“When asked about Fedora, I’ve always offered the same response – it’s meant for those who want to stay on the bleeding edge of Linux development. I feel that Fedora is more a change of concept and mindset for Red Hat users and developers rather than being merely a Linux distribution.” Read the review at Star-TechCentral.
Swapping Red Hat for a Fedora
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“Minimum system requirements: Pentium class CPUs or compatible processors, 520MB free hard disk space, 64MB RAM for text mode and 192MB RAM for graphical mode”
memory requirements can but cut into a third if the user disables many of the default services:
http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Hardening_Fedora.html
And if one opts for a lighter window manager than the default BlueCurve, KDE, or Gnome options (which are great in their own right!).
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-January/msg03825.ht…
Enjoy this great OS on all platforms!
Fedora comes with a GUI? I thought Red Hat threw away the desktop!
Seriously, this is ‘thee’ most fun I’ve had on linux since my first install back in ’98. Everything seems new and fresh yet things aren’t breaking all over the place. But
I’m starting to look forward to FC2 already, I got to play on a FC2 box with SElinux installed and it was locked down hard. cable.coker.com.au port 222 user:root passwd:fedora
if you want to take a look.
I’m glad Fedora’s around, and Core 2 looks like it will be good, what with SEL and all.
Just to rant: The name blows though, almost as bad as these — Knoppix, Debian, SuSE, MEPIS, Turbo Linux (lmao), Flonix, Xandros, Lindows, KANOTIX, Yoper…
Linux needs more “Red Hats”, “Yellow Dogs” and “Slackwares” out there.
/rant off
What makes the names you commended “good” names, and the ones you rejected “bad”?
What criteria are you using? [Note: I’m genuinely interested, though I suspect it’s completely arbitrary]
i am not sure, but imho yum is the slowest package management tool i ever worked with. anyone has the same objections?
Heh.
I think that guy would be really happy with “SCO Linux” ;P
Off topic but I wanted to share this with you. Just got a free linux business CD and tux sticker from loadux.com
Had to post to get it but after triying dammsmall linux it was worth it! Now I’m going for a new puppy ;o)
It seems that ‘Stray’ qualifies names as good if they’re composed of contractions between and adjectives and a nouns. This classification might become more relaxed if the name is simply composed of ‘real’ words.
‘bad’ names are acronyms converted to words, twists on real words (Bushisms would be both an example and category describing other words that have been similarly mangled), and finally names that are completely made up.
Commercial examples of bad names are usually borne from marketing circles and can be found all over the .com landscape of company names, vehicle names, and appear to have fully infiltrated the tech-industry (both software and hardware).
A good name will form a connection between something tangible and the thought/product/idea you want to convey.
Nouns, by definition, are better at this. For example “Red Hat” and “Yellow Dog” actually bring pictures to one’s mind.
i am not sure, but imho yum is the slowest package management tool i ever worked with. anyone has the same objections?
What do you mean slow? Because it has to grab headers
everytime you run it? If you’re just searching for
something you can try using the -C switch it will use
cache and doesn’t run though all the servers again.
so “yum -C search *xmms*”
As long are the server is fast it never takes more
than 40 seconds for me and I have about 8 repositories.
While I’d agree with your classification of good and bad names, I certainly wouldn’t put Fedora into the list of bad names. It has a nice ring to it, it is an actual word, it has a meaning and it fits very well (as the stylish Red Hat is a Fedora).
I also thought it was a crap name until I actually learned what it means though.
Wish more reviews were like this and not like an advertisement. Hope I wasn’t fooled because I am going to try Fedora 6.2 next month.
Hi
um?
By smoke (IP: —.508.15.vie.surfer.at) – Posted on 2004-03-03 22:27:07
i am not sure, but imho yum is the slowest package management tool i ever worked with. anyone has the same objections?”
yum is not really slow. if you are using the redhat mirror then you should try switching to other mirrors. list the mirrors on the order you want and it will fall back if needed.
regards
rahul
the bleeding edge of Linux development?
I would disagree with that statement. Just like Debian, you can change to testing or development sources. But by default, the stable is not bleeding edge – no more so than RedHat was. If there are 2 releases a year, I wouldn’t call that bleeding edge either. Look at Mozilla – 1.4.1 is in stable/updates – Mozilla 1.5 & 1.6 is not.
It’s not like alpha/beta versions of software are packaged for Fedora – they include the stable/tested releases only. Fedora is rock solid, I do not have any problems with it. Ever.
That said, Fedora stable package versions are considerably newer than Debian stable packages – but there’s no surprise there. And they are probably equally stable with updates applied.
bleeding edge of Linux development?
Yup, that’s actually the point of Fedora, to be a testbed for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases.
Just like Debian, you can change to testing or development sources
They’re all testing sources. Fedora is a testbed for Red Hat.
bleeding edge – no more so than RedHat was
GCC 2.96. Early 2.4 Linux kernel that constantly swapped out to disk for no good reason. No more than Red Hat indeed.
It’s not like alpha/beta versions of software are packaged for Fedora
Yikes, there are so many broken packages in Fedora that it was not usable by me for everyday things, let alone anything important.
Fedora is rock solid, I do not have any problems with it
Some people are just really lucky, or never get past the ‘ooh, shiny’ phase of playing with a new OS.
And they are probably equally stable with updates applied
Another poster here has had speed issues with Yum. It is horribly, unacceptably slow. It would take several hours on my connection (averaging a good ~500kb/s) to download them all.
You’ve got to be the luckyest SOB in the world if you’re not having problems with Fedora core. I’ll stick with FreeBSD.
I have finally finished my fedora FC-2 install, This is
from a developer/ SA point of view.
-) Good it all worked, no problems with installing, it just installed,
-) up2date actually works. And installs depedent items correctly.
-) mozilla 1.6.1 with nice fonts.
Bad
-) Up2date is DAMN slow on first update. If you know how to do it grab the last week of development RPMS and install by hand, A BIG time saviour.
-) KDE still slow
-) Still had to hand configure wireless card.
-) No mp3 support. (I understand their POV though)
My machine PIII 550 laptop 256 MBi of memory. Sony-PCGF490
I use Enlightment 16 everything has been rock solid no
complaints.
Respones to other comments.
– No broken packages yet,
– I don’t use yum so no response
– Hmmm need to compile Civ call to power for this… That
will test the packages.
Donaldson
Hmmm need to compile Civ call to power for this… That
will test the packages
?!
Did I miss something? Call to Power source code was released? Gimme.
And to whomever tried to mod me down,
This is for the couple posts above……fedora may not be perfect…BUT HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED IT???? the bsd’s arent perfect and u should stop trolling
Opps sorry about the Civ CTP reference, I was talking
about the ALpha version. I’m planning on a port of FC2
to the Alpha and I still have the source to CIV from when I worked with Loki. (Under lock and key I might add) and It will break more pacvkages than a kernel.
Donaldson
“A good name will form a connection between something tangible and the thought/product/idea you want to convey.”
That being the case, what have yellow dogs, red hats, mandrakes have to do with an Open Source operating system? Shouldn’t the names convey a high tech, radical feeling to distance themselves from the bland “Windows”?
Your telepathic abilities must be impressive indeed for you to have plucked all that from the depths of Stray’s mind. 😀
Still, thanks for the interesting response.
“Nouns, by definition, are better at this. For example “Red Hat” and “Yellow Dog” actually bring pictures to one’s mind.”
This rationale sounds perfectly plausible if you restrict the selection to those two names, true, but Stray mentioned Slackware as a “good” name as well; that doesn’t really conjure up a picture of a real-world object in the same way.
#!/usr/bin/rant
I HATE yum w/ a passion…
the speed is fixed w/ -C or mirrors yes but what i hate is the hanging
YUM hangs after a little while & REALLY does a kamikaze if i use apt-get (its better anyways) or any other PKGMAN.
I have a hanging cron job right now cause @ 4ish it did a yum -y update & hung.. didn’t even spit A THING out to log…
YUM SUCKS PLAIN AND SIMPLE….
anyone know when the next release of yellowdog will be and if it will be based of fedora?
While I’d agree with your classification of good and bad names, I certainly wouldn’t put Fedora into the list of bad names. It has a nice ring to it, it is an actual word, it has a meaning and it fits very well (as the stylish Red Hat is a Fedora).
Well, I just think Fedora is almost as bad. Not as bad. I wear a Fedora myself
, but my dislike for the name “Fedora”, unlike the reasons against the other names Syntaxis explained so eloquently, is completely unfounded and lacking any logical defense really =D
Though the word “Fedora” complies with some kind of image association, unlike “Yoper”, and isn’t a terribly dorky name like “Turbo Linux”, it still sounds too soft and cushy for “me”…like “Pillow” or “Coffin”. For a secure Linux distro, I’d prefer something that conjures up a harder, more rugged image, and probably doesn’t end in a soft “a” sound. Then again, “Fedora” kind of conjures up “comfort”, so it’s all good I guess.
Anyways, I’m barely trying to be serious. I’m just ranting in good fun. It’s just that Language can have subtle special effects on the ear, and it works not just for writers or poets, but products as well.
true, but Stray mentioned Slackware as a “good” name as well; that doesn’t really conjure up a picture of a real-world object in the same way.
I mention Slackware because it’s funny, and it conjures of an image of non-conformity, like “The Misfits”, “Born Against”, or Linus Torvalds’ original name for Linux: “Freax”. Lol, I wish he just went with Freax. It tells me Patrick is a cool, funny guy.
I guess it just depends on what you see in it.
For me, Fedora is far from being a “hard and rugged secure Linux distro”, and more of a slick, fluffy and comfortable allround desktop OS. The name fits very well with this kind of image. 
For me, Fedora is far from being a “hard and rugged secure Linux distro”,
True that, but that might change with Core 2, I dunno.
i find yum to be extremely slow and definately overrated. ill just continue using apt and be happy.
yum just seems to have to download way too much data for just checking on package availibility, whilst apt is fine with the occasional apt-get update.
different strokes for different folks i suppose.
why not use a local server ?
Snake
YUM is written in Python. Interpreted languages are far slower than similarly written C. Aptitude is written in C. Ergo, no surprise that using YUM is slower than apt-get.
For what it is, YUM is pretty good.
-Erwos
What does Fedora plan to use as an X server in its next release?
> YUM is written in Python. Interpreted languages are far slower than similarly written C. Aptitude is written in C. Ergo, no surprise that using YUM is slower than apt-get.
If you knew anything about Yum, you’d know that it’s slowness comes from File IO rather than being written in Python. Thus a database would help more then being reimplemented in C.
I hate YUM with a vengance! It crashes at the slightest opportunity, messes up and frustrates at every use.
APT plus Synaptic – click click click – done! This is how it should be!
On a general note I’m very pleased with Fedora – came to it via the Lorma Linux home rolled version. I’m not too bothered about the politics and background, it’s the end result that matters. The only thing I have yet to make work is my WiFi card but that’s my problem.
Now, if only there was some way to stop the so called antialiased fonts from looking like smudged paintings I’d be in heaven…..
Kudos to the Fedora team
Seems nice, I will be using it as the first test bed for GNOME 2.6, Red Hat concentrates on GNOME, and thus will be one of the best implementations probably.
I can’t wait for the next XD, supposed to have a very nice Control Panel, looks good. GNOME really doesn’t have one, closest is a vfolder using nautilus. Red Hat doesn’t appear to care to change such things though.
Hopefully it will feel faster. GTK 2.4 is supposed to be faster. Its slow as hell right now… GTK 2.2/GNOME 2.4 I mean.
Anyway, I will try it, probably won’t like it, and switch within a week again…
“What does Fedora plan to use as an X server in its next release?”
According to the site, XFree86 4.3. They still will not be going to Xfree86 4.4 as that has the new “GPL Incompatible” license, while 4.3 has the old license.
fedora may not be perfect…BUT HAVE YOU EVEN TRIED IT????
Umm, yes, it’s the only distro I use. Have used it since RedHat 6. I never said Fedora isn’t perfect – I think it is pretty damn close IMHO. I haven’t had any problems in the 4 months I have used FC1.
the bsd’s arent perfect and u should stop trolling
Firstly I never mentioned the BSDs. Secondly – I never said anything bad about Fedora, just that it is bleeding edge only if you switch to development (and to a lesser extent testing) sources. I also said that Debian package versions for devel, testing and stable are way behind Fedora devel, testing and stable packages.
Maybe you should have your morning coffee before you go online – then you wont be such a grumpy pants? 😉