Fedora Core 3: Worth The Upgrade?

Chris writes "With new features such as SELinux, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, Evolution 2.0, Remote Desktop, Helix Player, and of course Firefox, it may be worth your while to make the switch. At OSDir our screenshot tour of Fedora Core 3 takes you through boot, installation, desktop, taskbar, menus, configuration, and the new features of this new release. Our Core 3 screenshot tours have taken you through Test 1, 2, 3, and now the final release. Check it out."

Screenshot tour?

[fpga_guy]

Sorry, but screenshots are not what this is about. Let's talk about features baby, I want substance!

There's a lot more to an OS than the damn window manager!

Re:Size?

[cerberusss]

I'm overwhelmed by the DVD size download

Well, don't download the DVD in the first place. Download the three CDs with the .torrent file that's provided.

Windows HDD Killing Bug?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone confirm whether or not this version still has the bug which makes NTFS partitions unbootable without some serious recovery work? I nuked my system with FC2 and would not like to deal with the same issues again if I decide to try FC3.

Also, have they got IEE1394 working yet? It wasn't turned on by default in FC2, I know, because of some bugs..

Re:Size?

[Anonymous Coward]

So where's the 1 CD version?

Surely they can do what Microsoft can with their bloated Windows XP?

Damn multi-CD distros not using the fact we're *gasp* usually connected to the Internet and can download what we want.

Documentation?

[barcodez]

Seriously, this is the first thing I check nowadays when evaluating software. If the documentation is bad you can wasted days, weeks, months trying to resolve problems - frankly I value my time too much. So can those in the know profer some opinions on the quality of the documentation?

Re:Size?

[afd8856]

Since when is Windows XP equivalent to Fedora?

Windows XP doesn't give you:

• several office suites
• several work environments (KDE & GNOME & XFCE)
• webserver + mail server + mailing list manager
• proxy server
• cd burner, visual HTML composer
• a complete set of development tools
• network tools to work in other than native networking environments (Samba)
• a lot more games
• localization for lots of languages
• a lot more that I forget right now.

Now, if you would like to add to the windows XP cd the 4 that come only with office, you'll get a lot more than that.

Also, there are 1 cd distros: see Knoppix, for example. Not every distribution has to be exactly the same and suited just for you.

Re:Size?

[lachlan76]

Damn multi-CD distros not using the fact we're *gasp* usually connected to the Internet and can download what we want.

Not everyone has high-speed internet you know.

Re:Screenshot tour?

[northcat]

There's a lot more to an OS than the damn window manager!

But thats what most newbies (who come from windows) seem to care right now...

Re:Talking of Remote Desktop

[l3v1]

much faster and seamlessly than most remote X window logins

Unfortunately (i.e. for Windows) that's not all someone wants from remote sessions. What I want e.g. is to allow many users concurrently logged on and using the machine through different X sessions, happily and joyfuly, and without needing to pay for a bag of licenses for being able to accomplish all this.

I'm not surprised they want to call that feature by the same name

Just a name won't buy them fame. What already has brought that fame was the possibility to have graphical truly multiuser remote sessions long before MS started to think about adding network support.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Size?

[Taladar]

Even more reason not to let them download whole CDs but only the packages they need.

Re:Talking of Remote Desktop

[dasunt]

Theres a feature which works remarkably well under Windows XP, much faster and seamlessly than most remote X window logins. I'm not surprised they want to call that feature by the same name. Strange considering that network transparency is supposed to be X's strongpoint.

Odd, I consider it just the reverse.

Using windows built-in tools, it appears to be impossible to share just one application window.

Almost every linux/unix install has ssh, which makes it trivial to remotely launch an application over a secure connection, and that application's window will be a native part of the desktop as far as window decoration goes[1]. Ssh also makes it rather trivial to tunnel an x application through many firewalls.

Ne'ermind that X is multiuser. RDP is limited to one. X, without any add on tools, seems a lot more capable of client/server setups, while under windows you need additional commercial software to do so.

RDP has some nice features -- bandwidth usage is a lot more efficient, while under X even the low bandwidth proxy is not as efficient. And some people find it easier to setup then X.

Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. For what I use it for, X seems to be more "polished".

That is my opinion.

Slightly OT: Reading how windows is so much better then linux in the usability department only leads to my disappointment down the road. I end up using the rare MS Windows machine, and I find a cut & paste problem, or something ends up near impossible to do, etc. I keep expecting the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I find that windows is just another OS, still flawed in its latest release.

[1] Cut & paste beyond plain text is still a problem though.

Re:buy CDs

[lachlan76]

I understand your feelings about RPM.....if I ever leave Gentoo, I'll really miss Portage.

Re:Talking of Remote Desktop

[itzdandy]

the program being run can do VNC or RDP. VNC is more 'universal' and is prefered but RDP is available. RDP linux clients usually have little configuration options for some reason while VNC is very good on linux IMHO

Well, I'm not happy

[ptomblin]

I upgrade over the weekend, and now I can't access anything on the secondary IDE controller without major problems - my load average when I woke up this morning was over 230. This hardware has been perfectly stable for 2 years.

hdc: dma timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdc: DMA timeout error
hdc: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 {Busy}
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdc: DMA disabled
ide1: reset: success
hdc: irq timeout: status-0x80 { Busy }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
ide: reset: success
ReiserFS: warning: is_tree_node: node level 19789 does not match to
the expected one 1

Re:Talking of Remote Desktop

[l3v1]

Besides, terminal server has been out for years, if that's what you need.

No, it's not :) Windows "developing" (as in evolution :) ) pretty pricey terminal services solutions in the last decade won't make me switch my ways of thinking about the capabilities of *nix/Linux network solutions.

Re:Red Hat is apparently no longer cool

[hermeshome.se]

Couldn't have said it better myself. We Fedora Core (1,2,3) users that are happy never, or seldom, complain.
We all use our distro of choise and are quite happy with it. If you're not happy with distro X then change to Y or Z. Don't blame the distro-maker for a distro that don't fit YOUR individual needs.

Remember that this is our strenth, not weakness; the flora of choise!

Re:Red Hat is apparently no longer cool

[RichDice]

There are no dark corners of breakage, everything Just Works(TM).

Whenever someone says this about a distro, it is apparent to me that they have nice shiney happy friendly hardware. So many times I have taken a friend at face value when they've told me about the sweet time they're having with some new random distro (Ubuntu, most recently) and so I go off and spend an hour installing it... and then a weekend fucking around with rescue disks trying to recover some semblance of functionality out of my Laptop From Hell.

Try saying this instead: It worked for me, but your mileage may vary.

Cheers,
Richard

Re:Screenshot tour?

[ajs]

It's not that FC is a bad distribution, per se, it's just that I fail to see anything particularly special about it.

Best endorsement of Fedora I've ever heard! Hey, if you want the shiny-things OS go buy a Mac. If you're looking for the logical successor to the free Red Hat Linux distribution (which was never "particularly special"), Fedora is your choice.

You CAN tweak the hell out of FC3 and get it to look and feel very pretty, but the important things to most long-time RHL and Fedora users are careful integration of new features combined with a smooth transition from previous releases. I get all of the above from FC3.

Re:Screenshot tour?

[Kingpin]

It should be the distro that "just works". I want an abstraction above my hardware so no Debian or Gentoo for me.

Ubuntu is just the next new kid on the desktop block - just like Xandros, it's a lot of promise, but lack of finish.

Although it's becoming fashion that we have to pay for Linux, I don't want to - so no Novell Linux Desktop for me.

FC is based on 10 generations of RedHat releases, in my book that counts for quite a bit - even if it takes a little time for the releases to stabilize.

I'll use it as a server OS, ie. no X. I don't have to pay. The installer is great. The packages plenty.

Re:Size?

[log0n]

a complete set of development tools

They're available as a separate download - the vast majority of Windows users neither want nor need them.
--

But most Linux users do...

Re:Lack of Java rpms and other stuff

[prefect42]

But they were buggy as hell. The ant that shipped with FC2 was very very quick compared to a normally compiled ant, but sadly fell over all over the shop ;(

Re:Windows HDD Killing Bug?

[mshiltonj]

I'm running WinXP & FC3 dual boot right now. I installed WinXP first, resized the partition, installed FC3. No Problems.

Re:Kitchen Sink

[LnxAddct]

Some people like everything and the kitchen sink. Its nice to sit down at a computer and have *everything* you need to just be there so you can get right to work and not have to worry about *anything*. It all just works. Also just installing everything makes installing other 3rd party stuff (like small little utilities that noone has heard about) later that may not be in any yum repositories much easier because you most like have everything that it depends on. Regardless, if your running a server you can always do the FC3 server install and you can have a fully functional server with lots of nice goodies and the added security of SELinux in less space then a cd can hold (Probably much less in cases where you only need to do one thing like run a web server). I've run many many distros over the years, including FreeBSD, and Fedora Core 3 has gone above and beyond my expectations, it is truly impressive and the best I've seen. Plus its so damn fast and responsive, Red Hat has out done itself.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Kitchen Sink

[The Vulture]

What's wrong with it? I'll tell you what's wrong from my perspective.

I'm a geek. I like to tinker, but I still want a working computer where I can run an installation program, and everything is configured for me, ready to go. I don't want to have to manually grab all sorts of packages to make my machine usable.

My employer develops embedded software in Linux. My manager pays me to develop software, not install operating systems. We're a small company and don't have time to have somebody roll something out for the developers to use.

Since I'm the software developer most familiar with Linux, the questions come to me when something doesn't work. Because of this, I gave Fedora Core 3 a shot, and it seems that the other developers like it. We're now standardizing on it, because:
1. I can show somebody else how to start the installer, and they can figure it out on their own (assuming a new PC, no special partitioning)
2. It includes everything we need
3. Everything (mostly) has a consistent look and feel
4. It's easy to keep up date (once apt-get comes out for FC3, if it's not present already)
5. For the most part, it just works! (Lindows doesn't work well, despite it's claims, as one of the developers found out.)

It just has to work and install the software that we need to get our work done.

-- Joe

Re:Screenshot tour?

[ajs]

If you want a tweakable Linux distro, there are better choices than FC to start from.

I would disagree with that. There are distributions with different approaches and different trade-offs, but "better"? No.

Plus, it has been acknowledged as a testbed for RH Enterprise distro's, so you can't exactly hope for rock solid stability.

I don't see how that follows. If, by rock-solid stability, you mean "nothing ever changes", then yes, you're correct. If you mean "software works out of the box," then I can't agree. I have yet to find anything in FC3 that behaves out of specification. The problems I've had have been related to the performance of spam checking in E2 (not a stability issue); the brokeness of the NVidia binary driver (not an FC3 issue, and not even SHIPPED with FC3); and the lack of portability of some FC1-2 apps (again, not an FC3 issue).

I have yet to see a (OS-wide, or application-specific) crash since I loaded FC3 (saw some under FC3test3). Actually, that's a lie. What's more accurate is that I've yet to see a crash in a component that shipped on the FC3 media... other things I added, HAVE crashed once or twice.

Other than people who are forced to keep Red Hat legacy systems[...]

I am not forced to run FC3, and it suits my needs. Your milage may vary, and that's fine.