My Fedora Core 3 Review

[jlc]

Why not right one up! :)

There was a vast improvment from 2 - 3, you wont see it on the outside, but the inside has a lot of great changes.

 

If you read this:

 

Meet FC3

 

Introduction

 

Fedora Core 3 is the latest release, from the project sponsored by Red Hat, Inc. Every new version of Fedora Core comes with interesting new features and countless bug fixes. This time, it sports newer desktop environments in GNOME 2.8 and KDE 3.3.0 and a newer office package with OpenOffice.org 1.1.2. Going down towards the system level, the 2.6.9 Linux kernel is included with SELinux enabled in active, targeted mode.

 

Gnome 2.8, of course its a sexy desktopa and works great! I don't use kde so I couldn't tell you much about it.

 

 

I do have SELinux enabled and it works fine on 2 desktops and a server, haven't had mass headaches yet. There targeted mode policy is great, you just run SELinux on server side functions if you want to cause less desktop user problems and still have a tight box.

 

Behind the Desktop

 

All the interesting work was not only being done to improve GNOME but to also improve the way a user can interact with her desktop. All this is made possible via an underlying layer of magic in the form of hotplug, udev, D-BUS, HAL, and gamin. All of this magic is made possible because of the freedesktop.org specifications.

 

Every distro needs this and I think most are getting it now. Plug in my usb stick, ipod, external hd and there all ago!

 

GCC

 

Fedora Core 3 breaks further ground by being the first Linux distribution to ship the GNU C Compiler (GCC) version 4.0. It is a technology preview release, as GCC 3.4.2 is still being shipped as a regular compiler. GCC 4.0 has Static Single Assignment (SSA) performance improvements — SSA's usefulness comes from how it simultaneously simplifies and improves compiler optimizations, by simplifying the properties of variables.

 

The FORTIFY_SOURCE extensions add both compile-time buffer overflow detection, and very low overhead runtime overflow protection. This is an excellent development tool to help improve the quality of code out there, and a current aim is to have the -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE option to compile the entire Fedora Core 4 distribution! (Nothing shipped in Fedora Core 3 makes use of GCC4) For more information on this, refer to a posting made by Jakub Jelinek at http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2004-09/msg02055.html.

 

This also entails that Fedora Core 3's glibc has the new capability embedded within it, and enabled by GCC4 with the FORTIFY_SOURCE switch. GCC 3.4.2 will be gaining some of this functionality soon, in an update available via the Fedora Updates.

 

If that doesn't make the speed freaks cheer, I don't know what will :) GCC 3.4.2 was used to compile the whole system and I can tell you it is much much faster than fc2 and any distro I've used with gcc 3.3.x, The only other distro I used that was compiled from the ground up with gcc 3.4 was gentoo so that is all I have to compare to. I can say on my systems my ubber tweak gentoo had nothing on FC3 as far as speed/performance goes.

 

GCC 4.0! Damn, that will make you itch to compile with it. 8)

 

Faster Updates

 

The Yellowdog Updater Modified (affectionately known as yum) allows the user to automatically update a Linux system using the RPM Package Manager (RPM). Many user requests during the Fedora Core 1 and 2 release cycles included requests to make yum faster and less resource hungry. Yum in Fedora Core 3 has over a 40% speed improvement, thanks to how dependency checking works now.

The new YUM uses a condensing of the header information. It now takes a list of what needs to be done (via the command line), gets the relevant information about it, and then questions rpmlib in regards to dependency resolution. rpmlib then responds, YUM now uses the XML metadata (provided by repodata), which is what makes it quicker, and less memory hungry. For a further speed improvement, once the XML is read once, the information is cached, since Python's XML parsing isn't as fast as it should be – so YUM just reads this metadata when resolving an item. Metadata is an XML package (http://linux.duke.edu/metadata/), where meta information is stored in the “repodata” directory of each repository. This is the XML representation and condensation of the information stored in the RPM package header. This allows YUM to resolve dependencies and get more useful information quicker. Generating a “repodata” source is provided by the createrepo utility. A few new YUM features include: yum list recent – this lists packages added to any of the repositories recently, which is useful if you want to have information about what packages were just added. yum list obsoletes – this lists packages available for obsoletion. yum groupremove [somegroupname] – installation by groups has been supported, now removal of an entire group is supported as well If you download some package from the Internet and use YUM to install it, it will resolve any dependencies the package requires, provided through the repositories listed in your YUM configuration.

 

Many people that used fc2 and bellow complained about how horribly slow yum was, (it was) it is very nice now and has automatic mirrorlist to change on the fly to the next mirror, plus overal the checks and balance of yum has been greatly improved. Plus you can setup a lof of extra repositorys and have them disabled and then enable them on the fly like so:

 

yum --enablerepo=freshrpms install xmms-mp3

 

Now they just need to add the ability to pull down .src.rpms and I'll be a happy camper. You can use up2date for that feature currently and apt-get(if you install it)

 

up2date --get-source xmms

 

 

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Helpful websites:

 

http://www.fedorafaq.org/

 

http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-fc3.shtml

 

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/selinux-faq-fc3/

 

http://www.fedoranews.org/

 

http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/

 

http://freshrpms.net/

 

Yum Extender (GUI) <-- pretty cool

 

& ME 8)

 

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It's no secret, I might be a little bias since I have used rh/fedora since 6.2 and have always had atleast one box running it, but honestly if you haven't tried fc3 and you have a spare box sitting around give it ago.

 

I can also say for x86_64 and "me" that FC3 takes the prize on useability. Suse 9.2-64, ubuntu-warty-64, gentoo-2004.3-64, freebsd-5.3-64, they were all a big pain for the most part. If I had to use something else on x86_64 I would use ubuntu and it was the next best imho. I have not tested MDK-64, cause well they don't seem to hand that one out and I don't want to pay for something that I've "read" about says it sucks, so I'll just not say much except that :)

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

Any way, I'm not much of a "reviewer" so that is all my $.02 can think of.

Edited December 6, 2004 by cybrjackle

[arctic]

If that doesn't make the speed freaks cheer, I don't know what will smile.gif GCC 3.4.2 was used to compile the whole system and I can tell you it is much much faster than fc2 and any distro I've used with gcc 3.3.x, The only other distro I used that was compiled from the ground up with gcc 3.4 was gentoo so that is all I have to compare to. I can say on my systems my ubber tweak gentoo had nothing on FC3 as far as speed/performance goes.

yupp, fedora3 is a lot faster than the previous versions although the booting is a bit slow imho. i think this has to do with many many many server-services and cron jobs that are running by default even on a home-pc desktop. they can be deactivated later but it is a "pain in the a***" for the normal user.

ther were some ugly bugs in fedora3 but right at the very first day it was available on mirrors, the community/developers already had some patches for some of the bugs. i think in two months, fedora3 will be rock stable and almost as good as ubuntu. ubuntu has a slight advantage in terms of multimedia imho. but then: fedora ships with a well integrated xfce4 :D

 

anyway, best fedora/redhat i have seen since redhat 7.2. if i would be asked to choose between ubuntu and fedora, then i would be in serious trouble. i love both of them somehow. :woops:

[jlc]

Multimedia on both is in the same boat, they both like to be open/free software so you have to add external repo's on both distros ;)

[arctic]

Multimedia on both is in the same boat, they both like to be open/free software so you have to add external repo's on both distros ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yes, but it is definitely easier to get all the media-stuff to work /install in ubuntu than in fedora. at least this is my impression.

[Paul_Vandenberg]

I have switched between Mandrake and Red Hat/Fedora over the years. Red Hat has done a lot of good things with this release, but I find it lacking as a distro. There still is no graphical menu editor in GNOME. As previously mentioned, there are a lot of automatic processes running daily that are quite annoying. Also, you need to download a lot of the multimedia stuff from third party repositories. For a home user, I think Mandrake is better and more user-friendly than Fedora. Afterall, Fedora is a test bed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

[jlc]

su -

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/

vi freshrpms.repo

[freshrpms]
name=FreshRPMS-Fresh
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/freshrpms
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1

rpm --import http://freshrpms.net/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt

 

vi dag.repo

[dag]
name=Dag
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/fedora/$releasever/en/$basearch/dag/
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1

rpm --import http://dag.wieers.com/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

 

yum --enablerepo=dag --enablerepo=freshrpms install <insert multimedi stuff here>

 

:woops:

 

 

Of course you could always change the "enable=0" to "1" and not have the extra string in there, thats just my prefered method.

 

 

As far as noobieness and mdk, I would say that Fedora isn't really made for the noob, unless your willing to learn more about Linux, but thats just my opinion

 

fedora.redhat.com <--- Says nothing about noob-friendly, unless you want dig down deep and learn a little more, it's more geared to the next level and beyond I would say, again just my opinion.

[jlc]

NewsForge review

 

Thats pretty funny, a review that came out today and stated something correctly about "user ability" for Fedora!

 

Fedora

Click Here

is not a distribution aimed at the general consumer market, and it's hardly fair to compare it to commercial distros (as I once did). Fedora's intended audience is people who want to be somewhere between the leading edge and the bleeding edge: it's a test bed for the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  Its developers try new things with every release, and they don't always work, but you get to work with the newest of the new stuff. Fedora is meant to be tinkered with and customized. It is meant to be pushed to the breaking point to find its weak areas. It has become an important proving ground for new technology. In addition, the Fedora Project's commitment to 100% free software means that there will always be certain goodies (such as MP3 capability) that users will have to obtain and install themselves.

 

:lol:

 

Ouch :o I didn't care for this comment though!

 

And finally, GNOME 2.8 sucks less than 2.6 did. But now that I've discovered the vast superiority of KDE, I doubt that I'll ever go back to GNOME.

 

but but...... :unsure:

 

Conclusion

 

If I were a movie reviewer, I would give FC3 a thumbs-up. It is a solid release with few problems, and most of those are specific to certain hardware. Its ease of installation and package management system make it an excellent choice for newbies who want to learn Linux without the horrendous learning curve associated with having to compile everything yourself. Its functional SELinux component is a powerful incentive to install it just to learn what will certainly become a standard in the near future. Indeed, SELinux alone probably takes FC3 to a whole new level.

 

Edited December 6, 2004 by cybrjackle

[arctic]

And finally, GNOME 2.8 sucks less than 2.6 did. But now that I've discovered the vast superiority of KDE, I doubt that I'll ever go back to GNOME.

well, he is definitely right with gnome 2.8 being a lot better than 2.6, but for me, it was quite the opposite. once gnome 2.8 was available, i ditched kde because it is superior, more stable and more straight forward imho. :D

Edited December 6, 2004 by arctic

[adamw]

arctic: the fc guys have been doing some good work on boot times lately and they found the bottlenecks on fc are less to do with services than you'd think. Someone over on the FC mailing lists came up with a very neat program which runs during the boot process and gives exact timings and hard disk usage statistics throughout the boot process, and also wrote a neat a java app which gives you a lovely easy to read graph of the results. They found that on FC there were a couple of FC-specific things causing *major* slowdown, and they're working on that now. Several of us cheerfully nicked this whole thing and ran it on Mandrake Cooker, and the results have been discussed on the cooker ML. Currently we've discovered that udev (and the way the initscripts work with it) is causing several slowdowns in the boot process, and there's work ongoing to speed it up. There's also been a proposal to replace bash with dash (a lighter, faster shell) for running the startup process, but there's a problem with that in that some of our startup scripts have bash-specific stuff in them.

[FX]

Well finally broke down and put FC 3 on the gaming machine. Things have changed now from what I see. I guess ialong with ONE big yum config you can have serveral in the /etc/yum/repos.d dir. Gonna take some learnig over again.

[FX]

One of the things that throws me off is the different look of the fstab. On here I didn't make my /home onits own partition,but if I do it on the laptop I will wont too. Ihave no idea what those new entries are.

 

Where is cybr when you need him.

[jlc]

 

Whats wrong in your fstab and what do you want me to explain homes!

 

[FX]

/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 swap swap defaults 0 0

/dev/hdc /media/cdrom auto pamconsole,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,ro,exec,noauto,managed 0 0

/dev/hdd /media/cdrecorder auto pamconsole,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,exec,noauto,managed 0 0

/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto pamconsole,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,exec,noauto,managed 0 0

 

/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 / ext3 defaults 1 1

 

Thats stuff.

[jlc]

This

/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01

 

or this:

 

pamconsole,fscontext=system_u:object_r:removable_t,exec,noauto,managed

 

The first one is because your using LVM, We can go further in to detail if tha tis what your asking.

 

The second one is because you have SELinux enabled. If you leave it enabled i would recommend reading through these:

 

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/selinux-faq-fc3/ <--- Many links on that too

 

http://www.crypt.gen.nz/selinux/faq.html

 

If you want to turn SELinux off and not worry about learning a new complex system do this:

 

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/selinux-faq-....html#id3522566

 

Q:. 

 

How do I turn enforcing on/off at boot?

A:. 

 

You can specify the SELinux mode using the configuration file /etc/sysconfig/selinux.

 

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.

# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:

#      enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.

#      permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.

#      disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.

SELINUX=enforcing

# SELINUXTYPE= type of policy in use. Possible values are:

#      targeted - Only targeted network daemons are protected.

#      strict - Full SELinux protection.

SELINUXTYPE=targeted

 

Setting the value to enforcing is the same as adding enforcing=1 to your command line when booting the kernel to turn enforcing on, while setting the value to permissive is the same as adding enforcing=0 to turn enforcing off. Note that the command line kernel parameter overrides the configuration file.

 

However, setting the value to disabled is not the same as the selinux=0 kernel boot parameter. Rather than fully disabling SELinux in the kernel, the disabled setting instead turns enforcing off and skips loading a policy.

 

Which you would set it to "disabled", If this is your gaming desktop, you might as well shut it off, unless you want to learn more about it. :D

[jlc]

Oh, you could also run this to change settings for SELinux:

 

system-config-securitylevel

 

Keep in mind that since it is a desktop I would assume your running a "targeted policy" (default) it's really only adding protectiong to these:

 

Q:. 

 

What daemons are protected by the targeted policy?

A:. 

 

Currently, the list of daemons is dhcpd, httpd (apache.te), named, nscd, ntpd, portmap, snmpd, squid, and syslogd. The policy files for these daemons are found in /etc/selinux/targeted/src/policy/domains/program.

 

In the future, more daemons will be added to the targeted policy protection.

 

Strict Policy can get ugly, specially for a gaming desktop B)