Here’s yet another review of Fedora Core 3, this time at NewsForge.
Fedora Core 3: A whole new level
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I totally agress to this. Its more compatiable to new hardware and its really fast & stable. Yet it needs some work on GUI front for stability and more hardware support on video accelaration. It is included with Latest GNOME and KDE which is another advantage. I really feel up2date is not yet to the mark. I didnt like the “disabling of remote X11 forwarding with ssh”
“And finally, GNOME 2.8 sucks less than 2.6 did. But now that I’ve discovered the vast superiority of KDE, I doubt that I’ll ever go back to GNOME.”
I don’t think I’ll be reading past this particular point in the article.
My favourite is GNOME, but KDE is just fast and snappy.
With GNOME it is obvious what I can do, but with KDE I can do a hell of a lot more, but KDE is confusing to a newb like me and sometimes I can’t or just don’t have the time to configure the simple things.
eg. I install Lisa (because it is a dependency for what I wish to achieve), I run the Lisa service, SMB doesn’t work. Sometimes I have a huge directory full of 127.0.0.1 directories and not the actual shares that are available.
GnomeVFS just makes this process work. Although I have noticed it is a little slower than using smbclient.
KDE is superior, but just needs better defaults for things that newbs use the most.
About FC3 gotchas? I think I could be happy using RHEL4 when it comes out. I have come to the point where I don’t want the latest and greatest although RHEL4 has a great feature set.
The only thing I don’t know is how compatible is livna repo with RHEL4?
“With GNOME it is obvious what I can do, but with KDE I can do a hell of a lot more…”
I don’t suppose you have ever used gconfd-editor? GNOME can do much of what KDE can do, but the things you *need* tend to be in plain sight.
Redhat pushes more gnome than kde in Fedora. I havent used KDE so I cannot comment as much as I would like (only references about what KDE people say). After saying this, I have to say that I dropped Fedora. It was my first distribution, but I got tired of many annoying things that were to damn hard to fix. At the beginning I was thinking that this happen for being a newbie (I will always consider my self one). However, I started using other distributions, and I saw that these things work. Ubuntu is one of them. However, gentoo is my weapon of choice right now (stage 1, I have to brag about it). It is more stable than fedora. Gnome is a dream in gentoo, espcially considering that you are compiling it from zero. This is my opinion, maybe I am wrong. Like I said I am just a newbie.
On a couple different distros (actually, most for me) I would have programs just not open in KDE, or a little bouncing cursor for 30 seconds, then it stops and then the program opens after 60 seconds (of course after I click it another time, causing it to open twice a few minutes later). This was on a 3GHz HT machine with 768 MB Ram (I have since sold it)…Gnome never had these problems.
And when I look at the KDE Control Center….well, all I have to say is what a bloody mess. Don’t these people ever clean anything up? It’s as if they threw the utilities in there years ago and never went back to clean up the mess. And what is it about KDE that makes it “superior”? I would really like to know what I can do in KDE that Gnome isn’t “good” enough to handle?
And when I look at the KDE Control Center….well, all I have to say is what a bloody mess. Don’t these people ever clean anything up? It’s as if they threw the utilities in there years ago and never went back to clean up the mess. And what is it about KDE that makes it “superior”? I would really like to know what I can do in KDE that Gnome isn’t “good” enough to handle?
Yop. Have to agree to that. But the even worst thing of KDE is the artwork. There seems to be no clean structure. Crystal looks kind of good, but the panel icons are crap…..
Thanks to you for turning this into another KDE vs Gnome love fest.
KDE has K/parts, DCOP and KIOS. Find out what they are and you may one day understand why KDE is so powerful and the preferred choice of real Unix users. “Small parts, at least for a desktop, that can be combined with other parts to make bigger things happen”
I’ll agree with folks here that Gnome is just pretty damn good at providing a simple and sane DE. Frankly KDE could use some clean up work and they need to trim down the number of KDE apps that are redundant like Kwrite, Kate, etc… Of course there is one area where KDE wins hands down and that’s speed, and stability when compared to Gnome. While I am not saying that Gnome is supper buggy as hell, what I am saying is that Gnome still has bugs in it that have been around for a while and have not been addressed. The speed issues with Gnome are another area where KDE is ahead. KDE just feels more snappier and the redraw rates of windows when you stretch them out or have more then 5 open is just faster and leaves Gnome in the dust. Again I love Gnome’s sane defaults and clean feel with one app for one task approach but they need to do some bug hunting and speed optimization to make Gnome into one bad arse DE. KDE on the other hand needs to do some serious culling of the herd when it comes to default apps. Also KDE needs to play nice with other non-default apps. I have a heck of a time setting FireFox as the default browser in KDE and getting Kmail to worth with email url’s in Firefox etc.. I Gnome this is just not a issue.
Prelinking usually does the trick to speed up KDE. Have you tried that? If that doesn’t do it for you, make sure that you don’t have any unwanted processes or uninvited guests. Try to run lsof to see what’s eating your resources.
KDE, should be faster than Gnome nowdays. Well I havn’t compared it to Gnome 2.8 on FC3, but it was a lot faster than Gnome 2.6 on FC2. Anyway if you have to wait 60 seconds for an app to show up on a 3GHz machine there is something seriously wrong. On my old PIII 500 MHz it applications like konqueror opens in less than a second.
As for KDE being superior, well it is. The network integration is much better, windows networks are accessed fast and easily. The possibility to save files directly using ssh, very handy e.g. for web development on other machines.
The development framework is much better, in KDE I was able to read and undertstand the code and even fix minor bugs in just a few hours, even though it was years since I last looked at C++. In Gnome I wouldn’t even dream of doing something like this. Compared to KDE the Gnome documentation is a joke.
When it comes to usability Gnome really shines. It’s clean and simple. In this area KDE is so bad that don’t even know where to start. It’s just too much. Too much menus , Too much buttons, Too much colors.
It feels like the KDE team hasn’t decided for whom they develop. Some parts are newbie oriented to a degree where it gets in the way for a more experienced user, and other parts are totally out of reach for a newbie. The result is that fewer people than necessary likes it. It’s a shame really, as the developers put a lot of hard work into their project.
Ehm… excuse me for a rather ignorant question (but honest one)…what is SELinux (besides its acronym)? Is this like a new firewall?
“As for KDE being superior, well it is.”
These extreme startments are verging on self-contradiction. IF you don’t want to start a flame war I’d suggest you stick to specifics.
selinux stands for security enhanced linux
it isnt really a firewall, more like a sandbox restricting what rights apache, samba, etc.. have in the way they interact with the system.
I hope this is helpful to you.
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/001nov04/features/selinux/
[i]The Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) extensions work, thanks to a new “targeted policy” that is turned on by default.[/]
This offers no or little protection for the average user who uses FC3 as a everyday desktop system.I would rather see a strict policy complete with policy for secure everyday use and still functioning system update .
Are you quoting from somewhere or just putting all your comments in italics?
it is nice to see that fedora now is pushing XFCE as a primary 3rd option to kde and gnome. however i tried a defualt unmodified install and found the menu for xfce did not contain the applications installed. this works fine in mandrake etc
”
KDE, should be faster than Gnome nowdays. Well I havn’t compared it to Gnome 2.8 on FC3, but it was a lot faster than Gnome 2.6 on FC2. Anyway if you have to wait 60 seconds for an app to show up on a 3GHz machine there is something seriously wrong. On my old PIII 500 MHz it applications like konqueror opens in less than a second.
”
All I know is on the machine I am using now
(500 MHz, 256 MB RAM)
KDE under all distros I’ve tried except MEPIS and Slackware is absolutly unusable. For instance, when I attempted SUSE 9.2 on this machine, KDE took about 3 or 4 times longer to fully start than Gnome did. And Gnome on Ubuntu is still way faster than KDE on MEPIS or Slackware.
Whatever distro you are using where KDE is faster than Gnome and will go that fast on my computer, just shout it out tome.
”
Thanks to you for turning this into another KDE vs Gnome love fest.
”
Well when the author made this comment “And finally, GNOME 2.8 sucks less than 2.6 did. But now that I’ve discovered the vast superiority of KDE, I doubt that I’ll ever go back to GNOME.” without offering any arguements whatsoever leaving that for us to do, it was bound to start an arguement at some point. At least I gave some ideas as to why I think Gnome is better. Also, and this is to the reviewer, when you know that this is likely to cause a Gnome vs. KDE battle, why would you put something stupid like that in your article in the first place. I mean, comparing ABIWord to OOo or Firefox to Konqueror is one thing, but KDE to Gnome and then saying that Gnome sucks…come on, use your friggin head
Are you quoting from somewhere or just putting all your comments in italics?
On the contrary i just messed a little with UBB.Nevertheless i still don’t get it why the Mad Penguin article sees SeLinux alone a reason for installing FC3.SeLinux with the targeted policy only protects some networking deamons the average user most likely doesn’t use,like portmap,which i allways inmediedly disable.What is your opinion or are you only commenting on the correct use of the English language ?
All I know is on the machine I am using now
(500 MHz, 256 MB RAM)
KDE under all distros I’ve tried except MEPIS and Slackware is absolutly unusable. For instance, when I attempted SUSE 9.2 on this machine, KDE took about 3 or 4 times longer to fully start than Gnome did. And Gnome on Ubuntu is still way faster than KDE on MEPIS or Slackware.
I have Debian SID on my old Sony Vaio Laptop with a 650 MHz PIII and 128 MB Ram and it works very well, even if I use Konqueror, KMail and XEmacs at once. If KDE is totally unsable on your System with twice the amount of memory, there is definitely something wrong with your setup. I never installed GNOME on this laptop, so I don’t know how fast GNOME is compared to KDE with the same hardware.
I also tried Ubuntu. It is not a bad Distro, but I don’t see any advantage compared to plain Debian. The installer is the same, I had trouble with the installation, a lot of packages are missing, especially the whole KDE. While this might be useful for the corporate desktop, it is not aimed at the home user. (I know I can just install the Debian SID packages, but then there is no point using Ubuntu, anymore).
Personally I like KDE apps like kate, kdevelop, k3b, konqueror, kmail, korganizer etc. more then their GNOME equivalents and I also really like the whole Qt/KDE programming framework and therefore I will stick with KDE.
I wish people could stop talking nonsen when discussing the speed of system, the time it takes to log in has nothing to do with the speed of your desktopsystem. The login time are absolutely meaningless, if a login takes 1/2 minute or 2minutes the only time difference matters if you are only allowed to use the computer 5minutes at the time. If you actually use the computer to do something, contra only log in and out you would know this.
As for start up time for applications, 10s or 20s to start an app don’t make a big difference really. You want to use the app for something don’t you. Better making a real speed test, try opening a big textfile 200k-1M in KWrite and GEdit. Watch the load speed. Jump around in the text, scroll some etc and watch the speed difference.(I haven’t tried, so I can’t tell which one is fastest, but if there are speed differences you would see them)
i dont think that selinux alone is reason enough for someone to install FC3 but i dont think it hurts for it to be there either.
Eu said “Thanks to you for turning this into another KDE vs Gnome love fest.”
Actually, the Author of the original article made this into another KDE vs Gnome love fest with the line “And finally, GNOME 2.8 sucks less than 2.6 did. But now that I’ve discovered the vast superiority of KDE, I doubt that I’ll ever go back to GNOME.” That could probably have been better put as “And finally, Gnome 2.8 is an improvement over 2.6, but after having tried KDE, I doubt I will return to Gnome.” It’s called tact, and all reviewers should have that, there is no need to be offensive when you think something is better than something else. Of course, I hate to say, but that seems to be a common way of talking about things in the “Linux Community”, or at least the most vocal parts.
Anyway, back on the subject of the review, it sounds like Fedora has really progressed nicely.
Btw, I love linux and preffer Gnome, but KDE is good too and useful in its own way, just not for me.
” I don’t suppose you have ever used gconfd-editor? GNOME can do much of what KDE can do, but the things you *need* tend to be in plain sight. ”
Kcontrol might have a lot of options, but there are so many ways to configure KDE there isn’t really any way you can cut it down without restricting what you can change. I agree it could be streamlined, but the way gconfd-editor deals with it is a complete cop-out. The Windows registry style editing is considerably harder to understand than nice, easy to use GUI widgets. Gnome is fine when you like the defaults, but please don’t try to say that gconfd-editor is superior to kcontrol just because it looks simpler because it is terrible to browse and play with settings to find ones you like. Either way, gconfd-editor doesn’t have any way to turn on KDE features like kioslaves (provides network transparent file access), kparts (easily embed KDE applications inside each other for great integration and reuse) and its great applications (kopete, k3b, koffice, kate, konqueror, kontact, juk).
KDE has K/parts, DCOP and KIOS. Find out what they are and you may one day understand why KDE is so powerful and the preferred choice of real Unix users.
Wow, I didn’t know I wasn’t a “real” Linux user! Try to overcome your arrogance though. I used to swear by KDE. I love kparts, dcop, kioslaves, etc. It excels technologically. Unfortunately, it’s just too much of a mess. Tons of random useless K apps always get installed to clutter the menu, randomly missing icons, and the control center is a mess like somebody else said. After day in and day out it started to drain me out. So I had to switch to Gnome.
>>As for start up time for applications, 10s or 20s to start >>an app don’t make a big difference really.
I totally disagree with this. 10s is too long.
On my PIII 850 MHz laptop with 384Mb ram, waiting 5s for a konsole to open up is too long in my opinion.
There are many times when one would like to quickly launch an app and use it for no more than a minute. For example, konsole, kate (text editor), kghostview (for postscript/pdf viewing), kuickview (for image viewing). I don’t want to wait 5-7s for the app to open up every time I need it, and I don’t want to keep it running because they use up my resources.
The truth is that kde apps launch much faster when the kdeinit service is running because there is much less time used for linking at runtime. While this may be the case, kde apps still start slower than gnome apps, but once they are running they are generally much more responsive, draw quicker, and have less flicker, etc…
Once observation that I’ve made is that both gnome and kde apps redraw much faster in icewm when a window is dragged across the app. This leads me to believe that the slowness in drawing has something to do with the window managers of the respective desktops.
Well, KDE is indeed superior in terms of development framework, performance network abstraction, etc, which makes it excell technologically.
However, it appears to be developed without a real philosophy in mind. And this is where Gnome comes in. Gnome is more usable and better structured(from a users persective) than KDE is.
“gconfd-editor doesn’t have any way to turn on KDE features like kioslaves (provides network transparent file access)”
Uh, hello? have you ever heard of gnome-vfs?
Selinux is not insignificant, its huge. The author of the article is right, It is the future. No other technology out there looks to have more potential and flexibility. It is just a baby though it will take years to get to the point where it can be managed with ease. We’re talking 100,000 rules here, not easy stuff for the developers to solidify. That is why you don’t get your “strict” policy by default it will break some applications maybe like java/flash/X/etc. Someone was right in that desktop users don’t get much out of SElinux yet but do a ps auxZ and you should atleast see syslogd protected. maybe some run NTP and Apache which are also protected. The idea is to do little by little not just throw a “strict” policy at us and have everything break.
I had a hard time finding the search function in Gnome file browser. Damn it shouldn’t be this hard.
What this? Another Fedora review?
“…I would have programs just not open in KDE, or a little bouncing cursor for 30 seconds, then it stops and then the program opens after 60 seconds (of course after I click it another time, causing it to open twice a few minutes later).”
This is exactly what happened to me when I misconfigured my loopback network interface (oops!)
Somebody claimed that KDE is bloated. I couldn’t agree more if I had only tried Suse on my 500 MHz machine, but using debian or slackware is a completely different thing. Using them, KDE is “instant” and gnome is “50 ms”.
On the contrary i just messed a little with UBB.Nevertheless i still don’t get it why the Mad Penguin article sees SeLinux alone a reason for installing FC3.SeLinux with the targeted policy only protects some networking deamons the average user most likely doesn’t use,like portmap,which i allways inmediedly disable.What is your opinion or are you only commenting on the correct use of the English language ?
A policy that provided good sandboxing of webbrowsers, e-mail, and chat programs would do much more to raise security for the average user. I.e. if all files recieved by one of these programs was unexecutable by root, and that these and other programs was set to be unmodifiable by such programs it would be very hard for viruses to spread.
You would of course need som security role that made it possible to install plugins, so you would still be vulnerable to attacks that was made by social engineering, but the situation would be much improved.
Still it is good that it is installed by default. This atleast help to make people aware of the possibility of
creating a more secure system.
Uh, hello? have you ever heard of gnome-vfs?
The same idea, but unfortunately not not as well implemented as KDE kioslaves.
I would put it this way:
When you use Gnome you sit in front of your computer, when you use KDE you sit in front of Internet, at least it feels that way. The difference is enourmous.
As for speed –
When using Mandrake 10.0, I get snappier performance with KDE than with GNOME, but not by a significant margin. This is on an IBM Thinkpad 600, with 300MHz cpu, and 228 megs RAM.
As another comparison, on an older Gateway Machine (350 MHz cpu, 128 megs RAM), I had the same Mandrake 10 installed, and again KDE was slightly snappier. However, I recently installed Ubuntu on it, and the GNOME 2.8, which is installed with Ubuntu, is actually snappier than both KDE and GNOME (2.4) were with the Mandrake installation.
So it’s kind of relative when comparing speed. I would say, however, that KDE is overall snappier than GNOME. But GNOME seems to be improving in that department.
As for usability – GNOME, for me, is much easier, more intuitive, productive, and comfortable than KDE. KDE, which I love, has tons of features, software, and is very powerful. But the menus and organization is still a bit of a mess.
In KDE, if I want to do task “x”, I find I often have to click on 3 – 5 menu items or buttons (unless it was something I had done before) before I get it right. With GNOME, it’s usually the first click.
I have also found that with apps that I use fairly frequently, the GNOME version tends to be smoother and less buggy than the KDE version. I like Evolution infinetely better than Kontact (but Kontact is not mature yet, so it’s not a fair comparisson). I like Abiword and Gnumeric much better than KWord and KSpread, because Abiword and Gnumeric are less buggy (Kspread, in particular, is really buggy, I have found).
I also like Glade better than QT Designer (or KDevelop). Glade is extremely simply and intuitive. QT Designer is awesome, but takes a while to learn all the ins and outs. And KDevelop is a killer IDE, but it is big and complicated.
So, these days, I’m liking GNOME better. 2 or 3 months ago, it was KDE. Maybe in another 2 or 3 months, it will be KDE again. It’s been that way since I started using Linux. This is one of the reasons I love Linux: Choice. I get to choose which DE I want to use (among many other things), according to my current needs and desires.
So the flame wars are stupid. Unfortunately, the author of the review seeded the war with his stupid comment about GNOME.
Its amazing how often these KDE vs. Gnome fights emerge. But anyhow I guess I’ll throw in my two cents…
As has been stated many times KDE has some good things and bad things, and the same goes for Gnome. Personally I prefer using Gnome because, as many have stated, its a lot cleaner and easier to do what you want.
KDE on the other hand, as has been stated, is much faster and offers a lot of features that aren’t implamented as well in Gnome. Also the KDE framework is much much nicer.
But there is one very big problem I have had with KDE in the past (and it’s nice to see others have had the same problem), which is when I go to open a program I’ll get the nice little bouncing cursor for about a minute and nothing will happen. After about another minute the program will open. Its really strange as heck, but I don’t have that issue with Gnome.
In the end there is no better desktop manager, just the one you prefer using. For me its Gnome since a nice clean and efficent interface means a lot to me. For others its KDE, then you have people that use other desktop managers. But to argue that one is the best is like arguing which model car is the best, its really quite pointless since its all a matter of what the system user likes.
“And finally, GNOME 2.8 sucks less than 2.6 did. But now that I’ve discovered the vast superiority of KDE, I doubt that I’ll ever go back to GNOME.”
I don’t think I’ll be reading past this particular point in the article.
Any “review” that shows a clear deference for a particular DE or method, especially one contrary to the main path of a distro so early in the extremely short (can this even be called a review?) review is hardly worth the minute to read.
when you use KDE you sit in front of Internet, at least it feels that way. The difference is enourmous.
OK, I’ve read ridiculous comments overhyping KDE, but this one takes the lead.
I have used Gnome, off and on since the early days of Gnome. Gnome feels better, the Gnome based apps are pretty good execpt natulis,
so: I have been a very long time KDE user, KDE is very stable
the framework and crash recover are just that good.
but some of apps, like kmail vs evolution evo wins ,
but i put ubuntu with Gnome 2.8 on my laptop and i gotta say its really good. it feels right and well thought out. and finily has some direction. if they stay on the right path Gnome will have a very bright future.
Nex6
Assertions that KDE is “snappier” than “Gnome”, or vice versa, are meaningless unless supported by controlled tests and measurements on a single platform.
Here are just a few of the variables than can impact the perceived and real speed of a desktop:
1. What kernel is in use? How was it compiled? Is it patched?
2. What video card is in use? How much memory is on the card? Which driver?
3. XFree86 or Xorg? Whose version? How compiled?
4. What kind of monitor? CRT or LCD? What resolution? DPI? Refresh rate? If an LCD, is it being driven at the unit’s default resolution in DVI mode, or at a non-default resolution in analog mode?
5. How much memory is available to the OS? Is it swapping?
6. Hardware specs: CPU, etc.
Obiviously, there are more. But anecdotal claims that ABC is faster than XYZ have little value unless we happen to be using identical hardware in an identical fashion.
All this banter about Gnome versus KDE…what about Fedora itself? I was hoping someone would address some of the problems I encountered with FC3: whenever I put a disc in the optical drive, Natalus would crash; whenever I tried a spell check in Oo Writer, it ground to a halt and then locked the system… and there were others.
Not all FC3 users have the same problem. The problem you mentionned does not exist on my FC3 so it is hard to help. Like enloop pointed out, could you be specific by including your system specification i.e desktop or laptop?
I’ve installed FC3 on two computers and just found it has more than the usual share of pesky little bugs. Not major ones, but just kind of itchy problems. For example:
*On one machine it misdetected my AC97 sound card, which every distro has gotten right for years
*On another, volume control in XMMS stopped working
*No icon for NetworkManager, and typing “NetworkManagerInfo” just spins the hard disk for a few minutes and then does nothing. A big disappointment, since this feature was half the reason I wanted to install FC3.
*On one machine it no longer recognized audio disks on the CD drive.
Anyway, I’m sure these bugs have their solutions, as all bugs do, and certainly other distros have their glitches as well. For me, though, it gave the distinct impression of having more than the usual share.
The positive side: Desktop integration is smoother (though still has ways to go), language support is much improved though not perfect, and udev is cool.
I’m kind of hoping they’ll try to get these kinds of glitches worked out with their next release, which could potentially make for a great distribution. Please let them not jump into this stateless linux insanity…..
-Tavis
“Please let them not jump into this stateless linux insanity…..
”
did you even bother reading about it first?. whats insane about it. explain
Are we talking kde/gnome or Fedora
I know, the gnome comment shocked me too…
I did like this comment howerver:
“Fedora is not a distribution aimed at the general consumer market, and it’s hardly fair to compare it to commercial distros (as I once did). Fedora’s intended audience is people who want to be somewhere between the leading edge and the bleeding edge: it’s a test bed for the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Its developers try new things with every release, and they don’t always work, but you get to work with the newest of the new stuff. Fedora is meant to be tinkered with and customized. It is meant to be pushed to the breaking point to find its weak areas. It has become an important proving ground for new technology. In addition, the Fedora Project’s commitment to 100% free software means that there will always be certain goodies (such as MP3 capability) that users will have to obtain and install themselves.”
Hit the nail on the head so maybe people wont bring up it’s not so noobie friendy and there aren’t any codec’s…..
“The install is easy, setup is easy, but it is very stable! I use Gentoo. harder to install but it compiles itself to your computer making it very fast.”
Good argument you got there, 😉
Those comments are so 2 years ago……
Nothing is insane about the concept of stateless Linux itself; I actually think it could be quite useful. However, ripping out and reorganizing all of the configuration files for a system is a potentially very disruptive activity that will result in all kinds of weird forget-me-not goof-ups. In other words, it could take years to stabilize. So please, let them not put it in Fedora Core 4.
-Tavis
whenever I tried a spell check in Oo Writer, it ground to a halt and then locked the system… and there were others.
A workarround is at:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-December/msg01631.h…
” So please, let them not put it in Fedora Core 4. ”
fc4 will have the infrastructure. you need to enable it yourself. otherwise you just wont feel the differences. its just a process to do things better. not really too many disruptive changes in software you need to worry about.
fc3 managed to pull a much bigger change with selinux. i am confident staleless linux can be done well with fc4
I still say it blows.
All I care about is EASE of USE!
So, I like to use Gnome because is looks sharp, and I mean SHARP!
BUT, the freaking samba browser mechanism is busted in Gnome.
KDE is great, works very fast and looks ok AND it’s samba/windows share(s) browser works Great!!!
But my eyes aren’t what they used to be and I like the smooth clean look of Gnome.
I have seen the report about the firewall interfering but I have turned the fire wall off and disabled iptables.
So what gives? I don’t know… Looks like a Gnome bug to me.
Oh BTW, serving out samba shares work perfectly too.
So, FC3 is excellent. (except for the samba stuff)
The big bonus is the recognition of such a wide variety of hardware. This the FIRST install to my laptop that worked first time with no mods. This, is a marked improvement.
L8r,
~G