krell
6th June 2007, 01:05 PM
The last time I triied Fedora was 5 years ago..at that time I duly noted that it was professional but
slow and I switched to Slackware and Windoze(the horror). Greetings, I am an ex-IT worker
who has long tinkered with linux and other OSs. This is my first review of a distrobution
This time my hardware is newer but still not anywhere near bleeding edge..more like middle-of-the road..
Here are my specs:
P4 3.0Ghz 64 hyperthread
motherboard: i915
sound: on-board
video: GeoForce 6200(turbo) 128MB
Ram : DDR400 1GB
full CD-DVD writer combo writemaster(Samsung)
HD: 2 SATA Drives. 120GB and 80GB
Monitor: Samsung CX226BW 22" LCD
Internet connection is roughly 2Mbits down 1MB up broadband and is DHCPed directly from a ethernet
modem. This is a big plus as pppoe support is a pain(Slackware being one of the few distros to get that r
right). Standard cheap 25 buck 3.1 speakers , no floppy, one 4GB USB stick.
To make a long story short: I am going back to linux after reluctanltly using XP for a long time : here is why. Point 1.
Fedora is the 1st Desktop I've seen that has NICE LOOKING Asian fonts. Specifically Korean.
I am not Korean but I work in Korea and would like to be able to see the same pages my
Korean colleages see and not be embarrassed by poorly formatted korean that some distros
offer(helllo Ub,,,). Note that there are localized versions of linux for Koreans but
thse are SERVER only and are not suitable as desktops. Also I just want to display it and maybe input it
occasionally, not have all my menus and messages in it. Most distros are in English or are localized
but marginal. This is a pity as the Asian market is so large and it is this simple thing that let's Microsoft dominate in that market.
Korean input though easy could be made simpler still by activating the language toggle key all
asian language keyboards have. RATING 4* out of 5
The next point is also a major reason I chose Fedora 7 over other distros including Ubuntu.
It was the first distro that correctly recognized my screen and gave me a GOOD resolution
of 1680x1050 with nothing more than the default driver (nv i guess). I imagine when I install
the nvidia driver it will be even better. Other distros gave no better than 1024x768 and
some didn't even work at all. Kudus to the new X-Server work by the Fedora team.
In fact for some reason it looks better to me than the same resolution on XP
RATING 4 1/2 out of 5
The 3rd point is that it seems SOLID and professionallly done. There are many
distros out there now that look cool and seem fast and snazy but are buggy
and feel not fully thought out. Upon hunting for answers in the forums one
is left with the feeling noone knows or cares and that more effort is being put into artwork than
in making a working distro. What would you think of a mechanic who spent all his time
painting and jazzing up the body of a car whose engine was broken?
When I accidentally caused some problems by going on a nerd-happy clicking spree
and mixing repositories(more on that later) I posted my lament in fedora foums expecting no answers for a long time if ever.
I was answered within the hour and was eventually able to fix the problem.
Fedora both LOOKS GOOD and RUNS WELL.
The boot is fast and after I found that I ran out of space on my 4GB partion in disk one,
I found a post that helped me dynamically expand the space via LVM to disk 2.
Fedora is Robust and thanks to that I have not yet needed to reinstall(my XP partition was reinstalled
twice in a month).
The Gnome desktop has a very pretty background and we are starting to see windows-like
functionality(I am not afraid to give microsoft credit for what they get right) manifest itself.
RATING 4* oit of 5
As to software , packages are more or less as up to date as any Debian distro and are
well managed by yum and a graphical interface to yum. The problems start
when you want to do what everyone does.
Play mp3s, DVDs, use Flash and Java. These do NOT work out of the box for legal and
maybe philosophical reasons as they fully explain.
All of these can be found from an UNOFFICIAL repository that is easily found on the forums.
Officially Fedora is like the last anarchist - idealistically asking people to use free alternatives.
The problem is the free alternatives don't work. The java compiler included in Fedora by default
for example does not run jin - a popular chess interface. Sun Java is needed and must be manually installed.
Two more points:
1. Beginners will walk out before doing a search and go back to XP or maybe Ubuntu.
2. Even for old unix hacks..mixing repos is very easy to do and it's very easy to boink
up your sytem. Welcome to rpm dependency hell. I feel Fedora, with its concern for security
could at LEAST warn one when a conflict is possible. I think some
of the how-tos should emphasize this too. Ideally a roll-back system would be great but that is just a dream. Some of the software like realplayer plugins and flash is still buggy on some browsers
but works in others. The situation is annoying but not a showstopper as some method usually works.
RATING 3.5* out of 5
On a general note, once one gets software that works you may be surprised to find out that
there is MORE choice of free Music jukeboxes for linux than there is for windows. Rhythmbox is easilly
more robust as an organizer of music than itunes. Finally my favorite game,
Lbreakout2 plays well in linux out of the box but sounds horrible in XP unless you install some DLLs manually - hardly the Windoze way!
P2P software is virtually the same as in Windows -even the Soulseek client works!
Opera is available and Totem when installed correctly even plays DVDs. Try finding a free
region-free-DVD player for windows - the best you will get is 30 day free trial nagware
So my overall rating of Fedora 7 is 8.7* out of 10!
slow and I switched to Slackware and Windoze(the horror). Greetings, I am an ex-IT worker
who has long tinkered with linux and other OSs. This is my first review of a distrobution
This time my hardware is newer but still not anywhere near bleeding edge..more like middle-of-the road..
Here are my specs:
P4 3.0Ghz 64 hyperthread
motherboard: i915
sound: on-board
video: GeoForce 6200(turbo) 128MB
Ram : DDR400 1GB
full CD-DVD writer combo writemaster(Samsung)
HD: 2 SATA Drives. 120GB and 80GB
Monitor: Samsung CX226BW 22" LCD
Internet connection is roughly 2Mbits down 1MB up broadband and is DHCPed directly from a ethernet
modem. This is a big plus as pppoe support is a pain(Slackware being one of the few distros to get that r
right). Standard cheap 25 buck 3.1 speakers , no floppy, one 4GB USB stick.
To make a long story short: I am going back to linux after reluctanltly using XP for a long time : here is why. Point 1.
Fedora is the 1st Desktop I've seen that has NICE LOOKING Asian fonts. Specifically Korean.
I am not Korean but I work in Korea and would like to be able to see the same pages my
Korean colleages see and not be embarrassed by poorly formatted korean that some distros
offer(helllo Ub,,,). Note that there are localized versions of linux for Koreans but
thse are SERVER only and are not suitable as desktops. Also I just want to display it and maybe input it
occasionally, not have all my menus and messages in it. Most distros are in English or are localized
but marginal. This is a pity as the Asian market is so large and it is this simple thing that let's Microsoft dominate in that market.
Korean input though easy could be made simpler still by activating the language toggle key all
asian language keyboards have. RATING 4* out of 5
The next point is also a major reason I chose Fedora 7 over other distros including Ubuntu.
It was the first distro that correctly recognized my screen and gave me a GOOD resolution
of 1680x1050 with nothing more than the default driver (nv i guess). I imagine when I install
the nvidia driver it will be even better. Other distros gave no better than 1024x768 and
some didn't even work at all. Kudus to the new X-Server work by the Fedora team.
In fact for some reason it looks better to me than the same resolution on XP
RATING 4 1/2 out of 5
The 3rd point is that it seems SOLID and professionallly done. There are many
distros out there now that look cool and seem fast and snazy but are buggy
and feel not fully thought out. Upon hunting for answers in the forums one
is left with the feeling noone knows or cares and that more effort is being put into artwork than
in making a working distro. What would you think of a mechanic who spent all his time
painting and jazzing up the body of a car whose engine was broken?
When I accidentally caused some problems by going on a nerd-happy clicking spree
and mixing repositories(more on that later) I posted my lament in fedora foums expecting no answers for a long time if ever.
I was answered within the hour and was eventually able to fix the problem.
Fedora both LOOKS GOOD and RUNS WELL.
The boot is fast and after I found that I ran out of space on my 4GB partion in disk one,
I found a post that helped me dynamically expand the space via LVM to disk 2.
Fedora is Robust and thanks to that I have not yet needed to reinstall(my XP partition was reinstalled
twice in a month).
The Gnome desktop has a very pretty background and we are starting to see windows-like
functionality(I am not afraid to give microsoft credit for what they get right) manifest itself.
RATING 4* oit of 5
As to software , packages are more or less as up to date as any Debian distro and are
well managed by yum and a graphical interface to yum. The problems start
when you want to do what everyone does.
Play mp3s, DVDs, use Flash and Java. These do NOT work out of the box for legal and
maybe philosophical reasons as they fully explain.
All of these can be found from an UNOFFICIAL repository that is easily found on the forums.
Officially Fedora is like the last anarchist - idealistically asking people to use free alternatives.
The problem is the free alternatives don't work. The java compiler included in Fedora by default
for example does not run jin - a popular chess interface. Sun Java is needed and must be manually installed.
Two more points:
1. Beginners will walk out before doing a search and go back to XP or maybe Ubuntu.
2. Even for old unix hacks..mixing repos is very easy to do and it's very easy to boink
up your sytem. Welcome to rpm dependency hell. I feel Fedora, with its concern for security
could at LEAST warn one when a conflict is possible. I think some
of the how-tos should emphasize this too. Ideally a roll-back system would be great but that is just a dream. Some of the software like realplayer plugins and flash is still buggy on some browsers
but works in others. The situation is annoying but not a showstopper as some method usually works.
RATING 3.5* out of 5
On a general note, once one gets software that works you may be surprised to find out that
there is MORE choice of free Music jukeboxes for linux than there is for windows. Rhythmbox is easilly
more robust as an organizer of music than itunes. Finally my favorite game,
Lbreakout2 plays well in linux out of the box but sounds horrible in XP unless you install some DLLs manually - hardly the Windoze way!
P2P software is virtually the same as in Windows -even the Soulseek client works!
Opera is available and Totem when installed correctly even plays DVDs. Try finding a free
region-free-DVD player for windows - the best you will get is 30 day free trial nagware
So my overall rating of Fedora 7 is 8.7* out of 10!
