Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Red Hat Software Businesses

Fedora Core 3 Test 1 Released 318

Posted by michael from the i-feel-lucky dept.
Gudlyf writes "Notice just went out to the Fedora Announce List about the availability of Fedora Core 3 Test 1. Things expected in FC3 include Linux kernel 2.6.7, GCC 3.4, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, and Evolution 2.0. As always, you can get Fedora Core test releases at redhat.com, specifically here and (for a torrent) here."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Fedora Core 3 Test 1 Released More

Fedora Core 3 Test 1 Released

Comments Filter:

  • Bittorrent (Score:4, Interesting)

    by StarHeart ( 27290 ) * on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:38AM (#9687584)
    Always have the cd isos and working on the dvd iso with a 10mbit pipe. :)

    Suprised to see FC3 Test1 so soon.

  • WMP54G (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:40AM (#9687597) Homepage
    Will this work out of the box with the Linksys WMP54G 802.11G wireless card? Or will I still have to fsck around with ndiswrapper?

    Anyone?

    • Re:WMP54G (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tobias Luetke ( 707936 ) * on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:47AM (#9687706)
      No, There are no linux drivers for it. You can get it to run using ndiswrapper and the windows drivers though ( i'm posting, connected using one
      • If ndiswrapper doesn't work, Linuxant's driverloader [linuxant.com] might. My laptop has an Atheros 802.11a/b integrated card. The madwifi driver didn't work very well with my card (never could get a reliable connection). The ndiswrapper setup let me connect, but was incompatible with encryption on my card. Driverloader worked flawlessly. The downside is that the license is $20 per card (you can also get a 30 day trial license to see if it works better for you than any alternatives).

    • Re:WMP54G (Score:2, Informative)

      by manifest37 ( 632701 )
      No it wont' ever work because broadcom will not release docs for the chipset. deal with it or buy a different card. if you want 54g i suggest the prism gt(www.prism54.org) chipset. there are drivers in the 2.6 kernel since about 2.6.5.
      • No it wont' ever work because broadcom will not release docs for the chipset.

        Of course, there's nothing stopping someone clever from reverse engineering it.

    • Re:WMP54G (Score:5, Informative)

      by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:50AM (#9687744) Homepage Journal
      Looks like you'll need to keep fscking with the ndiswrapper since Broadcom are still being bitches about releasing the chip specs. I've heard rumors of a native alpha driver but I think they're just that, rumors.

    • Re:WMP54G (Score:2, Insightful)

      by infernux ( 738407 )
      Wait and see... too early to say right now I guess. But keep in mind, even if you read that the WMP54G is supported at some point, make sure that it is YOUR revision of the card that is supported because there are at least two with entirely different chipsets (Prism GT Vs. Atheros).
    • Fedora Core 2 disabled firewire by default because of a bug in the firewire modules. Hopefuly 1394 will be enabled in Core 3.

  • Anybody else have problems? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by atheken ( 621980 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:42AM (#9687628) Homepage
    No disrespect intended against the Fedora team, but I find that this release schedule is not so hot. There have been A LOT of issues with my installation of FC2 on a standard dell box. Maybe this was just a fluke, but I can't understand the whole idea of a point release every few months. Nonetheless, where's the torrent?

    • Re:Anybody else have problems? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Alex Brasetvik ( 554885 ) <alex@bra s e tvik.com> on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:49AM (#9687730)
      If you read the release schedule [redhat.com], you'll notice that FC3 isn't due until 18 October.

      The link to the torrent can be found in the article text, actually. But since this is Slashdot: http://torrent.linux.duke.edu/FC3-test1-binary-i38 6.torrent [duke.edu].

    • Re:Anybody else have problems? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ROOK*CA ( 703602 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:53AM (#9687795)
      Could just be my take on it, but isn't that the whole point of Fedora ? more a less the "unstable branch" for RHEL ?

      One would think that they would want to move the Fedora "branch" as far along as possible (and field test as much as possible) in between RHEL releases in order to incoporate as many stable features & fixes as possible into RHEL.

      I'm not a big Red Hat user (prefer Gentoo myself) but that was my take on the Fedora projects goals.
    • Maybe this was just a fluke, but I can't understand the whole idea of a point release every few months.

      The point is that it's a development version test release, not a point release, in order to find out what all the problems are as quickly as possible so that they can be fixed before the next point release so there can be a next point release someday.

      If you aren't interested in testing potentially broken things avoid it.

      KFG
    • I still have tons of in-house applications that refuse to run under Core 2, particularly those that rely on external libraries...
    • Let me guess, you've got an older Dell with the Intel 440GX chipset, and maybe even a DAC960 onboard?

      There are many open bugs in RedHat's Bugzilla (just search all open bugs for 440GX) which prevent RedHat 9 and newer (FC1, and FC2 included) from being installed.

      The last RedHat I have been able to get installed on those machines is RedHat 7.3. So far the only workaround I have found which should work is to rebuild the installation media with a rebuilt kernel which works with that chipset, but I have not

  • Upgrading (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With releases coming out this fast, what's the best solution for upgrading? Does it work like you expect? What about going from Core 1 to Core 3?

    • Re:Upgrading (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kainaw ( 676073 )
      what's the best solution for upgrading?

      I tried the YUM upgrade from FC1 to FC2. It worked the first time on a dirt-old Dell Optiplex, but I had to reinstall the printer, sound, and fiddle around with the X config file to get the optical wheel mouse to work. That X config stuff can easily be blamed on the jump from X11 to Xorg.

      I tried it again on a newer Gateway E series. I couldn't get X to work no matter how much I fiddled with it. I eventually gave up, backed up my data files, and installed FC2

  • What are the chances! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Goyuix ( 698012 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:44AM (#9687658) Homepage
    I got in on a sweet AMD64 deal last week, the hardware will be arriving Thursday, so deciding to be proactive I go check the torrents at Duke to get FC2 for x86_64, but no - there is FC3 test 1. When I started I was about the only peer, getting about 150K/s (maxed my line) from I guess the torrent host. Very nice.

    For once the slashdot effect might actually work in my favor!

  • Announce Text (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:45AM (#9687675)
    It's already starting to act slow, so I might as well post it as an AC to avoid karma whoring.

    Announcing Fedora Core 3 Test 1

    * From: Bill Nottingham
    * To: fedora-announce-list redhat com
    * Subject: Announcing Fedora Core 3 Test 1
    * Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 11:38:37 -0400

    [ witty or not-so-witty reference ]

    Yes, it's time for the [number] test release of Fedora Core [number]. Fedore Core [number] includes various new features, such as
    KDE [version], GNOME [version], and the [version] kernel.

    [call for testing]

    [admonition about production use]

    Problems with Fedora Core [number] test [number] should be reported via bugzilla, at:

    http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/

    Please report bugs against 'Fedora Core', release 'test1'.

    For more information on just what the Fedora Project and Fedora Core is, please see:

    http://fedora.redhat.com/

    For discussion of Fedora Core test releases, send mail to:

    fedora-test-list-request redhat com

    with subscribe in the subject line. You can leave the body empty. Or see: https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora -test-list/

    As always, you can get Fedora Core test releases at redhat.com, specifically: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux /core/test/2.90/

    Or on the following mirrors:

    * North America

    * USA East

    * http://mirror.linux.duke.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core /test/2.90/
    * ftp://mirror.linux.duke.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/ test/2.90/
    * rsync://mirror.linux.duke.edu/fedora-linux-core/te st/2.90/
    * ftp://mirror.cs.princeton.edu/pub/mirrors/fedora/l inux/core/test/2.90/
    * ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/te st/2.90/
    * http://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/ test/2.90/
    * ftp://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/t est/2.90/
    * rsync://mirror.hiwaay.net/fedora-linux-core/test/2 .90/
    * ftp://ftp.net.usf.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2 .90/
    * http://redhat.secsup.org/fedora/core/test/2.90/
    * ftp://redhat.secsup.org/pub/linux/redhat/fedora/co re/test/2.90/
    * ftp://fedora.mirrors.tds.net/pub/fedora-core/test/ 2.90/
    * http://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/fedora/core/test/2.90/
    * ftp://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/fedora/core/test/2.90/
    * rsync://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/fedora/core/test/2.90/
    * http://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/downlo ad.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2. 90/
    * ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/downloa d.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2.9 0/
    * rsync://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/downl oad.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2 .90/

    * USA West

    * ftp://mirror.stanford.edu/pub/mirrors/fedora/linux /core/test/2.90/

    * Canada

    * ftp://less.cogeco.net/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2 .90/
    * ftp://ftp.nrc.ca/pub/systems/linux/redhat/fedora/l inux/core/test/2.90/
    * http://gulus.usherbrooke.ca/pub/distro/fedora/linu x/core/test/2.90/
    * http://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/fedora/linux /core/test/2.90/
    * ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/fedora/linux/ core/test/2.90/

    * South America

    * Chile

    • Re:Announce Text (Score:5, Funny)

      by bfg9000 ( 726447 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @01:20PM (#9688848) Homepage Journal
      It's already starting to act slow, so I might as well post it as an AC to avoid karma whoring.
      DUDE!!! Why on earth would you AVOID karma whoring? Don't you know there are children starving for karma in China? Waste not, want not, all that jazz? Karma whoring is the noble backbone of Slashdot civilization! It's one of the four holy pillars of Slashdot, the other three being 'In Soviet Russia', 'Beowulf Cluster', and 'Natalie Portman's Hot Grits'. No wonder you posted AC, the outrage of someone AVOIDING karma whoring would follow you for all eternity. You'd have an angry mob of geeks with torches and pitchforks angrily camped outside your castle shouting "Send out the heretic!"

      Gandalf should have chosen YOU to carry the ring, you've obviously got a stronger will than Frodo. My God. You passed up a perfectly good Karma Whore! My mind reels. That's the geek equivalent of purposely puking on Pamela Anderson to make sure she doesn't accidentally have wild meaningless sex with you.

      It's. Just. Not. Right.

      Please, think seriously about what I've said -- Friends don't let friends pass up a good Karma Whore. Don't let it happen again.

  • At this rate.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Harbinjer ( 260165 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:50AM (#9687733) Journal
    They're moving so fast, that I think they pile on more bugs than the rate they fix them at. Its generally pretty good, but still, a slightly slower schedule wouldn't impare them much. There really hasn't been that much new software since FC2 was released. Why not patch FC2, and wait for more stable builds of the next Gnome, like 2.8.2 or something, and KDE 3.3.1. It doesn't seems like Gnome 2.8 is that far along, and will be shipping as RC instead of finalized and tested. And if they do finalize 2.8, will is just be a bug-fix with like 1 new feature?

    • Re:At this rate.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Scyber ( 539694 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:59AM (#9687863)
      If you look at the roadmap, FC3 isn't supposed to be out till the 18th of October, a full month after Gnome 2.8 is supposed to be released.
    • Well... this is a 'test', after all. I mean, shouldn't they constantly be testing? If they were releasing FC3 final today, I'd say, 'er, yeah, isn't that a little quick?' But I don't really expect a 'test' to have all stable builds. I expect and hope that they're testing the newest tech they have, and figuring out what's "stable" in time for the final version.

      And aren't there updates to FC2? I don't use it, but can't you use yum or something to get patches and bug-fixes? I thought Fedora used yum. S

    • Fedora isn't supposed to be a stable distribution that lets you get your work done in peace. It's a way for redhat to test the newest features before incorporating them into their stable products.

      If you want stability, there are plenty of other distributions that fit the bill.

  • Missing links. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phaetonic ( 621542 ) * on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:51AM (#9687752)
    I would have expected to see a ChangeLog in the article posted, as well as saying if the big bugs in FC2 have been fixed! (Windows mbr breakage and Orinoco wireless PCMCIA support breakage).
  • Fun stats on the BT tracker --> http://torrent.linux.duke.edu:6969/ [duke.edu]

  • OSS Development too fast? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rally_redhat ( 566655 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @11:53AM (#9687793) Homepage

    Sometimes, just sometimes, I get the feeling that Linux distributions are being released too fast for ordinary users to keep up. I mean, FC2 was released about a month back (roughly), and here we are, talking about about FC3 Test 1 already! I guess FC3's slated to be released sometime in October.

    The problem with this is that often, packages (rpms) for older distros are discontinued, thus forcing users to upgrade. I know stuff like Yum solves a lot of these issues, but the fundamental problem still remains.

    For instance, I was running FC1 with KDE 3.2 Beta 2, which released sometime in December 2003, and wanted to upgrade to KDE 3.2.3 - but I couldn't find any rpms for FC1 at all, only FC2. Since upgrading was on the card anyways, I did download and install FC2, and all's well that ends well, but it did leave me thinking about whether Open Source software products are being released a tad too fast.

    I wrote an essay about technology overload [rahulgaitonde.org] [rahulgaitonde.org] on my website. This news post on /. made me instantly think back to that essay.

    • Well, no Debian! I suppose the release cycle depends on the developers and what their objectives are. Since Fedora is not supposed to be a production distro but rather a testbed for RHEL, it's natural that they're going to put out stuff as fast as possible.
    • I think the standard redhat reply to this is " If you want things to slow down, then you need to buy enterprise version" If you have a bunch of servers/systems, it does get a little rough trying to keep up with all of these, but if you've only got a desktop to keep up with it's not too bad. I have an FC1 server, and 2 FC2 servers, and EL3 server plus a desktop system, and 15 out in field stripped down, behind a firewall, vpn boxes. I'm getting tired of trying to keep up on the server side. But my remote cl
      • I have two standard answers:

        1) Debian (I prefer LibraNet as the installer, but the current version is a bit old. Doing the upgrades after the install can take most of a day.)

        2) K.R.U.D. Kevin's Red Hat Uber Distribution. This is (currently) a patched and stabilized version of Fedora. A yearly subscription is cheap (a CD a month).

        Neither of these are as bleeding edge as Fedora. Debian is a bit more flexible if you have a fast internet connection, but to get the recent stuff you need to take some thin
    • From what I've read one of the core philosophies of Open Source is "Release early, release often!"
    • That's more to do with the way people build RPMS than anything specific to Linux - it's perfectly feasable to build RPMs for Fedora Core 1 and have them install into FC2 (or indeed, build packages that can be installed into distros going back several years). Doing so is something of a black art though currently so nobody does it.

  • Let's make a bet... (Score:2, Informative)

    by rulethirty ( 673757 )
    Before I was able to fix everying in RedHat 9, Fedora Core 1 came out, and before I could fix everything in Fedora Core 1, Fedora Core 2 came out. I will bet that by the time I fix everything in Fedora Core 2 they will release Fedora Core 3 no later than 2 days afterwards. Any takers?
  • what is the point of moving so fast...

    Are they trying to make up for the old RH servers where releases were far and few between?

    At this rate it makes them look unpredictable and unuseable in a business who needs something that appears 'stable.'
    • Are they trying to make up for the old RH servers where releases were far and few between?

      Yes.

      At this rate it makes them look unpredictable and unuseable in a business who needs something that appears 'stable.'

      They don't expect you to use it there.

      Honestly, does nobody read the freakin' FAQ before they post opinions about a project anymore?
  • I used gcc 3.4 for a while on Gentoo and had no real luck with it. There are a number of applications that won't compile under it or die a horrible death after being build with it. But maybe that was just me. Is it "better" now?

  • Please Fix FC2 instead (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Please don't do this. Please fix what's wrong with FC2 before you make us all erase and install FC3.

    Reminds me of Microsoft, when there was a fault in Win95, and the "fix" was "upgrade to Win98".

    "[foo] is broken in FC2" "Fixed in FC3"

    • Re:Please Fix FC2 instead (Score:4, Insightful)

      by johnnyb ( 4816 ) <jonathan@bartlettpublishing.com> on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:39PM (#9688374) Homepage
      Why do you think RedHat switched to the Fedora model? Fedora is not meant to be a stable, production distribution. Even the non-test releases are still test releases. That's the whole point. They have "bleeding-edge", Fedora, and "enterprise stable", RHEL. They decided that maintaining a middle category that wasn't providing them with funds was a bad idea. With Fedora, they give a free bleeding-edge OS and get free testing. With RHEL, they have you pay for a solid OS and you get technical support.

      It's actually a pretty good model, but not one my company can afford, so we are in the process of switching to Mandrake.

  • Rename it (Score:3, Funny)

    by chris_mahan ( 256577 ) <chris.mahan@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:13PM (#9688035) Homepage
    They should have nicknamed it XPsp2

    On the off chance...

  • Fedora Core 3 Schedule (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Posted at http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/schedule/ is a preliminary draft of a schedule for Fedora Core 3, reproduced below.

    - GCC 3.4 - those that have looked at rawhide will have noticed this
    - GNOME 2.8
    - KDE 3.3
    - SELinux, yet again. This includes a new 'targeted' policy that monitors specifc daemons with less intrusion than the strict policy in use before.
    https://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-selinu x -list/2004-May/msg00096.html
    - IIIMF - continued evolution of the new input framework
    - Ind

  • New stuff (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sunspire ( 784352 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:17PM (#9688088)
    Things that interest me:

    - I see the Freedesktop.org HAL [freedesktop.org] code is being included in test1. That will be interesting to see if and how integrated it will be in the final release. We'll probably also see some sort of real udev support this time.

    - The timetable for the next official X.org release is planned to sync with Fedora Core 3. I'm a bit skeptical they can make it in time, but it would be really cool if they did. This will be the first X.org to include the new desktop composition extension from Keith Packards kdrive test.

  • Too Fast For Me -- Moved To Debian (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:18PM (#9688104)
    I had to upgrade a few RedHat 9.0 internal development servers. I thought the Fedora release cycle was too rapid and Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was too expensive for internal development servers. I plan to use RHEL for the production machines. But for internal use I decided to use Debian instead for the following reasons:

    * slow stable release cycle
    * easier upgrades
    * server management and configuration tools

    One drawback of the slow release cycle of Debian is that software versions are somewhat old. If you need a newer version of a particular package Debian Backports [backports.org] can help with using newer software with stable Debian releases.
  • One of the Fedora developers sneezed! Quickly slashdot his blog now!

    (j/k, it just seems like a new test release doesn't warrant a mention, perhaps on OSNews)

    CB
  • im just finishing off a 4.1gb download of fedora core 2, on a 150k connection.

  • The real BUG problem (Score:5, Informative)

    by megajini ( 557306 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:39PM (#9688372)

    It's fairly hard for a "normal" User on the slim line between an fairly actual system and a productive system. Anyway, new stuff always attracts me a lot (another load of hours lost :-)...

    But the problem on Linux and especially with distributions a la Fedora is interoperability. Every version demands it's own RPM archive [freshrpms.net], there isn't just this thing like "xine-0.99xx.rpm" and GO. It's just like DLL Hell on Windows with the difference that it's more complicated to have different versions coexisting (M$ did some tweaks in that area); i know, it's cleaner but under M$ "IT JUST WORKS".

    What really needs to get done is a wider adoption of sort of freedesktop.org [freedesktop.org] "standards" like DBUS [freedesktop.org] and a defined versioning System for all those *.so libraries on the system. Apple [apple.com] does some fairly cool tricks in that area with so called "frameworks" which exist as isolated directories and can contain multiple versions of a framework. Combined with late binding, it's just possible to trust a certain frozen API version.

    I know it was already a huge step forward that most libraries now feature those xxx-config scripts so that the "user" doesn't have to supply all those directories and stuff for easier building. But let's get serious on that: A "real" user doesn't compile his stuff. And without tackling that matter we won't get serious (and working) package dependencies. And till that doesn't work every distribution is in fact a big bloated testing team trying to figure out the dependencies and building propietary packages that only work with this specific version of the distrib...

    BTW I think that's part of the reason why gentoo [gentoo.org] is so successful...

  • What's Up With This? (Score:5, Informative)

    by wbav ( 223901 ) <Guardian.Bob+Slashdot@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:41PM (#9688396) Homepage Journal
    I mean it's on the development schedule [redhat.com] that test1 would be released today. This release shouldn't be a suprise for those complaining about installing this new one so soon.

    As you can see, the core 3 will be done about October for those using core 2.

  • Egad! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pr0vidence ( 562808 ) * on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @12:52PM (#9688529)
    Slow DOWN guys!
    You just released FC2 a few months ago. To be honest, it was lackluster. Bugs and problems are rampant. Really guys, fix up FC2, release FC2.1,2.2,etc first. Then move on to FC3. You guys cannot stay bleeding edge, and noone is expecting you to. That kind of thing is better left to the likes of Gentoo. You just worry about staying a version or two behind bleeding edge, and release a really solid OS that people can move into from Windows and have realatively few problems. Remember, the less problematic a first timer's (n00b, whatever) experience is with Linux, the more likely they will be to sticking around and finding out what this "open source" thing is really all about.

    • Re:Egad! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bankman ( 136859 )
      Slow DOWN guys! You just released FC2 a few months ago. To be honest, it was lackluster. Bugs and problems are rampant. Really guys, fix up FC2, release FC2.1,2.2,etc first. Then move on to FC3.

      That's the main problem I have with Fedora.

      You guys cannot stay bleeding edge, and noone is expecting you to. [...] Remember, the less problematic a first timer's (n00b, whatever) experience is with Linux, the more likely they will be to sticking around and finding out what this "open source" thing is really all

    • Re:Egad! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Plug ( 14127 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @02:55PM (#9690062) Homepage
      There are two ways of fixing bugs:

      • Finding the exact code fixes for bugs and applying those fixes back to the old packages, and then worrying about maintaining that 'backported' package (what Debian does with security updates, and nothing else
      • Pushing out a new package, which has the problem fixed, and more features, and is "better".


      While we all know it's not necessarily the case, surely software should tend towards having no bugs (it works with TeX!), and programmers should tend towards being better. This means distros like Fedora are right; they give us the new version of the software, which fixes the bugs in the old one. We all do it with kernels, don't we?
  • But they'd have to fix the mp3 support... I know, it's easily fixable, but it's so terribly _annoying_

  • Good Fedora release? (Score:4, Informative)

    by anakog ( 448790 ) <anakog@yahoo.com> on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @01:44PM (#9689204) Journal
    I for one welcome our new Fedora 3 overlords.

    Seriously, though, I think that Fedora 3 stands a chance of being reasonably good for the "average Linux user." By that, I mostly mean going back to the pre-Fedora levels of troubleshooting while improving on the user-friendliness.

    I just had a painful weekend trying to upgrade my machines at home. I managed to install FC2 on my desktop without a glitch but the first thing I did (and anyone else would do) after booting up --- trying to update the system --- failed because of two bugs (one of which is in rpm and is supposedly fixed but a new package is not released yet).

    My server refused to take any of the newer stuff from Red Hat. It is an VIA mini-ITX box running RH9. I was hoping to update to FC2 but due to a bug in the 2.6.6 and earlier kernels which affects the C3 CPU, the installer can not even start. (Heh! I just found out that there is decent workaround [redhat.com] posted for this one. Who says that posting to Slashdot does not pay out?)

    I also tried to install RHEL Academic Edition (which looked like closely derived from RH9) only to discover that it does not support this particular machine (too bad --- I was going to gladly pay the $50 for updates).

    From the news in the past couple of months, it looks like most of the latest offerings (not only by Redhat) have had too many issues to be considered decent. It looks like the reason for that is that most problems are bugs in the kernel (firewire, VIA C3 support) or are related to the kernel (Windows dual-boot issue).

    With the exception of firewire support, however (which I don't know if it has been fixed in 2.6.7), the issues that concern me have been resolved. Also the publicity around some of the issues gives me hope that the Fedora folks will be a little more careful with the next release. This makes me think that Fedora 3 may finally live up to the expectations.

  • Fedora Can Go As Fast As They Want IIF (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EXTomar ( 78739 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @01:51PM (#9689266)
    The Fedora Crew can go as fast and agressive as they want if and only if they provide smooth upgrade paths by yum/up2date/"insert your favorite updating method here".

    My FC2 install is only 1.5 months old. It took me that long to decide to upgrade since the old software was working great. When I did finally buckle down to do it I had to do a CD install. I would rather do a "yum upgrade-distribution" or something else entirely.

    Between Debian's slowness of "it will be done when its done" and the neckbreaking speed of Fedora I keep hoping to find some sort of middle ground. I like software to be as progressive as anyone but upgrading is a major pain. If they solve that problem, then the world will beat a path to their door.

Slashdot Top Deals

Sentient plasmoids are a gas.

Close