easier to use then Slackware but it does have some nasty bugs. Slackware though is not a newbie friendly distro by any means.
Ultimately, what has me sold for using RedHat/Fedora on my workstations is the look.
Yes, there are better looks, and not everyone likes bluecurve. But look at it from this point:
Out of the box, RHL & Fedora have an aesthetically pleasing interface that is quite simply for Windows users to migrate to. Plus, having most of OOo, Mozilla & Evolution on the Gnome Task Bar by default means a lot less rooting around (ahem) to get it tweaked to suit individual users.
What I would really like is a Gentoo box with a similar appearance. Yes, it’s doable, but more time than I care to expend at this point.
Which brings me to a point; if Bluecurve and RedHat’s “Unified Gnome/KDE” modifications are all open sourced, has any other distros played around with taking them on board?
Agree with you somewhat, Debian isn’t all that hard to install, it’s just a pain it the rear to get a full working desktop going!
However, try using Knoppix, Mepis, or Morphix. They will give you a full working Debian desktop quickly and painlessly with a hard disk install. I use Morphix now, stick to testing sources, and really liking it on my laptop and pc.
“Apparently the definition you have a differrent opinion of a “Linux newbie” then the rest of the world. By far Fedora is easier to use then Slackware but it does have some nasty bugs. Slackware though is not a newbie friendly distro by any means.”
The reason im using Slackware is because I want to learn to use linux as fast as possible. Ive learned more in slackware in 2weeks than 2months in Mandrake 9.1 clicking on pretty GUIs.
“I was talking to another Linux guy the other day and he basicaly said the same thing to me so I countered with how often does your RedHat box crash? He said about once a day.”
RedHat crashing once a day? I’ve use RedHat 9 on really low-end hardware, and with the right (athlon) kernel off the first Cd, it always worked great…
I have not gotten sound to work either. I have 2.6.0-test9 on SUSE 9 on A7N8X DLX. It worked with stock SUSE 9. But that uses OSS. Test9 uses ALSA and there’s no nvaudio.ko driver yet. Supposedly sound can be made to work in emulation mode. But even if not then I’m not going back. 2.6.0-test9 is so much more responsive and SATA is so much faster than with stock SUSE 9.
Had a perfectly working RH9 install. “Upgraded” to FC1 and now I cannot get online. Seems quite a few people are also having this problem.
Anybody else have this problem?
There was a fix released for those of you having the problems with installing software.
http://people.redhat.com/~katzj/redhat-config-packages/
This is all fine and dandy if you are in the IT field but average Joe’s/Janes should not have to go back to school to learn how to use a desktop OS.
that is the most ignorant thing I have ever read.
you don’t have to compile anything to read e-mail in Linux.
I could say exactly the same thing about Windows or OS X as you just said about Linux and it would have the exact same accuracy and truth.
just because the user has the power to modify and tune his/her kernel to fit his/her machine does not make it harder to use, it means you have the potential for more control over your Operating system.
lol i cant even spell plain, I better turn off the tv
Debian is more than one distro called Debian, it is a way of doing things embodied within many different and great distros — Libranet, Knoppix, Morphix, and on and on and on.
You want up to date distros that are easy installs — try Knoppix 3.3 and do a knx-hdinstall, or try Morphix. You can’t hardly beat the hardware recognition in these distros.
You want great gui tools for configuration of everything from fonts, hardware reconfiguration, network, printer, firewall, package management, and scores of other things all in one gui tool, try Libranet — they have Adminmenu. Libranet 2.7 is a free download. Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file to include “unstable,” upgrade all the different packages you use and now you’re as up to date as any distro out there — you’re really cooking then. Plus you got the Adminmenu GUI tool.
Cool Term tools: “modconf” for simple adding of loadable driver modules, “apt-get” for package upgrades, etc.
Debian means can-do for those who are new to linux with distros like these. It’s where the real GUI power tools are. Debian — get it?
With distros like these out there that already work and have simple gui installers (a Knoppix install is practically autopilot) — why mess with something that needs to catch up. Does Fedora mean “the new wheel”?
one god thing about fedora is all the automatic configuration of services.
I was up and running with my SMB shares the minute I booted for the first time, and my printer was already set up for me (also an SMB printer, but I pointed it to the CUPS port rather than use SMB)
and not to mention the tools available for system configuration. they could still add some for sure, but what they have makes system management easy.
they still need a menu editor in Gnome though, the App menu is atrocious.
The best part of debian (besides the community support) is the package management (apt).
FC1 supports both yum and apt sources in the up2date configuration file … yum is included and freshrpms.net has an apt for FC1…so it’s great.
I haven’t used anything to do updates on RH9 or FC1 except apt for several months.
The Add/Remove applet only works for me when an item I’m trying to install has no dependencies. If anything I tried to install had any dependencies then the install failed…
To make an initrd image in redhat/fedora, cd /boot
then type
mkinitrd initrd2.6.whatever 2.6.0-test9 (the NAME, not path of the directory where your modules are after /lib/modules).
then put “initrd=initerd2.6.whatever” in your grub.
You also might have to download new init tools for modules to run. http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/
Here’s a general read Me about 2.6 (when it was 2.5, but it has notes on 2.6)
http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/post-halloween-2.5.txt
How did you get that going ? I can’t even browse the network in Fedora to look for my windows box. Says something about natulis and samba not working, etc…
Forget it I just discovered the answer in System Settings > Secuirty Settings.
I’m having this error with RH 9 too!
Hi all.
I have seen many complaints about Package Manager not installing additional packages after installation.
It’s a bug.
You can download of redhat-package-manager 1.2.6.1 :
download the patch at http://people.redhat.com/~katzj/redhat-config-packages/
or go thru http://bugzilla.redhat.com/ and search for bug# 109276
– Regards
– Pasha
I have seen many complaints about Package Manager not installing additional packages after installation.
It’s a bug.
You can download of redhat-package-manager 1.2.7.1 :
download the patch at http://people.redhat.com/~katzj/redhat-config-packages/
Excellent! It worked!
I tried this weekend and fixed myself the package bug. But could not fix another anoying but wich corrupts my CMOS settings and dont allow my system to boot up once i shut down until I clear cmos…
Not a troll, I’m genuinely interested. Why do you need a initrd image? Maybe I’m missing something, but I seriously can’t come up with a reason to use one in any sort of normal configuration these days.
Can’t Add/Remove, can’t umount /mnt/cdrom as easily, can’t start redhat-config-network on itself at first startup… these are just few prelimenary dissappointments that can be frustrating for a newbie (of course I’m not one
, I got around with those probs too, via terminal) after fiddling with it for an hour after installation (as Home/Desktop). I’m sure there are MORE. Beautiful, but hmm… Fedora broke Shrike! This should have been thoroughly tested even more. What’s your hurry? What? Mandrake?
Man, im having pretty much the opposit experience then everyone else here. first off, i dont use add/remove programs. why use something like that when you have yum? first thing did was add the livna repositories, and got mplayer and xmms-mp3 up and running. had a bit of a snag with the redhat internet setup druid or whatever it is, but adsl-setup from the cli still works fine. since im a lazy bastard, usually to get out of X i just do a ctrl-alt-backspace. but fedora thwarted me there, you need to su, then /sbin/telinit 3 to get to runlevel 3(needed to install nvidia drivers). there is now rpms for ntfs support, and i am actually content enough with the stock kernel it installed. redhat has backported a ton of 2.6 features to 2.4.22, and quite frankly the only reason to go for 2.6 on FC1 is for the “geek factor”. the nvidia driver install was painless, compared to some experiences i have had before, which is either a tribute to a newer version of the nvidia binaries, or the fc kernel build (not sure which). why you would need to umount stuff is beyond me, the automount works great for me, windows style insert and ejecting of cds. Gnome 2.4 is a thing of beauty, and the default config is quite attractive.
The way i see it, you have two kinds of distros. stuff like slack, or gentoo, or vector, that teach you alot of stuff, but take ages to do anything with. slack is meant for low end hardware, other then that, it is a great teaching tool. but to actually get work done, i have a hard time with it. there is alwas so much to poke around with, so much to configure, so many problems to overcome. i love slack, it will alwas be my favorite distro, as it pushed me up from noob status. but at times, i just want an easy to use distro that works. and when it comes to the user friendly distros (suse, connectiva, mandy, and fedora), fedora is a cut above.
If internet doesnt work, use adsl-setup. if add/remove programs doesnt work, use yum. fedora shows more promise then any other distro i have tried in a long time, and i am very happy with it.
This should help those looking for mp3 support in Fedora.
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/1/i386/…vn.2.1.i386.rpm
Here are instuctions on installing Nvidia drivers for those who might be having problems. I got these instructions from
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=…
read through the thread and look at mishmash’s post.
“1. Modify the /etc/inittab file to force booting in console mode (i.e. text mode, not Xserver). You only have to change the line
id:5:initdefault:
to this
id:3:initdefault:
2. Restart the computer. It will boot in text mode.
3. Login as root.
4. Move to the directory where the NVIDIA .run file was downloaded.
5. Run the following command to set the CC variable and thus avoid the CC mismatch error.
export CC=gcc32
6. Install the NVIDIA driver by running the following command. It should install correctly.
sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4496-pkg2.run
7. Move to the directory where the XF86Config file is located, i.e. the /etc/X11 directory.
8. Modify the XF86Config file by changing the line
Driver “nv”
for
Driver “nvidia”
in the “Device” section.
9. Modify the XF86Config file to remove or comment out (by adding the # at the beginning of each line) the lines
Load “GLcore” (did not found this line though…)
Load “dri”
in the “Module” section.
10. Make sure that the XF86Config file has the line
Load “glx”
in the “Module” section.
11. Modify the /etc/inittab file back to what it was, i.e. with the line
id:5:initdefault:
12. Reboot the computer by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del.
Everything should be OK after this. For newbies, just run the game TUX racer, itf the NVIDIA driver was installed correctly, the game should display “very” smoothly…
Regards,
mishmash”
If you want to build rpm’s of form srpm’s for Nvidia’s drivers then here is a link were you can download them from so you can build your own rpm’s. I used the command below to rebuild my own for future use just incase.
‘rpmbuild –rebuild –rmspec –rmsource –target i686’
Remove the ” <- and if you want you can adjust the target platform to athlon, i586, etc to match your machine. Below is the link to the website I got my source rpm’s from.
http://rebus.webz.cz
I hope the helps some of you and I hope the Fedora team puts out a less bug release next time ! I think it was really sloppy of them to not build the kerenel using gcc33 or at least they should of put up warnings to Nvidia users about the whole ‘export CC=gcc32’ bit to help us out on the front of their website.
P.S. get apt-get and synaptic from here from this site. Apt-get along with YUM and Up2date really help out a lot.
http://atrpms.physik.fu-berlin.de/
But could not fix another anoying but wich corrupts my CMOS settings and dont allow my system to boot up once i shut down until I clear cmos…
Erm… Have you tried replacing your CMOS battery?
Some boards are using very cheap batteries (you’ve got to save that extra $1!) and they don’t last very long. A dud battery will give you symptoms similar to what you describe.
And this will happen regardless of the OS you use. (Though, I suspect, LinuxBIOS might cope with it.) 😉
geesh. fedora core1 applications are showing everywhere today.
have installed and run celestia, clamav, superkaramba, kernek-ntfs, streamtuner, kpackage(used it to unistall apps.tried mplayer1 and then used kpackage to unistall and re-install mplayer.92). of all places, a link at http://www.winxpcentral.com got me to these apps.
(listening to “1000 light years from home” with streamtuner.) sorry for that delay.
these are basically the app extras i had with mandrake9.1. and freebsd5.1.
I should add that distributed folding, realplayer8 (9 is available), mplayerplugin, f-prot, elexctric sheep(configured for full screen)are installed and work fine. gnutella (which is difficult – to get through my router i guess) is also here.
all that is missing for fedora is draves bomb, xplanet, acid warp. i had these on freebsd and mandrake.
freebsd rocks the best still! (of course, it encourages you to compile) that freebsd mplayer is faster than winxp media player 9.
thanks to all of you who have provided the links to knowledge, even the good troll. give me psychedelic garage.
jazz
tried the 2.6 kernal in fedora core1 and i made a floppy boot disk of it(don’t ask). floppy booted and things seemed fine but sound was stated as in use by another process when opening realplayer and realplayer8 faulted at no sound. i reverted back to kernel2115.
is something wrong with elinks in fedora or is it the default configuration. i love surfing with it in konsole set-as-transparent, but it refuses to surf after visiting my first url.
by the way the command line distributed folding is a quante nicety running over a transparent konsole background set at full screen. enlarge the text. beats that lame winxp cmd out of the box.
i especially want to thank the fellow who showed the way to kpackage. me a little grasshoper.
I downloaded Fedora Core and it is a POS compared to Redhat 9. I couldn’t get the damn package manager to work, I couldn’t get my CardBus network connection to work after rebooting, I couldn’t even log out of GNOME or even remove a damn icon from the panel.
This program is crap and Red Hat is going to lose sales because of it. The only nice thing about it is the artwork.
Anybody having problems getting a 3Com network card to work in Fedora? I have no problem with rh9 install – internet works fine, but the “eth0” device fails everytime during boot up. Anybody having the same problem?
http://fedora.artoo.net/faq/#3c905
Just a note about the instructions in an earlier posting about applying the Nvidia drivers in FC1. I just did this:
su –
init 3
Login as root on console
Apply drivers as documented in original posting
init 5
Yep, no edits of /etc/inittab or reboots required (as opposed to 2 edits and 2 reboots !!). The only “tricky” time comes if you want to apply a kernel patch and already have the Nvidia drivers installed – what I do is apply the kernel patch, reboot, let X fail to start (it tries three times, then you get dumped to the console) and then apply the Nvidia drivers again (from the console) with the new kernel in place. You then init 5 and things should work OK.
Thank you radon, that worked. (3Com problem fix)