FC3 - I'm anything but dissapointed

[Johnathan Bailes]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 03:16:30 +0000, Michael A. Peters <mpeters at mac.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm also very happy with fc3 - the only tweaking I've really done is to
> update the gstreamer and gstreamer-plugins and totem - and add some
> additional gstreamer plugins. Totem now (as of the 0.100 release) plays
> my DVD's very well (I haven't tried a TV series that needs menus yet
> though)
> 
> Last time I was so incredibly impressed with a particular distro was
> probably Linux PPC 1999.
> 
> Upcoming fc4 is thus very exciting because all I will likely need to do
> is add the patent problem gstreamer plugins - and multimedia things
> will just work.
> 
> The only thing that I would consider not working is that my iPod mini
> is not *always* detected when plugged in (replugging triggers it
> though) and displays the "do not disconnect" message even when not
> mounted, though disconnecting it is fine. I suspect *something* is
> polling it causing it to think it is mounted. But that's just a minor
> detail. (this happens btw even with the hal daemon killed, so it's not
> hal's fault)
> 
> 

There is an issue with the mini I believe that the gtkpod page has a
bit on that near the bottom.  Sorry to hear that.

I am liking Fedora 3.  I came from RH 9 so its a hell of a lot
snappier.  600MHZ Celeron laptop with only 128MB of ram.  So I ain't
screaming fast to begin with.

You know I got this job you see and unlike the two previous jobs I was
told I had to use a Windows laptop and could not put linux on it.

They gave me a sparc workstation so I can run the blastwave.org
packages and that helps still I missed my linux.

I was stuck on a Windows workstation primarily working in a world of Unix.

After getting used to it for a year and sticking with RH9 through two
incarnations of Fedore Core, I took the dive. My home laptop needed an
upgrade and Fedora Core 3 would be it.

So, I went through the linux installation which was cute and nice and
boring. I did not have the diskspace for an upgrade so re-installed
over my root partition but left my /home partition alone of course. I
got the blank screen but specified my resolution of the undetected LCD
and all was well. Linux installs usually take up too much of any
review and its always boring because in many ways its easier to
install Linux than Windows but who cares. Most people never install a
new or upgrade an OS on their home box so its a disingenous arguement
to begin with.

The real key is the post-installation and the three great gripes most
pundit have:

1. No mp3 support, java and loads of other desktop crap users want.

2. No 3-D acceleration on some ATI cards.

3. No frickin' menu editing.

You know the first one is not a great big fat hairy deal to me know.
It use to be something of a search but not anymore to get all the
stuff "missing" from Fedora that usually is commonly installed on
other distros.

http://www.fedorafaq.org/

Fedora Faq was a step by step pretty damn painless guide for me.
Updating my packages through yum and following this Faq was painless
and I had everything I ever needed to rock and roll with mp3 support,
mplayer and java for example. The only thing I was missing were the
win32 codecs for mplayer but that was simple to get.

The toughest part was something particular to me and my stupidity.
Always consult Hardware Compatibility Lists before buying hardware if
you use linux, period. I had to snag the madwifi drivers for my
Netgear pcmcia wireless card. I can follow freaking instructions so
getting it to work was pretty much reading and following directions.

Ok, on reboots and restarts with RH9 and such I had to reseat my
pcmcia card before the usb hotplugging to recognize the card and the
network settings to work. No such problems in Fedora Core 3. So
upgrading has another bonus.

Being a Unix sysadmin I am not afraid of the command line and I am not
scared to update via yum which I really kind of like but I miss a
Synaptic style interface frankly. Of course ask and it shall be
delivered. I found gyum which is barebones but hell it works.  We need
a graphical yum interface and an installation gui for single rpms that
does robust dependency checking maybe even with an option enable your
disabled repos one by one to check dependencies.

I find it somewhat annoying that RedHat does not have DMA by default.
But that is easy enough to fix.

The one thing is that Fedora Core 3 is sooo much faster than RH 9. I
don't know if its the pre-linking or the new kernel or what. But it
feels a hell of a lot snappier.

Evolution is really cool but the pre-filters slow pop3 downloads like
mad and I disabled that crap. Suddenly getting my mail is 5x faster.
Wow.

Firefox rocks as a browser choice and I usually like Epiphany.

I was understanding when RH 8 had not menu editing. I was annoyed when
RH 9 did not. Now I am just pissed off. The Nautilus method of menu
editing is not perfect or quite a reliable as KDE but even the KDE way
has issues sometimes. It did work with a few bugs and pretty well if I
remember right from the old Ximian Desktop 2 on my Suse 9 box I had at
work at my last place.

Silly crap is what it is. I have to give Fedora props though it has
not driven me nuts and I have yet to edit a desktop file with vi as
root.

Why?

Unlike Suse that takes an everything and the kitchen sink approach or
XD2 that stripped too much from the menus Fedora really sets up the
menus very, very well.

Even though I know how to switch back to the browser version of
Nautilus I am trying the spatial view and frankly it needs a shortcuts
sidebar all Mac OS X finder style. Without that sort of thing
navigating with Nautilus is kind of a pain of windows everywhere.

Network browsing worked as well as XD2. I liked the new changes for
gnome 2.8 for handling media which is nice.

One of the few things outside of the minor desktop bits that seperate
distros are the system tools. I really like RH's simple one tool for
one config issue approach. While I would like a control center (Gnome
kind of had one with start-here frankly if distros took advantage of
it) the menu entries are so much better in their structure between
Server/System Tools and such than say the contorted mess of Windows
throwing everything in one place.

I know that Fedora can not be held responsible for X org intros of
issues with the ATI stuff. But I did find that my particular ATI card
the old piece of crap it is does work with 3-D acceleration btw, I
just had the color depth set to high. So someone please find the time
to come over and whack my silly self with a clue stick.

I love the updates that so many diversified projects have included
from the latest version of gaim to the simple integrated grace of
Rhythmbox back to the updates of Evolution. I had to install Abiword
and gnmeric. Very surprised at the great amount of progress in
Abiword. It finally handles the Word version of my resume correctly.

Though it is both the polish and speed that hits about Core 3. The
graphical login is good and not completely slow. The desktop
background is just kind of blah but the login and the general
Bluecurve tweak. Very polished.

All the graphical tools well the stuff for users or samba and all the
things I use have progressed. They have not made huge leaps and bounds
but they have progressed.

Also I have always liked the way RH/Fedora stuck with putting stuff in
/usr.  It fits my basic philosophy of file system layouts.  A desktop
is not optionally anymore and Suse has it backwards putting it in
/opt.  Oh it sounds like a good idea for sure but they through the
/etc files not in /opt/gnome/etc or /opt/kde/etc but in regular /etc
which well is a pain if you want to compile anything on your own.

People complain about the Unix filesystem but come on its dead simple
until distros and commercial *Nixes start screwing around with the
model.

/boot = where your boot image and such goes

/ = basic stuff needed to boot and run your system

/usr = user land programs that come with your distro 

/usr/local = stuff you compile yourself (certainly not commercial
games I hate that crap)

/opt = optional software like commercial stuff games, oracle, netvault
backup etc....etc...

Anyway, I really thought it was cool when I plugged in my digital
camera and had that neato Janie Porsche moment where it just works. 
The volume come up on my desktop and gthumb pops up right away ....
schweet.

What seperates distros?  

File system/Installation layout.  Check!  I like it in general by default.  

Packages.  Good solid choices despite the usual noise about missing
this or that multimedia.  I end up going out and updating Flash, Java,
and most multimedia stuff when I had Suse anyway.  What is the real
key?  If a project takes the time to make a binary package of their
app they will make a Fedora rpm.  Most of the time they might make a
Suse one or a debian but you can almost count they make an rpm for
Fedora.  This is nice.

Package Management.  I love yum but a really good integrated graphical
yum tool is a must going forward.

Configuration Tools.  Check! Would love to see even more tools but I
love the ones Fedora has so far.

Desktop Customizations/Tweaks.  Check!   Bluecurve rocks hard and the
progress gnome has made combined with the logical menu layout and
themes make a very polished distro.  They need to do one thing which
is to enable menu editing and eliminate start-here all together moving
all the system tools and settings, and preference and applications
views under Computer kind of XD2 style.  Start-here seems kind of
redundant.

Corporate acceptance.  Recognition in the world.  Huh?  Listen if
someone writes a How To or instructions on how to do something in
linux you almost find the word RH or Fedora.  If your employer uses a
commercial app on linux which linux will be supported?  RH or Fedora. 
Might sound odd but it matters in the world of cash money guys.

Fedora is my choice.  It has what I want.  And Fedora Core 3 has been
a very nice experience for me.