First experiences With Core 3 Test 2

[mattisking]

I have a dual-boot Windows XP Professional (SP2) and Fedora Core 2 Intel P4 1.4 Celeron I use for testing out this kind of stuff. I downloaded the ISO's and burned the CD's, verified, and booted from the CD. It properly found my Fedora Core 2 installation and offered to upgrade it. I told it yes and other than telling it to go with the default and let it update the bootloader (default recommend option) the only other issue during the upgrade process was when it told me I had some packages installed that would be installed by this core update that might cause some problems but I told it to continue anyway. Everything went fine until it was time to reboot. Upon reboot it promptly booted me into Windows XP flashing briefly on the bootloader screen which did NOT include Fedora.

My Fedora install wasn't important... this computer is mostly for trying out things so I just started the install again and this time told it to just wipe out the old Linux partitions. So far so good... except that this time it booted straight into Fedora... I never saw the Windows XP option. It's not a big deal if it killed it but that will be yet another problem.

Otherwise my only complaints so far are:
1) I'd think Mono/MonoDevelop would be a standard option under Programming Tools by now. It really should be. If nothing else, at least include the mono channels in yum so I don't have to go reconfigure it. Mono is a real drag to install by downloading all the RPM packages so please consider this.
2) Could we possibly have another choice for update engines? I don't care for up2date. Personally I prefer Red Carpet/rug but even Synaptic/apt-get is an easier system to use. I know up2date is Red Hat's service but you have to pay to get much out of it and after all, this isn't the Enterprise versions we're running here. It would be nice to have a choice during system setup.

An unrelated complaint to the Gnome camp: Will you PLEASE give me an option to use the same Window for surfing through my files? Even WINDOWS does this.

[JLF_65]

Sounds like you didn't setup the boot loader during install. You have to setup GRUB (or LILO) to allow you to select Linux or Windows.

As far as the last complaint, right-click on the drive/folder and select Browse instead of double-clicking. That brings up the Nautilus browser that Windows people like so much.

I agree that up2date either needs to be updated or retired. I prefer Synaptic myself. Haven't tried Red Carpet.

Don't expect RedHat to include Mono stuff until Microsoft coughs up some legal docs saying they won't sue over patent issues. So far, MS has refused to do so. until they do, anyone doing Mono development is in danger of being sued by MS sometime in the future.

[Ug]

An unrelated complaint to the Gnome camp: Will you PLEASE give me an option to use the same Window for surfing through my files? Even WINDOWS does this.This ground has been covered time and time again. Its not going to change. See the FedoraFAQ (http://www.fedorafaq.org) on how to turn off "Spatial Nautilus". Or just select browser from the red hat menu thingy.

Oh and on the topic of spatial nautilus just do a google on it. ;)

[mattisking]

Thanks for the replies... actually I DID set up the default boot loader though I can't remember now which... the default. Admittedly the past several months is the first time I've ventured back into the Linux world since college... drawn back there by quite a few things but in no small part by Mono and the possibilities that it brings. That said, thanks for the "browsing tip".

Red Carpet is Ximian/Novell. It's a VERY nice package manager/installer. It handles dependencies very nicely, is simple to understand, and has that oh so clean and "pretty" interface that "we" Windows people love so much. (after all, if I wanted DOS I'd just go back about 20 years, eh?)

As for Mono and Microsoft... that's an interesting point. I can chime in a few cents on this:
1) Microsoft presented C# and .NET to an open standards body. Once through this process (if/when) the can't claim any kind of patent. That's the whole point to open standards.
2) I think that you'll find while Microsoft gets taken to court more often than not these days, it will be rare that they will go beyond a "cease and desist" except on things that are very clear violations of their property (material or otherwise). If nothing else, they are trying to get back in favor with the public and sueing open source developers is a fast track to pain.
3) Bill Gates spent a good deal of money a while back to help pull Apple out of the hole. While it's definitely true that's he ruthless in business, he also is pretty smart about it. As developer camps grow it's going to always be beneficial (even for Windows) if developers can easily port their applications to other platforms. While Microsoft does (rather often) crush the guy with the new big idea, they also want software developers to be targeting them with every piece of software written. By allowing something like C# to flourish across other platforms but maintaining the standard, developers that are primarily developing for Linux or MacOS can suddenly "easily" leverage Windows as an option as well.

[LordMorgul]

In FC3t2 you now have an option in Grub to 'hide' the menu when booting. Were you watching when the boot happened to see if it was hiding the menu and defaulting to boot one or the other in about 5 seconds? The hiddenmenu is used by default.

Check this in your /boot/grub/grub.conf.


default=0
timeout=20
splashimage=(hd1,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
password --md5 $1$8fFaS4vF$yU2vrqeIUGmn37H/3nwMc.
title Fedora Core (2.6.8-1.541)
root (hd1,5)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-1.541 ro root=LABEL=/ vga=794 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.8-1.541.img
title WinXP SP2
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


Pushing a key will show the menu.. however there was a bug in the version that came with FC3t2 that will accept the RIGHTARROW, SPACE, or ENTER key pushed at the hiddenmenu as a selection in the menu. Use something else, like a letter key.

[LordMorgul]

As developer camps grow it's going to always be beneficial (even for Windows) if developers can easily port their applications to other platforms. While Microsoft does (rather often) crush the guy with the new big idea, they also want software developers to be targeting them with every piece of software written. By allowing something like C# to flourish across other platforms but maintaining the standard, developers that are primarily developing for Linux or MacOS can suddenly "easily" leverage Windows as an option as well.

While this line of reasoning is valid it does assume that Microsoft would benefit more than they lose when developers begin utilizing this leverage to move software across to other platforms. In fact, I'm fairly sure they will fear the opposite is true. There are probably a greater number of capable and productive developers for Windows that are producing applications STRICTLY for Windows than there are capable Linux developers producing applications STRICTLY for Linux. Many Linux applications already have Windows ports, many more than the other way around. If Mono reaches a point that porting software is trivial then Microsoft loses some developer's focus (as they see new Linux markets open to them with no dedicated developer cost).

In addition, it is clear that increasing the general application availibility for Linux versus Windows can only increase the market share Linux enjoys, particularly for Business workstation deployment, where applications rule the IT choices being made.