This article is kind of a follow-up to my first Fedora Core 2 review, published on OSNews in May. Most of the reviews are published shortly after the release of a distribution, and there’s always someone who complains that one cannot really “review” a distribution after only a few days of actually working with it.
So, back in May, I decided to write a follow-up sometime in the end of the summer. I have worked with Fedora Core 2 now for almost four months, I have installed it several times on various machines. While I am not a hacker myself and certainly do not claim to know FC2 super-in-depth, I feel that I just might have gained enough knowledge about this distro to write another small article about it. Also, this article includes my personal wishlist for Fedora Core 3, mostly from a “desktop-user”-perspective.
I won’t bother you with installation issues today, that stuff got covered in my first review. Certainly, most of you know that installing a linux-distribution nowadays is pretty straight-forward, most of the important hardware gets detected properly. Yes, there are of course hardware incompatibilities and missing drivers sometimes, but RedHat/Fedora’s Kudzu does a decent job at detecting and configuring hardware, I’d say: not better and not worse than its competitors.
Before I start, let me explain how I am planning this article: I will list all the problems I found and write my workarounds. These problems range from “severe, highly annoying” to “minor flaw”. I’ll just report all that I saw and that I caused irritation to me.
Before I start complaining, I want to say some positive things: I have used Fedora Core 2 as my production system since it was released and I am very happy with it. I use Mozilla, Openoffice.org, Nautilus, File-Roller, Gnome-Terminal, gFTP, gedit, Bluefish, the Gimp, gThumb, XMMS, Rhythmbox, Easytag, and Gaim every day. Besides having 0 kernel crashes during this time, I can’t remember that i saw any of these applications (with the exception of Rhythmbox and Gaim) crash. That’s pretty impressive! Linux-distributions have reached a high level of maturity in 2004. If I had to set up a computer for my grandmother today, I would certainly not choose Microsoft Windows, but a Linux flavor. They’re more secure, robust and, if configured correctly, do exactly what they are intended to, not more, not less.
But now, let’s start with the stuff that I found unsatisfying in Fedora Core 2:
Problem 1 (very annoying): the Gnome PDF-Viewer is horribly broken in FC2 (see bug). It does not display .pdf-files that were created with Openoffice.org correctly. I have reported this problem in my first article. This needs to be fixed for FC3: Gnome PDF Viewer is Fedora’s standard program for viewing .pdf-files and it “just doesn’t work”. An easy workaround to this is to open these files with ggv. Alternatively, you can install acroread from dags rpm-repository. I prefer ggv, because Acrobat Reader for Linux is still a 5.x version, looks and feels pretty outdated, and doesn’t integrate with the desktop well (plus, it’s a proprietary application). ggv hasn’t let me down once this summer, and I regularly have to deal with large, complicated .pdf-files.
Problem 2 (annoying): no sound-mixing in FC2 (couldn’t find a bug, but I posted this myself on the Fedora-devel-list here). This means, just to name one example, when, let’s say, XMMS is running, you can’t hear any gaim-system-sounds. Sometimes, gaim even crashed on me because of this. There is a workaround, posted in my devel-list-entry, taken originally from fedoranews.org. I got some responses saying that sound-mixing is a complicated issue and that some apps (for example xine) do have problems with sound-mixing. Still, I think that proper sound-mixing should be an absolut priority for Fedora Core 3. I also think that only the core/extra applications have to work. If there’s a problem with xine, well, I don’t see xine included in Fedora Core 2 anyway, so where’s the problem? Flame ahead, I also use xine every day and I would be pissed if it didn’t work, but I think we can’t hold back basic improvements forever just because some applications are not ready. As a final sentence: the problems with xine seem to be solved anyway, so this one should no longer be a blocker to nice sound-mixing in Fedora Core.
Problem 3 (minor): Mozilla localization does not work (see bug). I also included this in my first article, even though I set “german” as my language, Mozilla was english and I had to download the language pack myself. Had to do this for every new version of Mozilla in Windows, so I am quite used to it. Also, what to do with Mozilla for the next version of Fedora Core? There’s been some discussion, which browser to ship as default, the options are Mozilla (the suite), Firefox and Epiphany. Epiphany would make sense for consistency reasons. It is the Gnome-browser after all, and it is also based on Gecko. Firefox is the logical successor to Mozilla, but still not even a “1.0”. We’ll probably see all three in FC3 (which is not bad). If Mozilla (the suite) stays the default browser, please put the cool “bluecurve-theme” on it. I guess that would be an easy costumization that would do a lot for a consistent look of Fedora Core 3. Also, “bluecurving” Firefox, if it is included, would be great.
Problem 4 (minor flaw): Mozilla Mail, my default mail application, has a false menu entry. If you set it as the default mail application and click “E-Mail” afterwards, it starts without the “-mail”-option. So not the mail component, but the browser opens up (reported here). Workaround: uh, just use the “Mozilla Mail”-entry. 🙂
Problem 5 (average): Rhythmbox. I had constant issues with Rhythmbox this summer. It did not seem to work any better than the 0.6 series, that was included in FC1. Sometimes, it just didn’t start, and I had to start it again. I guess it segfaulted somehow, but I don’t know why, because it always started without any problems when I started it via the gnome-terminal. The updated 0.8.5 version seems to be stable now, I am still not quite sure, but I couldn’t get it to crash now that I write this article. Another major issue is also solved now: I finally can jump to every point in a song. This was a constant gripe I had with Rhythmbox in Fedora Core 1 and 2: when I jumped to another point in the song that was currently played, playback stopped most of the time alltogether. Now if I could just get my “Quality”-column back, I’d be a really happy camper…
Problem 6 (very annoying): the infamous “dual-boot bug”. There have been a lot of discussions about this one, just check the bugzilla-entry, it boils down to a flamewar. Just to make sure, I will mention again that this is not a Fedora-bug, it is a problem related to the kernel and (primarily) to Windows using ancient methods to check where its partition sits. The two sides to this story are quickly told: “It’s a Windows bug, we don’t have to fix anything, they should get their act together” vs. “Even though this is not our fault, we have to do something about it, because Microsoft won’t and our users get pissed at us.” I do understand both camps here. Still, it’s a major usability problem for a lot of people. Dual-booting Windows and Linux is not that uncommon. I do it myself (and got lucky because Windows still boots on my laptop). Why do I dual-boot? Well, because I need a Windows-test-system when I am “on the road”. I rarely boot it, still I could not do without it sometimes. I really feel that someone should do something about this bug, because RedHat labels Fedora as an operating system for the geeks, for the community (vs. their RedHat Server/Desktop products). While it is pretty unlikely that a coporation that just bought 500 RedHat Desktop systems will want to dual-boot those with Windows, it is, as I said, a problem for many Fedora-users.
Problem 7 (semi-annoying): File-roller does not work. No, Nautilus does not work, when I select a few files, right-click and choose “Create Archive”. Nothing happens. I didn’t find this bug on bugzilla, I guess I’ll file it later. Workaround is easy: just open File-Roller to create an archive instead of using the broken Nautilus-function.
What’s left? Hmmm, maybe the missing multimedia-stuff? Well, I guess, if I was in RedHat’s position, I would also exclude that stuff. As long as it is easy to install the missing decoders, I don’t really mind. If I install Windows nowadays, I have to install a giant heap of software, including decoders, to get a working system, so I guess it is also O.K. for a linux distribution.
One more thing about files and folders, but this is more a design tip for the upcoming Gnome2.8-release: make /home/user/Desktop the default location for saving files and new folders. If Gnome goes the spatial file-organisation way, it should try to do it as consistent as possible: the more you “see” your files, the more you can drag and drop the files around, the better it gets! Plus, it solves the old “I just downloaded the file you told me, where can I find it now?”-problem that I have on like, every support call I have to do. Another possibility would be to set “Desktop = homedir” (possible via GConf-Editor), but that would be a pretty major change. Why do it anyway? Because it strengthens the spatial concept enormously. I firmly believe that Gnome has to go that road as far as possible. While there are different opinions on spatial/navigational file management, at least one thing is sure: if you do the spatial thing, you have to do it as consistent as possible.
So, that was it. The list of problems gets smaller every 6 months 🙂 Overall, I am really very content with Fedora Core 2. I will use it a few more weeks, then try Debian Sarge as soon as it goes stable, and, if all goes well, return to Fedora in October with Release 3.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
“What’s left? Hmmm, maybe the missing multimedia-stuff? Well, I guess, if I was in RedHat’s position, I would also exclude that stuff. As long as it is easy to install the missing decoders, I don’t really mind. If I install Windows nowadays, I have to install a giant heap of software, including decoders, to get a working system, so I guess it is also O.K. for a linux distribution.”
straight on!!
nice article alltoghether imo
I’ve been pretty happy with FC2 – most of our scientists get it put onto their laptops alongside Windows, and it basically just works well for most things. Once yum is configured, dibbling up the multimedia stuff is easy.
It also works really well on Centrino laptops – just install the IPW2100 packages from atrpms.net, and you’re away. I’m eagerly looking forward to FC3, as I suspect that can replace Windows again on my wife’s laptop. Fedora is under-rated – I actually expected it to be a bit flaky, due to being so bleeding edge, but it’s not. It’s been very solid for me.
I don’t see the point why xine should have (or have had) a problem with sound mixing. If mixing isn’t in the system automatically after install, this is already a horrible bug. Even more so for a mainstream or “idiot” distribution like Fedora.
Setting up sound on my Gentoo box was just as much work as compiling ALSA drivers in the kernel, editing two config files, and setting the mixer levels. All applications worked immediately, including xine and OSS applications. And that was about 6 months ago, so if xine worked alright there, why shouldn’t it for Fedora.
I don’t recall ever having any problems with Xine, but then I waited about a month before I upgraded to FC2, so it may have been solved by then.
Fedora can in fact not install acroread by default, it goes against their license policy of only installing truly Free licensed software.
i’m with you: sound-mixing is an absolut must. when i requested it, i was told that xine had problems with it. i didn’t verify that because people on the fedora-test-list normally know what they are talking about and because they also said that it got fixed since then… so, no xine-bashing here 🙂
regards,
christian
I was never entirely convinced that a six month release cycle is such a good idea for a project that is attempting to do so much. Every single release so far has had so many *obvious* flaws, that I find it mind-boggling that they made it into the releases.
One can always hope that things continue to improve to the point that such issues no longer come up, but like all things, we’ll have to wait and see.
A bunch of questions, that someone here might be able to answer:
Fedora is compiled for i386, right? Why arent they compiling for newer hardware? Are people still using i386?
What are the performance gains on a new box using binaries optimized for 686 instead of 386? Noticeable?
What are the performance gains on a new box using binaries optimized for 686 instead of 386? Noticeable?
Measurable, but not noticable.
Those gnome bugs (file roller not working, gnome pdf viewer being broken) aren’t Fedora specific – I notice them in Arch too. Very annoying.
The latest version of gnome pdf viewer has fixed all the problems I’ve encountered with the earlier unreliable versions. I think the latest version is 2.7.91. Give it a try.
does doing that actually enable ALSA-level sound mixing? via dmix?
http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/fedora/core/2/i386/os/RELEASE-NOTES-en…
# Minimum: Pentium-class
Fedora Core 2 is optimized for Pentium PRO (and later) CPUs, but also supports Pentium-class CPUs. This approach has been taken because Pentium-class optimizations actually result in reduced performance for non-Pentium-class processors.
I can’t belive the extent to which people will appologize for their software of choice, wether it be windows or fedora core. My gentoo box is more bleeding edge, yet more stable and problem free by a significant margin.
This reviewer was way to easy on FC2. If this was my system, Id describe it as “falling apart”.
The short answer is that you can compile code so that it runs optimally on one sub-architecture (i686), but is still executable on lower sub-archs (i386). As my_name mentions, the release notes state that Pentiums can run the code, but higher processors are more optimal.
does doing that actually enable ALSA-level sound mixing? via dmix?
Depends on the card you are using (Mostly if it’s really a “card” you don’t need dmix). dmix setup would require the additional step of creating and configuring ~/.asoundrc .
Gentoo has pretty nice documentation on all this stuff, just lokk at http://gentoo-wiki.com .
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_ALSA_sound_mixer_aka_dmix
Direct link.
If you are stuck with problem, go to fedoraforum.org, those people are great and helpful
i am getting tired of people who constantly compare apples to oranges. gentoo is totally useless for me, because i don’t have the time or the nerve to compile each and every package myself.
also, let’s have a look at the points i mentioned:
gpdf: gnome-related, so probably also on your gentoo-box
sound-mixing: it works, i just had to set it up manually. now don’t tell me that it worked automatically for you (except for this kind of “automatically”, where you “just had to edit one or two conf-files”)
dual-boot-bug: kernel-related. also on your box possible
file-roller: gnome-related. also on your box. i just address them because fedora is gnome-centric and a lot of gnome-hackers are from redhat
rhythmbox: also not strictly fedora-related, mentioned because gnome is fedora-default
mozilla localization is not a bug but an issue of fine-tuning the install. i bet my right arm that gentoo’s moz-package comes also in english be default…
so, i conclude: your box is also falling apart…
best regards,
christian
So you claim Gentoo doesn’t have any of the problems?
Problem 1: gPDF, reported in the bugzilla entry as being patched upstram in GNOME CVS. Gentoo doesn’t have this patch.
Problem 2: No sound mixing by default. Slight correction, no software sound mixing by default. Using the ubiquitous SB Live series I’ve got hardware mixing out of the box on Fedora, works just fine. But I agree, Fedora should use dmix by default for onboard audio. Gentoo doesn’t set up sound for you in the first place, so you can hardly claim to be better off.
Problem 3: Mozilla translations. Upstream problem. You can read Christopher Blizzards (Red Hat employee, Mozilla developer) rant about this at http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/html/2004/07/ (July 15th). Does Gentoo magically make the issue go away?
Problem 4: The mozilla mail icon. I’d give you this, only Gentoo doesn’t set up a mail icon for you.
Problem 5: Rhythmbox. I can crash Rhythmbox five different ways before lunch, running Gentoo isn’t going to save me.
Problem 6: Dual boot bug. Bug in all versions of parted prior to 1.6.12 when used with a 2.6 kernel. I see @redhat.com people in the ChangeLog, strangely no @gentoo.org… (or in the kernel changelog, or anywhere…)
Problem 7: Dunno. But I wouldn’t switch to Gentoo for it.
The reason you’ve got Fedora packages on every software project’s homepage, why you’ve got developers on the various planet.x.org sites gushing about their Fedora install experiences, why X.org 6.8’s release plan is build around Fedora’s, and why Gentoo zealots annoy me, is because Fedora and Red Hat are significant and Gentoo is not. If Gentoo disappeared tomorrow we’d continue business as usual but if Red Hat ever tanks we’re going to be up shit creek with many core projects such as glibc, gcc and the kernel.
thank you! and LOL for totally synkronized posting…
christian
p.s.: 5 days after my oo-writer article which got 95% responses concerning latex, i see a huge flamewar about gentoo come up as a result to a fedora article… well, *sigh*, at least the latex-discussion was interesting…
Before this turns into a Gentoo vs Fedora pissing contest, I just want to advice Gentoo advocates to ignore the last two comments.
I’d also like to mention a lot of the problems you highlighted are fedora related and not common to all distros. In fact the only upstream bug I see that affects gentoo is the gnome pdf issue.
is probably not a good idea. I agree with the auther that it should be easy for the user to see and find his files, but puting them on the desktop doesn’t accomplish that as it usually is covered by other windows.
But there is a need to get a single directory for user created files. This should ideally be present on the desktop, and perhaps in some menu or panel, so that it could be opened in a new window on top of application windows. This would actually be very similar to the home folder in Gnome 2.6. Now, if it is so similar, why doesn’t the home folder cut it?
1) The home folder of today appears on the desktop even though, the desktop actualy is contained in the home folder.
This may confuse a user that opens the home folder with nautilus in browser mode and presses the up button and then expect to end up on the desktop.
2) The home folder contains lots of stuff that the user creates without knowing it. I’m thinking of visible preferences files, mailboxes only intended to be opened from inside a mail program,..
3) The home directory concept is not very good for new users since it comes from the domain of computers and not from everyday life.
4) It is hard to find a suitable icon for the home directory since “home directory” doesn’t translate to things that could be associated with houses in all languages.
So the best thing would probably to remove the home directory icon from the desktop, and replace it with a “My documents” folder instead (in the right place of the directory hirarchy). This folder should be used as default download folder and give the user a natural place to store his documents.
I think the mixing problem could sort of be worked around by using esound.
I use FC 2 both personal and at my work. With yum, i found it a very good OS, really easy to install software. And yes I can compile software, but I don’t have the time to compile everything (it seems gentoo users do have that time). I also
NEVER had crashes, do I have to say rock stable?
I hardly can’t wait for the FC 3 release.
I am using dict with many dictionaries installed, but Applications/Dictionary (which calls gnome-dictionary) doesn’t give all definitions, but only one. And the dictionary title is also wrong.
dict works from command line perfectly. I have to use StarDict instead of Gnome Dictionary at this moment.
I hope that in Fedora 3 this will be fixed.
Mmh, I miss some OpenOffice.org (Ximian & RedHat edition) related problems.
a) CPU load and flickering
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=129401
b) Font problems
I’m not able to set up Windows Core fonts on my gilfriends computer (Gnome=OK, OOo=not existent). The installation wizard for additional fonts was removed from this OOo version.
On my system there is no problem.
c) Printing
It is (in the meantime) resolved bug that you can not call the preferences dialog for your printer in OpenOffice.
Another thing: I’m not really sure if this is a OpenOffice related problem. But I think there are some problems with semi-complex documents, I’m not able to print them, mostly postscript related errors. The other printing stuff in Gnome runs well (if I focus on basic printing).
d) WHY oh why is there only help in english available? (If I am wrong, please correct me). Another fact is that the icons in the help (original OOo style) do not match the icons on the screen. In general some parts of the help do not match the Ximian edition of OOo.
e) It’s lame to start. There is no quickstarter to preload it to memory.
f) Minor problems
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=130799
BUT: It looks nice with the new icons
…
Printing
I have a good Postscript capable printer with duplex unit and some more goodies. It’s connected to a HP print server (IPP). Its not quite easy to set it up and to use it. But this seems mostly a Gnome related problem (printing dialogs, …). PDF printing seems not to work for me (there seem to be some missing libraries). And so on…
Conlusion: FC2 works for me. But if we consider that FC2 is developed for the working environment (because of the lacking multimedia stuff), it should work. Even the productivity suite.
Have a nice day,
Christoph
I’m using it @home and @work on machines ranging from single CPU P5 to dual AthlonMPs and XeonDPs… and plan on using it’s 64bit version on my dual Opteron machine.
Unless I have too, I don’t even download and build a custom kernel.
FC2, using Apt (freshrpms/dag/kde-redhat), is stable, easily configurable and manageable.
Oh… why is it, that every single FC/RedHat topic, attracts 100,000 gentoo users that start an FC2 vs. Gentoo pissing contest?
You love gentoo? good for you. Stop craping every single Linux thread with gentoo centric comments.
Just for the record, I’m also a Gentoo user…
Gilboa
“gentoo is totally useless for me, because i don’t have the time or the nerve to compile each and every package myself.”
You entirly missed my point. My point was simply that you were to easy on Fedora. Gentoo is no panacea, and if Fedora can’t compare favorably too it, even though Red Hat professionals carefully put it together while I have rushed to install all the very latest bleeding edge stuff, then there is somthing wrong.
I like gentoo, but I was trying to point out your low standards, not say that gentoo is the answer. Gentoo is what I use most, so its my best point of reference, that is all.
“I’d also like to mention a lot of the problems you highlighted are fedora related and not common to all distros. In fact the only upstream bug I see that affects gentoo is the gnome pdf issue.”
And besides, even if Gentoo has the same problem as Fedora, does that mean its ok for Fedora to have it?
Oh, and Christian: I think you very much overstate the importance of Red Hat and its distros to the health of Linux. Even if they are so important however, shouldn’t they therefor be held to a higher standard? Certainly higher then the “insignificant” Gentoo.
Oh, and Christian: I think you very much overstate the importance of Red Hat and its distros to the health of Linux. Even if they are so important however, shouldn’t they therefor be held to a higher standard? Certainly higher then the “insignificant” Gentoo.
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its enough to say that the distro people shouldnt be blamed exclusively for upstream problems.
“its enough to say that the distro people shouldnt be blamed exclusively for upstream problems.”
Certainly not, but you wouldn’t claim that, if not for upstream problems, Fedora would be utterly perfect, would you? Of course not. The distro people cannot be held completely blameless.
My point was simply that you were to easy on Fedora.
I do not understand that. I’m also an FC2 user, and I have very few problems with it. Why do you call this being easy?
And besides, even if Gentoo has the same problem as Fedora, does that mean its ok for Fedora to have it?
No. But when it’s an upstream bug, it is clear that all distros using same version of a package will have that bug.
I’m currently tracking Development, and FC3 looks to be a great release.
While some functionality is still missing for legal reasons, like mp3, ntfs and most video codecs – we now have Ogg Theora support for at least streaming Fluendo’s office works out of the box.
gpdf is fixed, there are still locale issues with Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird and HelixPlayer – and I consider them serious bugs, but nothing to do about them than wait for those projects to standardise on an interface that we translators can work with – go bug them to make our lives easier or it will take forever as translation is a big job, especially when our standard tools doesn’t work. (bugs filed)
gnome-volume-manager is quite good fun, insert most anything and it will mount and just work. Very impressive to see your digital camera automatically sync with gthumb af pluggning it in.
There’s still issues with the scsi command changes Linus made in 2.6.8 so cd access for audio ripping and cd recording currently only runs as root (bug filed).
Epiphany seems to be the new default browser much to be pleasure – it’s translated and it’s the standard GNOME browser so it integrates well with my desktop.
OpenOffice now has native widget support, but the fileselector work Novell did hasn’t entered the FC OOo.
Overall the system seems extremely snappy compared to FC2, the interactivity work Ingo and friends have done seems to have paid off, as well as certain gcc tweaks (AFAIK).
SELinux works out of the box now and comes default on.
Considering FC3 isn’t even at Test2 it’s extremely stable for me, FC3 is looking good from where I’m sitting.
very interesting comment. thank you
1. mrtg version 2.10.5 dont remember max numbers,,
like on the `Monthly’ Graph i have Max In: 99.9 kb/s
but on the `Yearly’ Graph i have Max In: 79.5 kb/s
2. and this vnc-server 4.0-beta, iam using it, but if i scan my server box that are running it with Nmap. i cant connect to the vncserver after this??
anyone else that have the same problems?
I’m currently on a fairly decent dose of painkillers – I only now noticed that I mangled the english language in a way that would make Dubya proud.
run gstreamer-properties (either by hitting alt+f2 and writing in ‘gstreamer-properties’ or any other way) and change default sink output from whatever to ESD – that’s all!
2. and this vnc-server 4.0-beta, iam using it, but if i scan my server box that are running it with Nmap. i cant connect to the vncserver after this?? —
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i believe this is due to polling interventions. should be fixed in fc3
“I do not understand that. I’m also an FC2 user, and I have very few problems with it. Why do you call this being easy?”
If you have very few problems then thats great. The reviewer though had plenty of problems. Read the review.
“No. But when it’s an upstream bug, it is clear that all distros using same version of a package will have that bug.”
Well of course. What does that have to do with anything? This was a review of Fedora Core, not Gnome. Try to stay focused on the Fedora Core problems.
b) Font problems
I’m not able to set up Windows Core fonts on my gilfriends computer (Gnome=OK, OOo=not existent). The installation wizard for additional fonts was removed from this OOo version.
On my system there is no problem.
If you use the OOo that comes with Fedora, installing fonts in ~/.fonts wil make them usable for OOo. Try it. no bug there. So installing the fonts in the now standard font directory (A Redhat ‘innovation’) will render them accessible from OOo. No need for the oopadmin font installer.
Well of course. What does that have to do with anything? This was a review of Fedora Core, not Gnome. Try to stay focused on the Fedora Core problems.
Other Linux distro users have pointed softwares problem similar to Fedora’s on their OS.
The reason why some posters are against you are your habit to post Gentoo thread on Fedora topic. Shouldn’t you do these, people will argue with you differently.
Hi! Thanks for your help, but I installed it using the fonts:/// folder in Nautilus. I can access them from Gnome, but not in OOo. On my system (also FC2) there was no problem. But thank you again!
Christoph