Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-21-5 on Alienware laptop

[Andreas M. Kirchwitz]

don fisher <hdf3 at comcast.net> wrote:

 > I have an Alienware 17-1 laptop that I would like to run Fedora linux 
 > on. The laptop has 2TB of disk, 32GB  of ram and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M 
 > [...]
 > so I assumed it was doing something, but after about 5 minutes the 
 > system appeared to be still in the same state.
 
The Fedora 21 Live image uses graphics hardware acceleration.
On my Desktop PC with Nvidia graphics I have to specify the
kernel option

	nouveau.config=NvMSI=0

in GRUB to run properly. Without that option, Fedora 21 Live randomly
"freezes" after a couple of minutes. Have to force a reset with the
power button. (This is a known bug in the nouveau driver.)

Usually I don't use a desktop environment with hardware accelerated
effects, so I didn't notice this problem before with Fedora 20.

 > In the past there has been an install image that is about 4.3GB large 
 > that guides the installation. I cannot find an similar image for F21. I 
 > have been away for awhile, so if this is well known please forgive me. I 
 > looked at the documentation and did not see any mention.

The old big image has gone. There is a "Server" image which looks like
the old installer but comes with a lot less packages than previous
Fedora releases, and it also doesn't come with a desktop environment.

The "Live" image is what most people want. (Although most people will
not be interested in actually running Fedora from that Live image,
but they only want to install Fedora from it.)

Biggest problem with those reduced F21 images is that you need
to download a lot stuff afterwards before you can start to work.
So even if the installation seems to be faster, you don't save
any time in the end. In fact you spend more time because you have
to install many packages manually afterwards.

Maybe I'm not the typical Fedora user. I don't know.

 > Will Fedora work on an Alienware laptop? I though the since it was Dell 
 > it should. If so, what is the best way to load Fedora onto it? Is the 
 > fact that the live DVD failed telling me I am out of luck?
 
I've used both, USB stick and DVD, to run the "Fedora 21 Live" image.
With the proper kernel options (see Nvidia restrictions) it works
just fine, even on older hardware. Speed is okay (not slower than
the previous images for installation).

IMHO the new variety of images is more confusing than it actually helps.
And neither "Live" nor "Server" are really well thought through.

But Linux was never easy, and never will be. That's why we use it. :-)

	Greetings, Andreas