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Red Hat Software Businesses Software Linux

Fedora Core 2 Review 467

Posted by CmdrTaco from the distro-wars dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Linuxlookup.com staff member Rich Hughes posted his thoughts on the latest Fedora release with this Core 2 Review. "Fedora Core 2 is the newest release from The Distro Formerly Known As RedHat. Updates include the 2.6 kernel, KDE 3.2, Gnome 2.6, X.org replacing Xfree86 and numerous package updates. Having played around with SuSE 9.1, Arch .6 and Slackware 9 with the 2.6 kernel, I was interested in seeing how the Fedora team did with this release.""
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Fedora Core 2 Review More

Fedora Core 2 Review

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  • sony vaio (Score:5, Funny)

    by maharg ( 182366 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:37PM (#9206125) Homepage Journal
    I believe a colleague has had some success installing core 2 on a Sony Vaio laptop - this is about the hightest recommendation for *any* distro ,-}

    • Re:sony vaio (Score:5, Informative)

      by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:47PM (#9206266)
      In my experience, Vaios are some of the best-supported mobile systems available for Linux. Even the funky dials, switches and displays are supported by the sonypi project [spop.free.fr]. I suspect it's because Linux has had great success in the East, even prompting some vendors to ship dual-booting Windows/Linux laptops. It just makes sense for Sony to use hardware that won't cause headache for its users.
    • Heh. While I can see your point, I've had no problems (other than APIC) installing RH 7.x onwards on Vaio's. :)
    • I just installed FC2 on my Vaio Z1WA laptop (Centrino chipset), and although it installed and ran correctly, it's going to take some effort to get everything working. For example, it tries to use APM instead of ACPI for power management, so I can't suspend it. It also doesn't appear to have correctly detected the Intel wireless chip. Obviously, I have some kernel patching and driver work to do. My research indicates that all of this can be made to work with linux, but I was hoping that FC2 had gone ahead an
    • I believe a colleague has had some success installing core 2 on a Sony Vaio laptop - this is about the hightest recommendation for *any* distro

      I've had success upgrading YDL to Fedora Core 2 on my Pismo Powerbook.

    • grub error (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nycsubway ( 79012 )
      I've got a recommendation... Fix the grub error. That is the most important feature of any installation in my opinion. The fact that boot loaders still have bugs in them after years of work amazes me. I installed Fedora Core 2 last night. Everything went well during the install, then when it rebooted itself... Grub error. can't boot anything. can't boot Windows, can't boot linux. can bearly read the screen because of artifacts. Fedora is a great product, but if you can't boot into it, its useless.

      • Re:grub error (Score:4, Interesting)

        by irokitt ( 663593 ) <archimandrites-iaur@@@yahoo...com> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:16PM (#9207524)
        I had grub hammer a Gentoo install before. Spend 2-3 days compiling and then have the bootloader screw it up. Needless to say I was not happy about that. I now refuse to use anything other than LILO;)

        But as to your problem, try using a recovery CD and either fixing grub or installing LILO. Slackware CD 1, Gentoo CD 1, Knoppix, and ilk all do their job very well.

  • FC2 and stunnel (Score:2, Informative)

    by haluness ( 219661 )
    Hi,
    I use stunnel to access my campus news server via SSL and it worked fine with FC1. However after installing FC2 starting up stunnel gives me an error: unable to find "/dev/cryptonet" but still runs. However I cant seem to connect to the news server. Has anybody faced this problem?

  • Text of the article (Score:5, Informative)

    by gspr ( 602968 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:38PM (#9206137)
    Fedora Core 2 Review

    Category
    Linux Distributions (O/S)
    Distribution name
    Fedora
    Version
    Core 2
    Manufacturer name
    Fedora Project
    Provided by
    Fedora Project
    Price
    Free
    Review by
    Rich

    Fedora Core 2 is the newest release from The Distro Formerly Known As RedHat. Updates include the 2.6 kernel, KDE 3.2, Gnome 2.6, X.org replacing Xfree86 and numerous package updates. Having played around with SuSE 9.1, Arch .6 and Slackware 9 with the 2.6 kernel, I was interested in seeing how the Fedora team did with this release.

    Installation

    Installation was a breeze. I like that Fedora provides the opportunity to test your discs. This is an idea Mandrake would be wise to copy. It is frustrating to get to disc 3 of an installation only to find that it didn't burn properly. I give the distribution credit for making this easy.

    The install was fast. It installed 3.5 gigabytes in about 20 minutes. They myth that Linux is hard to install is not true for most modern distros. Hardware detection was great, my usb mouse and keyboard worked immediately. My onboard Nforce ethernet controller wasn't recognized like it was with SuSE, but I didn't expect it to be. My normal ethernet card was recognized and setup with no problem.

    The System

    My first impression was that it looks like RedHat 9. I don't care for the default icon set or the menu layout. The fonts look great, but that has become my expectation. There isn't a reason for ugly fonts anymore, so to trumpet the fact they look good feels silly. The panel is filled with Openoffice.org icons but missing a terminal icon. The boot splash screen is very attractive, if that is your thing.

    The odd thing about Fedora is that it seems to be aimed at novice users but is inconsistent. We are given the choices Web Browser, Email, Music Player and Audio Player, but left with Kopete, Kget, Emacs and so forth. Either your user knows what Kopete is or they don't. If you are simplifying the menu, do it across the board or don't do it at all. This inconsistency extends to the system itself. It is pretty and newbie friendly at first, but if you need basic functionality such as mp3 playback you must hand edit the yum configuration file. Up2date freezes, but the command line program yum works well.

    This leads me to my biggest problem with Fedora. On one hand, it is a great introduction to Linux. It installs easily, works well and is attractive. On the other hand, it plays right into the hands of Linux's biggest critics, which is the mistaken notion that it is unfinished and most things don't work. You are given a browser with no plugins, so if you jump online excitedly with your new system, there are a lot of things that won't work. You load your favorite mp3s, then find out you cannot play them. God forbid you have a dvd drive. You notice the red exclamation point telling you there are updates available, but up2date freezes leaving you unable to get them. I know there are fairly simple solutions to these complaints, but the fact remains that not everyone who tries Fedora will know how to do it. They will just feel disappointed by a system that lets them down, deciding that this Linux thing is not ready for prime time. A program that would set up unofficial repositories with a few clicks would take care of this, along with some prominent documentation telling you how to get the things you need. I could not find any real documentation at the Fedora site, except for RedHat 9. This may be due to my lack of time to search for it, but if it exists, it should be clear where it is at.

    Despite my complaints, there are things I like. The system is very responsive. Programs load quickly. With the exception of up2date, Fedora is stable. The splash screens look great. The look and feel, while not my cup of tea, is consistent throughout the applications.

    Package Management

    This is a nightmare. Add/Remove Applications provides me with the original
    • maybe he should have looked for xcdroast instead of Xcdroast. xcdroast is part of FC2, and can be installed from the CD or with yum install xcdroast without modifying the default /etc/yum.conf

    • I was more than eager to install Core 2 & even managed to get the ISOs a night before the official announcement. The installation was a breeze. With the exception of my graphics chipset (VESA selected instead of S3 Savage4), everything else was detected correctly. But beyond that, it was a downhill ride...

      1. up2date doesnt function correctly.
      2. Font antialiasing is screwed up! While fonts are nicely antialiased for some sites, others, like /. ;-), look very jagged. Its a curious phenomenon as to how can th
      • I haven't had a lot of time to play around with FC2 just yet, so I'm not going to say whether the same happens to me. Nothing has crashed or frozen for me as yet though.

        up2date hasn't worked for me since FC1, but I just use yum and/or apt (depending on my mood). Perhaps a GUI for these tools that lists available packages and updates, and allows for easy addition of repositories would be a huge improvement.

        In general, at least in gnome, everything is significantly faster than in FC1. It used to take 5

  • Don't install yet (Score:5, Informative)

    by sagi ( 314445 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:41PM (#9206175) Homepage
    Seems like there is still no safe solution for this bug [redhat.com].

    Some people report that they lost all their data by installing it.

    I really can't understand how they released it with such bug.

    • Re:Don't install yet (Score:3, Insightful)

      by maharg ( 182366 )
      Is it possible to just use lilo instead of grub, to get round the problem ?
      • Lilo is no longer an option on the install disks, nor was it in FC1. You could manually install it, I suppose.

      • Re:Don't install yet (Score:5, Informative)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:25PM (#9207646) Journal
        No. The bug is not in GRUB. It is caused by the Anaconda installer replacing the CHS entry in the MBR (even if you don't tell it to modify your partition table. Bad installer!) with the one the kernel reports. This then means that Windows XP will often not recognise the drive geometry and will fall over in a mangled heap. Fortunately the LBA data is still correct. You can repair the damage with this command:
        sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk --no-reread -H240 /dev/hda
        On some systems a value of 255 is required instead of 240, although you can try both, since they will not damage your system (both will give valid entries, but one may not be understood by XP).
    • For those who don't want to heed your advice about not installing I'd suggest they use lilo and change their bios settings to remove hdd auto detection. Set the params manually instead. That was the eventual solution I used to get around the problem with RC1. Those who lost all their data probably did themselves in by trying inappropriate corrective action to repair their partitions. I've hit several variations of the problem and lost nothing *except* on one system I had to recover xp and lost some of the p

    • Re:Don't install yet (Score:5, Informative)

      by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:54PM (#9206372) Homepage
      If you have this problem, it can be recovered:

      boot your windows 2k/xp/2003 cd
      go into the recovery console
      run "fixmbr"

      • Re:Don't install yet (Score:3, Informative)

        by sagi ( 314445 )
        Not really. It's not just the MBR - it damages the partition table.

        Someone even reported that it corrupted a partition table of an unused HDD that was plugged to his machine, even though he was installing it on another HDD.

        I myself have managed to fix it quite easily by changing the HDD type to LBA in BIOS and running fixmbr&fixboot from the windows recovery console, but seems like its not always as easy as that.
      • How would one recover the other side of it? Once Windows is recovered by re-writing the MBR, how can Fedora be booted? I'm asking because I had the same problem when I installed Fedora core 2 last night. I got Windows to work, but now I have an inaccesible linux partition.

      • Re:Don't install yet (Score:5, Informative)

        by eswierk ( 34642 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:23PM (#9207625)
        If you read the relevant Bugzilla thread [redhat.com], you'd be aware that running fixmbr does not solve the problem.
        • Install by typing:

          linux hda=#,#,#

          at the boot menu of the install cd where #,#,# is the lba geometry of the hard drive. Everything works just dandy after that (I just tried it!).

          For example, in my case I used:

          linux hda=4864,255,63

          After the install I could boot XP or Linux with no problems.

          Best of luck.
      • And this is precisely the attitude that will keep Linux on the sidelines compared to Windows. I love tinkering with Linux and I love the community that has sprung up around it. But the absurtity of saying, "No problem recovering from a hosed hard drive due to a bug in the software...!" We're kidding ourselves if we think Linux will ever get anywhere with this blindness. Please don't interpret this as flaming - just calling it like it is...

    • Re:Don't install yet (Score:5, Informative)

      by tinla ( 120858 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:58PM (#9206431) Homepage Journal
      This bug got a lot of coverage on the fc-test mailinglist: archives here [redhat.com]. Look for the thread "Serious reservations about FC2 release on 5/18". It makes very interesting reading. The inital post seems sensible enough, I think this is a serious issue, and the responses are really varied. Some people tried to suggest fixes, others pointed out it was too late as the ISOs had gone to mirrors... but there were also a suprising number of 'who cares' and all out flames.

      Humm. Fedora have a lot to learn, and the standard 'Fedora is for hobbiests and Redhat is for people that don't want to get dirty' does really cut it. All distros should make an effort not to break things outside of their footprint. Pointing out how bad microsoft are at co-existing is no defense, the idea is to rise above not sink to their level.

      Anyway. read the thread [redhat.com] and see what you think. It may remind you that Fedora isn't for everyone. I think its an excellent distro.. but they're not the best at releases and pr.
      • The way I see it, RedHat is looking out for the welfare of their customers by including this wonderful new feature. After all, you can't uninstall evil, you have to destroy it!
    • I just installed FC2 to my Sony Z1WA in a dual-boot config, and Grub can boot Windows XP with nary a problem.
    • "I really can't understand how they released it with such bug. "

      It's a big conspiracy to keep Windows off the desktop!

      (I wonder how many people wouldn't be rolling their eyes now if this were a Windows bug we were talking about.)
  • Heck, all of the Fedora download sites have been slashdotted since the "Fedora Core 2 Officially Available" story from May 18th!

  • running it right now (Score:5, Insightful)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:43PM (#9206206)
    I really like it alot, so far no problems. The only thing I don't like about a fedora box is that I have to hunt around for weeks to get the necessary multimedia stuff in it. It ships with full blown mozilla, that will be gotten rid of here shortly in favor of firefox. Great distro but alot of post install work to make it into a usable desktop.

    • Re:running it right now (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:17PM (#9206697) Journal
      I see a lot of these complaints about Fredora being "Crippled" and "Missing multimedia", like this choice quote
      You are given a browser with no plugins, so if you jump online excitedly with your new system, there are a lot of things that won't work. You load your favorite mp3s, then find out you cannot play them. God forbid you have a dvd drive.
      Wow, an OS that doesn't have all the 3rd party software already installed and configured for you...last I checked Windows was nice enough to include MP3 playback AND ActiveX for your browsing pleasure, you still need to download and install Java and Flash

      Repeat after me

      Linux is not Windows

      I don't think anyone will be happy with any Linux distro until they realize this fact
      What I want to know, is why don't people complain that Flash is not installed when they first install Windows? But having to spend an extra $300 for an office suite is OK?
      • No we are not complaining about that and I have not run anything but linux for years. If they want to make a great desktop provide a way to install multimedia and plugins without jumping through 1000
        hoops to get it done. It can be a simple gui that goes out to the unofficial sites to get the rpm files. Or how about a simple gui that can at the click of a button add the unnoficial sites to up2dates configuration.

      • I think a more accurate caveat is this:

        A free (gratis) OS distribution can NOT legally include mp3 or dvd support.

        Windows -can- only because they charge you a bucket of money and use some of that money to pay off the appropriate license fees for that copy.

        So it's not that it's not Windows... it's that it's free.

    • Fedora MULTIMEDIA made EASY (Score:5, Informative)

      by illtud ( 115152 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:14PM (#9207501)
      I really like it alot, so far no problems. The only thing I don't like about a fedora box is that I have to hunt around for weeks to get the necessary multimedia stuff in it.

      I found this info [freshrpms.net] quite by chance after moving from RHN to yum after installing Fedora core. I've posted this before, but here it is again:

      Add these lines to your yum.conf (watch out for the slashcode extra spaces in the baseurl line):

      [freshrpms]
      name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - freshrpms
      baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora /linux/$rel easever/$basearch/freshrpms

      And for all your patent-encumbered multimedia needs, you just need do:

      % yum install mplayer
      % yum install xine
      % yum install [whatever else you want]

      and it'll resolve all dependencies and keep you away from rpm-hell but still within RH's rpm goodness.

      NOTE - freshrpms haven't got Feodra Core 2 rpms yet - give them time!
    • FreshRPMS [freshrpms.net] provides a quality APT repository for Redhat and Fedora distros. Their FC2 starter RPM isn't available yet, but when it is, you can simply install the RPM and a working apt system is setup configured to use FreshRPMs as the main repository. As was the case with Redhat 9 and Fedora Core 1, FreshRPMs will have quality multimedia packages. Since you want a user-friendly experience, after installing the starter apt RPM, type "apt-get update" and then "apt-get install synaptic". After that you can

  • Fedora Core 2 wins the vote of this Debianite (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:43PM (#9206208)
    FC has finally won me over following half a decade of Debian zealotry (much of that spent maintaining several packages and participating in the Debian development cycle). Twice a year, FC provides a fairly stable release that I can share with friends, and allows me to track the latest software releases without destabilizing my system as Debian unstable (and even testing) used to. I think Fedora has really hit the sweet spot by releasing a stable platform every 6 months and then making it easy for users to keep their applications up-to-date (with apt-rpm) without being forced into upgrades of glibc or other core libraries at the same time.

    That, and the fact that FC is actually _more_ free than Debian following the prompt removal of all MP3 and similar tained code leaves me asking:
    What more could you want from a distro? The latest FC2 installer was particularly stunning, making LVM2 setup trivial for the first time. This is really what Debian should have been.

  • My biggest beef so far: VPN (Score:4, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:44PM (#9206226) Homepage
    I've been using it since tuesday, and my biggest complaint is CIPE being dropped, and the gui setup not being updated for the new IPSec tools.

    IMHO, they should have kept cipe ( depreciated maybe, removed next release ), but added the new userland tools and gui for the ipsec stuff in the kernel. Give people some wiggle room, for those of us using vpns.

    Of course, it'd also be nice if they included support for pptp out of box...but I digress. ;)

  • What's that Arch thing the guy is talking about ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sw155kn1f3 ( 600118 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:46PM (#9206255)
    What's that Arch distribution the guy is talking about ?
    He says you can get any package easy in the Article. I'm intrigued.

    Anybody ever used it?

    • Re:What's that Arch thing the guy is talking about (Score:4, Informative)

      by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:29PM (#9206902)
      Arch Linux [archlinux.org]. It's an i686, 2.6 kernel, devfs, KDE 3.2.2, GNOME 2.6 using binary distro (similar to Debian except even more lightweight and up-to-date).

      I use it all the time. My primary machine is still Debian but all my other machines and servers are running Arch. It requires a bit more setup work than Debian.

      I like it because it is extremely lightweight but has an excellent packaging system (pacman). The packaging system (and all those packages) are pretty much the only reason I've stuck with Debian all these years and Arch is the first to come along that comes close (Gentoo is OK, but compiling is a waste of time). Although it doesn't have anywhere near the number of packages as Debian, I can see it growing rapidly.

      An example of the sane thinking behind Arch: There is no "/usr/doc" directory. I always use manpages or go online to find documentation. I've never understood why so many distros include all that documentation. I mean you rarely use it (mostly just for setup), why make it take up disk space? Everything is online nowadays and manpages are easy/handy.

      Also, the install is fairly raw (which is a good thing). It just works and is simple. They need to fix some stuff with regards to swapfile setup (like if you don't want a swap partition) but otherwise it is fairly easy. You almost don't even need the installer (just the boot CD). Too many distros go off with their crazy complex and broken installers that end up leaving you frustrated (*cough* Debian *cough*).

  • X.org (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bfg9000 ( 726447 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:47PM (#9206262) Homepage Journal
    Updates include the 2.6 kernel, KDE 3.2, Gnome 2.6, X.org replacing Xfree86 and numerous package updates.

    I haven't had a chance to try X.org yet, how does it compare performance-wise with "good old" [snicker] XFree86?
  • I got those back in FC2Test1. Strangely, it never really froze. Within the hour, up2date would always suddenly resume and complete the update. So no infinite loop, just horribly inefficient coding. There's a really bad O() somewhere in there.

  • Upgrade issues (Score:5, Informative)

    by bobdehnhardt ( 18286 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:51PM (#9206331)
    I've upgraded to boxes so far, one from Fedora Core 1 and the other from Red Hat 9. Both have had issues.

    On the RH9 -> FC2 upgrade (4-year-old Compaq Deskpro), there was an issue with the grub.conf file that prevented the system from booting. Fortunately, I had burned the rescue CD and was able to go in and fix it. Lesson learned: make sure you have a bootable disk available! This looked like a major issue at first glance, but turned out to be fairly minor.

    On the FC1 -> FC2 upgrade (Dell Inspiron 5100), the actual upgrade went quite smoothly. However, I've been unable to build drivers for my Agere-based Proxim wireless card under the 2.6 kernel. After wrestling with it for several hours, I've decided to throw in the towel and buy a Prism-based card.

    In both cases, I've seen an error message pop up when first logging in to an X session. It appears to be a remnant of the Xfree86 install that wasn't removed or completely replaced by the new X.org stuff.

    In all, not too bad, but there's still room for improvement....

    • Re:Upgrade issues (Score:3, Informative)

      by Plug ( 14127 )
      This is simply a configuration setting being overlookd with the upgrade from XFree86 to XOrg.

      In your /etc/X11/xorg.conf (or whichever file you use to configure X)

      replace
      Option "XkbRules" "xfree"
      with
      Option "XkbRules" "xorg"

      Red Hat's suggestion is you comment the line out completely and it will use the (more sensible) defaults.

  • What advantages over slackware? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:52PM (#9206342)
    Slackware [slackware.com] has been the most straightforward distribution I have used - no frills; lean, easy to upgrade packages, and no tricks. For those already familiar with the technical aspects of *NIX administration, is there any advantage of Fedora over Slackware?
    • Fedora, like Red Hat series before it, has a lot of GUI tools for workstation and server settings. For example, Fedora's GUI tools for Apache and BIND are similar to the ones found on Windows and are good enough for simple set ups. However, I do find that Slackware feels faster than Red Hat/Fedora.
    • Explain how you would update a Slackware Linux system that has hundreds of packages installed. From my understanding of Slackware, you would have to track the versions of each piece of software installed as well as the current version of the software. Updating then requires taking this list of possible hundreds of packages, download the binaries or source, and possibly delete some old files, copy the new files, and also possibly compile new source... BUT ALL FOR HUNDREDS OF PACKAGES?!?!

      Is there any autom
  • Kernel panics during anaconda. The End.

  • here's my review...Annoyed! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:55PM (#9206386)
    I've been installing linux for years and I always get some problem that prevents me from using it. I'm running this on a dell inspiron 8200 with a firewire drive connected up to a pcmcia card. All I want to do is play some damn mp3s on this damn thing. Apparently they disabled firewire in the final fc2 because it "doesn't work." What the hell? I think this is a very important feature and if this got out I wonder what else they left out. I don't mean to sound like a troll, but I've been doing this all day and I just want it to work! Two kernel recompiles and doing a bunch of useless crap in the forums didn't help at all.

    Well, I'm back in windows where it works out of the box. This isn't meant to be a cry for help for someone to tell me what to do since half the replies would be "well it works for me so linux rocks" and I don't need to hear that now.

    DAMMIT!
    • I feel for you. What a bunch of nonsense responses you got.

      WTF does switching away from MP3 have to do with fixing firewire support?!

      Any good distribution autoloads common hardware support, one shouldn't need to drop to command line to get basic hardware to work, that's plain nonsense.

      Firewire support shouldn't just be disabled. If there is something wrong with it, it should be fixed.

      If linux support is about blaming the user for problems, then the world does not need Linux.

  • plug in issue (Score:3, Insightful)

    by maryjanecapri ( 597594 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:57PM (#9206417) Homepage Journal
    so why has no one come up with a solution for this problem. now i'm a huge linux zealot and use FC1 (will upgrade as soon as the slashdot effect is gone from the download sites) so this isn't bashing. but it just amazes me that i've yet to come across a distro that, out of the box, has a browser with all the bells and whistles! and let's face it - the average jane wants all the bells and whistles! so enlighten me - why is this so hard? thank you, peace, good night.

  • Ok not bad for a first effort. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by oldgeezer1954 ( 706420 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:02PM (#9206490)
    Except that it's not a first effort. I've been a redhat fan since 4.something. We still use it at work and I use it at home. I intend to stick with fedora and have no plans to jump ship. That may change if future releases follow the quality of this one. I fell afoul of the partition table issue with core1 which caused me two evenings of hair pulling prior to figuring out a way to save things. That plus a couple of hours of win updates to repair the win xp installation. A very minor part of that process was to force the boot loader to be lilo and not grub. Small thing but it was material to saving everything imo. The announcement the other day noted this partition table issue still existed. Not to be put off by the issue I mentally resolved how I got around it last time and how I'd approach it this time. Off we go.... I certainly avoided grub but geeeze the 'upgrade' to lilo meant I couldn't boot Core2! The upgrade process 'upgraded' /boot/message to be nonexistant so the machine would only boot to the default win xp. It's a very minor issue and it was easily resolved but I am blown away that Core2 comes with two means in which to make your system not usuable. Similarly I tried the upgrade on a test machine here in the office just this morning. I was ready for /boot/message this time on top of everything else... But would it boot? Heck no! The misreading of the partition table resulted in it dying when it tried to reboot after the upgrade (from rh9) since it now thought the previously acceptable boot partition had too high a cylinder number. I'm trying a complete install as I type... Fingers crossed but only time will tell. As I said I intend to stick with redhat/fedora for the forseeable future but if this type of scenario is repeated on future releases then I will be off to greener pastures. I went with linux to avoid quality issues with M$ products (whether you agree or not). I won't stick with this distro if the quality goes down hill. Every dog gets one bite and this is redhat's
    • I use both Linux and Windows. The former since about 1997 and the latter since about 1991. There are definitely pros and cons with either OS. But I am truly amazed at the tolerance and patience Linux enthusiasts have with some of the imperfections in the OS distributions. It must only go to show how much they abhor Microsoft, their corporate philosophy, and their product line.

      This isn't meant to be a troll, but can you imagine the outrage Windows users (and Linux zealots alike) would have if simply upgrad

      • This isn't meant to be a troll, but can you imagine the outrage Windows users (and Linux zealots alike) would have if simply upgrading Windows wiped out the partition tables and resulted in an unbootable system?

        This kind of thing is why I always keep a copy of my partition table settings. I run fdisk -l /dev/hda > /root/hda.out. Of course, if the partition table for hda is hosed, then you can't mount /, but you can work around that problem by booting into a rescue CD, making a partition table with one

  • Your Functionality Is My Puffery (Score:3, Insightful)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:07PM (#9206547)
    My impression of Core 2 is that it is a lot like Core 1, only better. I like it.

    The review criticizes Fedora for lacking mplayer, xcdroast, dvd ability, concluding it lacks basic "functionality". Now, in addition to RedHat's well-known stance on mp3's and other IP issues, I think it is safe to say that a lot of Linux users -- myself included -- don't count listening to mp3's and playing DVD's as part of basic functionality. Not that it isn't for a lor of other folks, but it isn't for me and, presumably, it isn't for the market any future Fedora-based commercial release is intended for. (Besides, my sound system is within arms reach, it cost more than my PC, and it sounds a lot better. I've never seen why I should bother to copy tracks from my CD's to my PC and put up with degraded quality.)

    That said, I updated with up2date immediately after installation with no delays or stalling. Yum, on the other hand, is much slower and can appear to stall out. (My FC1 experience was just the opposite.) In addition, Yum offered to install packages that up2date did not. That should not happen. The Fedora user should have only one choice of updating his system, it needs to be fast and foolproof, and the user should never be expected to edit the list of sources used by the update tool. This is a problem RedHat will need to solve if it ever wants to make money from a Fedora-based release.

    I also agree that commonly used plugins ought to be installed by default. At the very least, add their installation to the post-install routines. Point the user at the right repositories and then lead him through the installation.

    • This is a problem RedHat will need to solve if it ever wants to make money from a Fedora-based release.

      Except RedHat never intends to Box Fedora (AFAIK). That's why they have RHEL, and RedHat Professional Workstation. Fedora is for the technical enthusiast, not Grandma.

      I also agree that commonly used plugins ought to be installed by default. At the very least, add their installation to the post-install routines. Point the user at the right repositories and then lead him through the installation.

      You're

  • Only problem was touchpad (Score:3, Informative)

    by el-spectre ( 668104 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:09PM (#9206572) Journal
    Installed on a HP AMD 2500+ laptop the day of release. The advanced features of the touchpad (tapping, scrolling) didn't work (they did in FC1).

    After finding the Synaptic driver and modifying the X config file (something I don't do lightly), everything is good.

    So far as I know, the a/b/g onboard wireless card isn't supported in linux, and I haven't had an opportunity to use firewire, but overall the distro works great.

  • Default Gnome theme? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ceswiedler ( 165311 ) * <chris@swiedler.org> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:17PM (#9206700)
    Is there a way to switch to the default Gnome theme I see in screenshots for reviews of Gnome 2.6? I like those better than Bluecurve, but Fedora Core 2 doesn't seem to give me a stock Gnome theme.

    My impression overall was very good. I hadn't installed a desktop Linux distro in a year or so, and Fedora was light years ahead of what I expected.

    Installation, printing, sound, video, network, mouse, all worked perfectly with no tweaking.

    My digital camera would register as /dev/sda1 when I plug it in, though I have to mount it myself, and my webcam (Logitech QuickCam Messenger) doesn't work at all.

    Installing Java and Flash wasn't hard, and Thunderbird / Firefox was trivial.

    The desktop looks very nice, and shortcuts, panels, menus, preferences were all intuitive.

    Utilities like the music player and CD ripper are well done.

    Great work by the Gnome and Fedora teams!

    • Re:Default Gnome theme? (Score:3, Informative)

      by juhaz ( 110830 )
      Yup. AC's right, the Gnome default theme is "Simple".

      I think it has better window borders than bluecurve, but bc has much nicer icons and controls, fortunately the theme manager can even combine different elements from those and create/save new one from that.

      You can change 'em with themes:/// as well as prefs->theme (aka gnome-theme-manager)

  • but..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by myusername ( 597009 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:24PM (#9206822)
    Will it install on my P-P-P-Powerbook [p-p-p-powerbook.com]?

  • Fedora Documentation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jatencio ( 536080 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:26PM (#9206855)
    A program that would set up unofficial repositories with a few clicks would take care of this, along with some prominent documentation telling you how to get the things you need. I could not find any real documentation at the Fedora site, except for RedHat 9. This may be due to my lack of time to search for it, but if it exists, it should be clear where it is at.

    Although I could not find information on the main sites either, I found the following documentation very useful as I was really impressed with Fedora Core 2 and got everything I needed to work by following these tips!

    A Fedora How To for Multimedia [tldp.org]

    An RPM repository that fedora.redhat.com and fedora.us could not release! [livna.org]

  • Lightyears better on x86_64 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by niall2 ( 192734 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:49PM (#9207158) Homepage
    Well I was about to toss my new AMD64 machine into the drink with Core 1 (which was a late add-on to the effort released after the fact). NFS problems, Java from sun failed to run, automount was rather flaky. Is still see some minor problems with window resizing under KDE but other than that its been smooth.

    I understand the legal issues that keep things like mplayer and such out of the distro. However it would be nice of we could start getting some RPMs for x86_64 out there.

  • Yet Another FC2 Review (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:37PM (#9207808)
    I installed FC2 test3 and played with it, and FC2 final. Installed on my Toshiba 1135 laptop like a charm (dual boot). The GUI applets never have a problem configuring my wireless card. After setting the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources file to a good source (I like duke.edu) the updates work just fine.

    Red Hat sure does make a desktop look pretty. But in configuring it this way, you also lose things:

    * FC1 and FC2 have disabled the Gnome menu system. The RH bugzilla says it's because the Gnome code is buggy. The real reason has to do with how RH replaces menuing file system with their own that works across KDE and Gnome.

    * You install RPMs at risk. On FC2 test3 I installed smb4k from a FC1 rpm. Lost my entire Gnome menu structure on restart. Oops!

    * You install ordinary RPMS, etc. (such as Fire****) and the menus and other L&F don't match what RH installed. You might not even get it into the menus (What? You can't edit the Gnome menus to add Fire****? Too bad...).

    * You don't get the experience promised in the user manual. For example, Gnome 2.6 help files say that in getting to SMB shares you go to the Network panel and click on "Add SMB". Red Hat has removed that.

    * Actually, SMB connectivity is my main problem with FC. It will see your Windows network, allow you to see the computers on the net, but if you try to see shared folders it tells you that all folders on the target are unreachable. I can sometimes access a folder if I build a Location, setting the smb address and getting the right combination of username (with a \\domain?), password and maybe group (maybe not). Working blind.

    It doesn't have to be that way. Load smb4k on other distros (SuSE, MEPIS, Knoppix, Mandrake). It almost *leaps* to let you see the shares. Access is a breeze. Install the same app on FC and it says smbmount (smbclient? smbload? I forget) needs more setuid rights. Just more obstacles. And I'm not totally sure on the security implications of giving those rights.

    BTW, I turned off the firewall in case RH was having problems with SMB. Just for testing. No effect on the solution.

    I'm coming to realize that various distributions are creating *brands* of Linux desktops. You get used to the menu structures and come to prefer them. But you get locked into branded RPMS (no more RPM compatibility, as tenuous as that was before). Or locked into certain package sources, such as Xandros with its customized GUI applets. God help you if the company goes under.

    I'm currently inclined to base my laptop on the MEPIS distro, as it points at ordinary, and numerous, Debian mirrors.

    YMMV, but that is my experience.

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