ral Posted November 15, 2003 Report Share Posted November 15, 2003 (edited) This article pretty much sums up how I feel about RedHats decision to dump RedHat for the desktop: "This is not me speculating based on one or two reviews. This is me after hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, when executives from Red Hat told me directly that Fedora will indeed serve as the testbed for much of the enterprise line of Red Hat. Fedora is their chance to try things on the bleeding edge and get the kinks worked out before they bring some new functionality into RHEL. This is all well and good for Red Hat, but it is not really what I need. I like cutting edge stuff just as much as the next user, but I have web sites to run. Software to examine. I don't have the time or the inclination to play around with glitches. I need something that works, is stable, and when I absolutely can't figure it out on JustLinux, LinuxQuestions.org, or my network of guru friends, something that offers technical support. Am I being too lazy? Perhaps, considering my background and experience. But it's for sure that my concerns are shared by other users who don't even have the technical background I do--people who just want to turn their boxes on and use them. People who need live support. I realize I sound grossly unfair to the Fedora developers by making the presumption that there will be problems. Maybe there won't be and maybe I am worrying for nothing. But when I hear terms like "testbed" being bandied about by Red Hat itself, I tend to get concerned. Over time, I am confident that any issues that do crop up in Fedora will be handled just as well as they are in any other big OS project, like Debian, OpenOffice, or Mozilla, just to name a few. x x x What still bothers me is not that I have all these choices but that after I finally made a choice I was happy with, I might have to do it all over again." Full article Edited November 15, 2003 by ral Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ral Posted November 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 15, 2003 And this review does not boost my confidence in Fedora: "There is not a chance that I would use Fedora as my main OS at this point. It's got as many bugs as swiss cheese has holes, multimedia performance (at least with XMMS) and included multimedia feature-set is below par, application installation is a major pain in the rear, and there is no official support anymore for the bugs encountered throughout the experience. If this distro is just serving as a testbed for Red Hat's ideas to see if they work and then move them to their Enterprise product, it just means that Fedora will always be in beta state, whether or not they announce them as final or not." Full review Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowFoxLSU Posted November 17, 2003 Report Share Posted November 17, 2003 Thats standard Redhat. Redhat hasnt released an OS with good Multimedia support since RH7.2. Anyway, you can find Totem, xine, and mpg rpm very easily (freshrpms for one) soloely for Fedora. Oh, the only media it can play out of box is Ogg Vorbis. 1) Bugs get fixed quickly. 2) It's more stable for me than Mandrake 9.2 3) You can set Yum to run everynight 4) There are two directories to access: Stable and Testing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ral Posted November 17, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2003 There are two directories to access: Stable and Testing Could you elaborate on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowFoxLSU Posted November 17, 2003 Report Share Posted November 17, 2003 (edited) Notice the last few lines of the yum update script. That this the testing branch that is commented out. yum.conf file: [main] cachedir=/var/cache/yum debuglevel=2 logfile=/var/log/yum.log pkgpolicy=newest distroverpkg=fedora-release tolerant=1 exactarch=1 [base] name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os [updates-released] name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch #[updates-testing] #name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Unreleased Updates #baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/testing/$releasever/$basearch Edited November 17, 2003 by greyfoxlsu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jwb Posted November 17, 2003 Report Share Posted November 17, 2003 I'm actually pretty happy with Fedora. I 've used Mandrake most of the time since 7.1. Every now and then I'd put SUSE, RH or whatever on my laptop, just to play with it. I was actually pleased enough with Fedora to give it a shot on my main desktop machine, dropping Mandrake 9.2 off. Because of it's support cycle, I don't see that I could use it as a produciton OS. Mandrake will be my first choice for that for a while. (And FWIW- I'm going to be switching to Mandrake's Enterprise product next year- the support cycle for the download edition just won't cut it....... a la RH/Fedora....) The install was very smooth, though somewhat bloated. This is consistent with previous RH installs (8&9) that I've done. As a Gnome user, I like the Gnome integration. The multi-media stuff is a problem in RH. As well as some other nice little packages that enhance a desktop box (like Frozen Bubble.) I found an awesome yum.conf file to use, though, that solved all this- it's at http://fedora.artoo.net/faq/#FedoraYumRepos. After that, it was a simple operation from the command line- worked pretty much like urpmi. Now, if you are a satisfied Mandrake user, there's not a whole lot of reason to switch to Fedora unless you just like to tinker and see new distros. I may stick with Fedora, I may not. The one issue I've had with Mandrake has been problems with X. Every now and then, it just locks up on me. By every now and then, I mean every 30-45 days- not a *big* deal. It's done it for every version I can recall, on a variety of boxes. On KDE and Gnome. It's never been so much a problem that I couldn't go to another box, ssh in and just init 3 and init 5 my way out of it. But it happens. On my home box, I installed RH 9 when it came out, and just left it. X has never locked up. Ever. I used RH 9 here at my work box...... same result. Very stable. It may be me. It may be my hardware. I'm too lazy to actually investigate it. I tend to be an "install and forget" type of person. I want it to work out of the box. Other than that one minor issue, I've never had much to complain about with Mandrake. Or RH for that matter, when it comes to actually doing my work. That article was good- but read through some of the comments. One guy points out that RHL really was a testbed for RHEL all along. Another points out that this is a natural outgrowth of what Linux/OSS has been pushing for- the big time. The money is there. Big money and companies are saying "We want in this Linux game." And some of the little guys- the people who've supported it from the beginning- might not like it. Face it though- our "child" has grown up. But I think in the long run- it will be good for us. Companies are going to need people to *run* Linux, more and more. Where are they gonna go? All us "hobbyists and enthusiasts" who have been running it for years. What I'm waiting for is Mandrake to make the same sort of decision. Any bets on someone buying Mandrake before long? HP maybe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted November 18, 2003 Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 I just tried Fedora on a P3-933 256 MB RAM. Well, I know that it's not the fastest computer around, but it should be enough for a linux desktop. I find it slow.. I mean.. molassess slow, both in gnome and kde. I know I couldn't expect slackware speed, but the slowness of fedora is noticable, especially compared to a supposedly "heavy" distro like mandrake. I think I am going to delegate fedora as server only, and let mandrake be desktop distro. Slackware requires a lot of software installations (openoffice, k3b, evolution, frozen-bubble) in order to make it usable for our use. Although slackware would make a good enthusiast's desktop with its speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qchem Posted November 18, 2003 Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 I've been running fedora for a while now and I for one like it. I don't like the osnews review either, the problems the author encountered attempting to compile software is a general linux problem, not something specific to fedora!! We all know that making money out of something that is essentially free is going to be a tough business model, practically all the commercial distros are having to rethink how they are going to make money from Linux. Redhat has decided to give its `free' product to the community, whilst retaining the enterprise product (along with the support that it entails) which is obviously where they make most of their money. The community idea is much more like a grass-roots Linux and is similar to the way Debian is ran - no bad thing. It's obviously early days for fedora but so far it's produced some nicities - the installer (admittedly based on RH9's) is very smooth and far better than any other installer currently out there, starting X as soon as possibly for the graphical booting is nice (and should appeal to the desktop posse), the support available through IRC is better than any responses I've received through commercial support channels for other distros and the selection of packages available through both the official fedora channels and lavina / freshrpms / ..... is really quite comprehensive. Yes, there has been a few bugs but no more than in most other distros currently available (including Mandrake 9.2) and the testing branch is probably not suitable for everyday working machines, BUT I think in general people have been far too critical of fedora and have looked at it wanting not to like it due to political ideas about redhat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ral Posted November 18, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 I guess what I want to ask is there some way to install Fedora using only the stable stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jwb Posted November 18, 2003 Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 (edited) I guess what I want to ask is there some way to install Fedora using only the stable stuff. That's basically what Core 1 is. It's their stable release. If you've installed RH 9 you won't notice a whole lot different on the surface. Update you yum.conf file, though, according to the FAQ at fedora.artoo.net (http://fedora.artoo.net/faq/#FedoraYumRepos) and make use of yum..... which is sort of like urpmi. Works great. I'm a long time Mandrake user.... but I have to admit, I like Fedora so far. Edited November 18, 2003 by jwb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glitz Posted November 19, 2003 Report Share Posted November 19, 2003 This is all well and good for Red Hat, but it is not really what I need. I like cutting edge stuff just as much as the next user, but I have web sites to run. Software to examine. I don't have the time or the inclination to play around with glitches. I need something that works, is stable, and when I absolutely can't figure it out on JustLinux, LinuxQuestions.org, or my network of guru friends, something that offers technical support. It sounds like your using this for a business. In that case, maybe you should look into using the enterprise edition of Red Hat. Afterall, saving 3 or 4 hours on a problem will already cover the cost of purchasing it (their products start at $179US and assuming a minimal rate of $50US/hr). And they claim their phone response time is 4 hours. Glitz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ral Posted November 22, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2003 Well, not really. I am a lawyer and do use it for work, but it is for the PC at my home. In the Office we use bluescreen hell... I mean, Windows 98. Will probably go with Mandrake or SuSe (or sitck it out with Windows 2000). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted November 27, 2003 Report Share Posted November 27, 2003 I will no longer have anything to do with Red Hat because of the following: The Fedora™ ProjectAn Open-Source Digital Repository Management System Red Hat Inc.'s Use of the Fedora Name November 13, 2003 The Fedora™ Project (http://www.fedora.info), a collaboration between Cornell University and University of Virginia , has developed an open-source digital repository management system. This project is result of a significant research investment beginning at Cornell in 1998. Release 1.0 was made available to the public as open source to the public in May 2003. Currently, release 1.1.1 of the Fedora™ software is now available for download (http://www.fedora.info/release/1.1.1/?download=Download+Fedora+1.1.1). At this date the software has been downloaded by hundreds of organizations and institutions across the world. There is substantial evidence for prior use of the name Fedora™ by the Cornell and Virginia teams starting in 1998. This includes published papers, web sites, software releases, and public presentations. In September, 2003, Red Hat, Inc. (http://www.redhat.com) announced the formation of the Fedora Project (http://fedora.redhat.com). In November, 2003, Red Hat announced the first release of the Fedora Core. Related to these announcements, Red Hat has asserted trademark over the Fedora name (http://fedora.redhat.com/about/name.html) and announced its intent to formalize this through a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Red Hat's assertion of trademark includes restrictive guidelines on the use of the Fedora name. Red Hat's use of the Fedora™ brand name and its assertion of ownership over that name are of considerable concern to the Cornell and Virginia Fedora™ project team. Red Hat's guidelines for use of the Fedora™ brand place restrictions on use of a term for which the Cornell and Virginia team have over five years of prior use. This position seems inconsistent with Red Hat's stance on open source and its prominence in the open source community. There are also costs due to confusion about the name. These include misunderstandings in the open source community about the identify of the products and resulting work for the Cornell and Virginia Fedora™ support staff due to questions unrelated to their specific project. The Cornell and Virginia teams have taken a number of steps to try to work with Red Hat regarding use of the name Fedora™. At this date, Red Hat has refused our request to withdraw its trademark applications and reverse its claims of usage restrictions on the name. Cornell University and the University of Virginia are now considering various legal options in response to Red Hat's actions. It 's too bad. Red Hat might have dome something interesting with Fedora but not on this user's box. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qchem Posted November 28, 2003 Report Share Posted November 28, 2003 Redhat have good reason for both calling their offspring distro fedora and for trademarking it, whilst it must be annoying for the other fedora project I think they should just take it on the chin and call their digital repository management system something else. It's certainly no reason for me to uninstall fedora (the distro) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted November 28, 2003 Report Share Posted November 28, 2003 Under international copyright law, there is something called prior use. Red Hat is behaving as if this does not apply to them. To fully appreciate the situation, you need to put this issue in personal terms. If you had written an article or created a project only to have someone else come by a few years later and seize the use of it then you would appreciate the totally unethical nature of the Red Hat action. For this first time in a long time we are seeing a return to ethical behaviour in the executive suite of major international corporations because they don't want their previous greed to lead to a retirement behind bars. Personally, I will not support businesses and other organizations who act unethically. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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