Feedback on Fedora Core 4 test 2 review

[Erik Hemdal]

> Stopping retail distribution of  Red Hat Linux and moving 
> towards a more frequently updated Fedora project isnt 
> equivalent to abandonment of the desktop users.  Red Hat has 
> never produced a distribution that directly targetted the 
> desktop segment. 

Beg to differ on this one Rahul.  My RH 8.0 boxed set is full of pretty
pictures of the "New, Improved" Bluecurve desktop, with improvements on the
desktop layout and usability.

And anaconda has always (at least since v5.2) supported a "Personal Desktop"
installation.

While I am strongly pro-Red Hat, I'm another who felt a little bit abandoned
when RH9.0 went end-of-life.  The Fedora community does well for support,
but it is not a substitute for having someone who will receive your email
and promises to deliver an answer.  


> While its true that Red Hat wouldnt isnt 
> directly involved in retail distribution of Fedora, 
> independant vendors continue to do that extensively. Fedora  
> release cycle combined with the Fedora legacy project would 
> provide something thats pretty close yet 
> better  to previous releases of Red Hat Linux. 

This depends on your point of view.  A release every six months to a year is
preferable to me than a new release every three months or so, especially
when there's a very significant change.

> 
> Red Hat continues to work on things that are meant to improve 
> the user experience for Fedora. For example extensive work on 
> GTK, dbus, hal and things like Network manager  are some of 
> the pieces of desktop infrastructure that springs up to mind. 

Where can someone discover basic data about new features?  I'd want for
something less than a tutorial and more than a release note.  I had little
idea about what hal, dbus, etc. were before installing and experimenting.

> Efforts to improve bootup speed using bootchart [2] and 
> things like GDM early login [3]

If this is intended to allow login prior to a full bootup, I hope that users
can disable it.  If the intent is to make the computer more like Windows,
it's no help.  This is one user's opinion:  allowing a user access to the
desktop and applications does no good if the infrastructure isn't working
yet.

This is one of my significant complaints about Windows.  I am allowed to
start applications, such as my email reader, before it is able to operate
(because network connections are not up yet).  When I try to do something,
like download email, the client encounters an error and I have to wait
longer for the failed action to timeout.  In other cases, actions like
opening files take longer (because the system is busy in the background) and
the result is a system that at best appears bloated and sluggish.

> are primarly for desktop 
> users. servers arent going to rebooted that often for boot up 
> speed to be a significant factor . right?
> 
> Work on GCJ ( GNU compiler for Java) would enable the 
> significant amount of Java code  in Openoffice 2.0 to e run 
> under a natively compiled free Java stack which I believe you 
> would agree is a important thing for the desktop market.
> 

Bravo!  Again one user's opinion.  More and more of what I do requires Java.
I would be happy to see a completely free Java stack.

>  . . . 
 
> The following things are what I would consider important 
> features that are planned to included in Fedora Core 4 that 
> you have not mentioned in your review
> 
> Xen [5]  - A para virtualisation software that would enable 
> users to run multiple operating systems or versions of it.

Hurrah!

> Red Hat GFS [6]  - Cluster filesystem

Nice.

> SELinux update - Significant number of additional deamons 
> will protected by SELinux in Fedora Core 4 

Lukewarm.  Some of my students have had significant problems with SELinux,
and the advice they have received is generally along the lines of "Oh yeah,
it doesn't work right on Fedora, so just turn it off."

> Free Java stack 
> which includes Eclipse and  Apache Jakarta 

Very cool.

> Fedora Extras yum 
> repository enabled by default 

OK.

> GDM early login

???? I'll wait and see.

> and removal of 
> rhgb would be a significant change in user experience for  
> desktop users Evince document viewer [7] 

> Yum will use sqllite 
> database and perform much faster that previous releases

Good, good, good.

> 
> regards
> Rahul
> 

Just my 40% of a nickel, with a word of thanks for a wonderful distribution.

Erik Hemdal