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My Fedora Core Review


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First, I am not exactly a new user, but I am far from an experienced user.

 

My FC2 install was done on 6/14/04. It was a clean install on a new machine. Now iit is 3 evenings later. Here are my thoughts on the experience so far.

 

I had a brand-new custom built machine, not exactly high-end, but very nice. AMD 2800+ barton proc, a cheapo MSI KT400a mobo, FX-5200 video card, Antec aluminum lanboy case. I used an old TDK CD burner that I had, and a spare W-D 200Gb hard drive. Anyway, on with the install.

 

The install was supremely easy, I don't see how you can install an OS any easier. Everything was recognized correctly, including my on-board LAN and on-board sound. I went with the Workstation Install, AND I recommend selecting Customized Package Selection, rather than accepting the default install. You can then click on different software categories (such as Sound & Video) and see what the default selections are, and add more items if you want. For example, for this category I kept all the default selections, but also marked k3b and grip for installation.

 

Post-install, the first order of business for me was to get gnome looking how I wanted. Gnome 2.6 looks very nice, and is extemely easy to get customized just how you want. The Panel looked a little congested, so I removed the shortcuts for oo writer, and for oo impress. Of course, I wanted a terminal shortcut so I added that. Now, lets see... what would be helpful over on the right side of the panel... how about a Force Kill button and a Show Desktop button - might come in handy. The default background looks nice, so I left it for the time being. Now to my Home directory, double click it, and lets add some folders to it. Docs, Pics, ogg, and a few other folders for stuff. Lets snaz them up with some emblems, now that looks better.

On my crappy 15" monitor, screen space is at a premium, and the panel was a little too big for my liking. So I looked to see if I could make it smaller - right click it and select less pixels until it is EXACTLY the size I wanted. Nice !

That all took maybe 10 minutes or less.

 

Now, need to get some software installed. I have never been very good at doing the tar, ./configure, blah blah thing... I am a believer in easy installs. Back with RedHat 9, I got pretty familiar with apt-get, which can also be used on fedora. But I wanted to try yum, and since it is installed with fedora I did a llittle reading up on it. The repository sources file for yum is yum.conf and is in /etc. I looked at the yum.conf that installed with FC2. Hmm... just uses the fedora repository. Need to get a better yum.conf. I found an example of a yum.conf that could be used to get most everything that you would want:

 

http://www.fedorafaq.org/samples/yum.conf

 

So I renamed the default yum.conf to yum.orig and copied the above example into my /etc. I used vi to edit the file (many things were commented out, so I reviewed the file and decided to uncomment the gpgcheck=1 for the repositories that I was using. After doing this, you need to, as root, run (for example):

 

#rpm --import http://www.fedora.us/FEDORA-GPG-KEY

 

The above one-time command grabs the fedora gpg key and makes it known to yum. I did an import for the livna key also.

 

So far, everything has been problem-free, and very easy. Now to try yum - I was a total noob to yum - never used it before. Ran yum update as root. This was taking a long time, and I kind of worried about what it was doing to my system - many things were scrolling up my monitor. But everything was fine, after it finished it seemed to have updated maybe 12 or 15 packages on my machine. Now time for an actual test of yum. Fedora has some minor inconveniences, such as mp3 not working, no flash in your browser, and little things like that. This is NOT a fedora problem many distros are the same.

 

So, lets see if yum can fix the above 2 niggles. yum install xmms-mp3 and after that then yum install flash-plugin. Both worked perfectly, and both things were installed and working. This stuff is just TOO EASY.

 

Fedora uses mozilla 1.6 for the web browser and evolution for email. Mozilla is nice, but I prefer firefox. Since linux is about choice, and you are the boss of your machine, lets change both things. How to install firefox... hmmm let's just try yum install firefox and see what happens... bang! installed perfectly. Now to make gnome use firefox instead of mozilla. Open the menu, select Preferences, then select Preferred Applications and pick firefox for browser. This just gets easier and easier. Same thing for thunderbird email: yum install thunderbird - bang! installed perfectly. Go to Preferred Apps and change Evolution to Thunderbird. Done !

 

I also have a San Disk 256Mb usb memory stick that I use on my win2k box. Need to do 2 things to get it working in linux: add an entry for it in fstab, and do a mkdir for the mount point. Plug in the memory stick, double-click the Computer icon on my desktop and there it is in all its glory !

 

One minor thing about FC2 is that if you install the nvidia driver in the normal way, it doesn't work. This is not an FC2 problem, it is just the new kernel. nvidia's current driver doesn't work with it, but nvidia is working on a new driver. However, it CAN be fixed, but I'll just wait for the new driver.

 

As you can tell, I am very impressed with the ease of making everything how I want it. My first experience with linux was maybe 2 years ago(?) and with mandrake 8.1. That lasted a month or 2, then I promptly went back to win2k. The new distros, such as FC2, are getting EASIER & EASIER to install and do stuff with. For the first time, I am really excited about learning linux.

 

I realize that many of the things mentioned above are just minor housekeeping chores that can be done on any newer distro. This commentary isn't just about FC2, but about the "new linux", in general.

 

thanks for listening. Sorry about the long-winded post.

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Im glad your happy with FC2 and more importantly with Linux now.

 

I started out with Mandrake for a very short time like you and then moved to RH9/FC1. Got the itch to learn other distros and after trying a couple others I finally settled on Slack. (for now) Believe me though I still have withdrawl pains from Redhat/Fedora and would probably go back in a heartbeat if updating to the next release with command/repos. (like deb, gentoo, slack can) was supported. I have heard rumor that they are working on that, but haven't heard nor seen anything set in gold on it.

 

Play and have fun with Linux and Fedora. Its a nice distro and very powerful. You can get "Fedora Unleashed" at bookstores like Barnes and Knoble. Get it and read it. I also have a book called Fedora Toys. Has something like a dozen or so projects you can do with Fedora.

 

FX

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I'll check out those links when I get home this evening.

 

After my initial excitment about the ease of installing & setting-up FC2, there are a couple of things so far that I am disappointed in:

 

1. correctly installing & using an HP print driver does not exactly seem as easy as it should be. I basically followed the instructions at linuxprinting.org for the hpijs driver & PPD file (a couple of screens worth of instructions...). I still don't get any print options when printing (print quality choices, 2-sided printing, etc). It does print excellent quality, though. I just like to print most stuff in "Draft" quality. Note: I have another thread about this in Other Linux Distributions (unless someone moved it to Hardware)

 

2. correctly installing java sdk also does not seem as easy as it should be. I have another thread about this in the Programming forum.

 

I realize these so-called problems (for me at least) may be the same in several distros, not just FC2.

 

maybe I should have crossed my fingers and tried yum install java...

 

yeah right, in a perfect world

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thx for the links! I just finished installing. It's the first time I've ever had a linux complain about partition magic's partitioning (partition table inconsistancy) :screwy: . Installer would freeze during the partitioning if I used my mouse so it took me about 4 reboots and deleting an xp, 2k, and data partition b4 I realized I just needed to use the keybaord. Everything was fine before and after the partitioning. Can't say much else. Seems snappy but fedora always has on this box. Needed the first 3 cd's for install and not the fourth.

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Another thing I'm slightly disappointed in is the fact that during the brief time I used FC1, I installed several things - such as small games & whatever. This was just "practice" for me to learn how to install tar.gz files and whatnot.

 

Anyway, one game I installed (xmahjongg) - was a tar.gz - and it installed perfectly on my FC1 box.

 

Now, with FC2, the exact same tar.gz wont install - I can't get thru the make without errors. And I don't know enough about it to know what's wrong. I forget the error message that I get. No big deal - its just irritating.

 

The point is, when you have some progs on your FC1 machine, and you want to install them on your new FC2 machine, nope - sorry doesn't work sometimes.

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I know, but it's still irritating in general. If I had a win95 or 98 program - say Quicken 98 - it would work on either win, and also on win2k. Now I'm not saying winblows is better - I hate it and don't use it anymore. It's just nice if you have a program you like, such as a 3rd-party game, to be able to use it beyond the next distro.

 

A couple months ago, I bought an inexpensive book on some basic linux admin stuff - and the book uses FC1 as the teaching tool. I went thru almost the entire book during the short time I had FC1 - and I learned lots of stuff about installing tars and all that.

 

Now, with FC2 installed, lots of examples in the FC1 book no longer even work.

 

And when the FC2 books start coming out, FC3 will be coming out...

 

Not that I'm complaining.... B)

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Despite the minor complaints, I still think its a great distro and I enjoy coming home every day from work and plopping down in my computer chair and using it.

 

A few days ago, when I moved my winblows machine out of the way, so that I could connect my new FC2 machine to my better peripherals (19" monitor, wireless optical mouse, wireless kb), I was thinking... I hope this wireless stuff works on my new machine... well, it works great.

 

Under winblows, you have to install the logitech software to use the kb & mouse. Then you have it running in your systray all the time, and popping up boxes to see if you want to Check the Internet For Updates... I know you can turn that stuff off, but still, its intrusive. Nice that it just works under linux, and leaves you alone.

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It's the first time I've ever had a linux complain about partition magic's partitioning (partition table inconsistancy) :screwy: . Installer would freeze during the partitioning if I used my mouse so it took me about 4 reboots and deleting an xp, 2k, and data partition b4 I realized I just needed to use the keybaord. Everything was fine before and after the partitioning.

After uncompressing some bkup tarballs a reboot to win shows all of hdb to be corrupt :devil: Fedora still boots but...... :juggle: I d/k if this has anything to do with fedora or not :unsure:

 

hda=30GB Maxtor (win98se/xp)

and

hdb=120GB Maxtor(pagefile/xp/xp/2k/data/media/swap/fedora/and more)

 

 

I switched everything over now and will reinstall fedora.

hda=120GB (win98se/xp/pagefile/xp/xp/2k/data/media)

hdb=linux only

 

:juggle::juggle::juggle:

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  • 4 weeks later...

fedora is like a ford gremlin.....the more I use it the it breaks :lol:

I haven't updated anyhting in almost a month.

rhythmbox doesn't see mp3's

gftp crashes all the time

and a few other nuicances......mdk....here I come...I've missed ya :woops:

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