Fedora 12 a users view point

[PowerUp]

Ive follow fedora from the first release
Fedora 12 was a big let down.
Why is so hard to install 3 party nvidia in Fedora 12.
What happen to its user friendliness ?
Why all make is so annoying to use having to switch off annoying nags etc...
Some areas should be already refined which there not.
Fedora 11 was by far more user friendly.
Hopefully when fedora 13 comes out its a lot more user friendly...
Gone back to using fedora 11 for now.

[Demz]

why its so hard? cause you dont follow easy steps leigh has made. its not that hard if you follow it

[jeffsherman001]

I am having some serious problems, too. The first one is that Fedora doesn't boot up about half the time. I get a page with a boot status error and a lot of text. That's some of the time. Other times the Fedora icon appears in the middle of the screen, and the booting process stops right there .Other times there has just been a blank screen after I enter my passord, and the process stops.

Also, I cannot play DVDs with the Totem Movie Player. There is an error that says "URI handler not implemented for DVD." I have looked at multiple postings regarding the issue, mostly for Ubuntu. The only solution that might work is to download "totem-xine," but darned if I can figure out how to do that. Then, there are the downloads that I can't figure out how to install. No good old Install Wizard like Windows OSs.

The worst problem is the fact that Flash Player is not supported. I cannot watch my TV programs on the networks Web sites. I cannot listen to Pandora or last.fm.com, two Internet streaming radio services. That means that I cannot do most of the things I used to do on my computer.

I would like to go back to Windows 7. I had no idea this Linux system would be so inadequate. It would cost me $200 to have the hard drive wiped (including the partitions) and reinstall Windows.

The only good thing I've experienced so far is the brightness and contrast of the user interface and the beneficial changes in appearance of the top panel, desktop, and browser pages. I was able to change the font size and set the text to bold with no problem. The top panel looks really cool as it is now transparent. I've been able to add the date and time there, too. These improvements to my Fedora 12 experience are faint praise from someone who only had a very minor problem with Windows 7 and decided to rebel a little at Microsoft.

By the way, I have a new Acer computer (bought in August of last year) with all the bells and whistles. At least, it had them before I decided to experiment with Linux. I can see I made a huge mistake (another big mistake was installing the system on the hard drive, when I could have just left it on the CD).

Anybody who has any ideas about repairing these problems, especially the one with Flash Player, please let me know. An imminent fix would keep me from paying big bucks to my computer guy.

Thanks.

[Adunaic]

Firstly, DVD's. I suspect that you need to codecs install, this will require installing the rpmfusion repositry As for flash have you tried installing flash player and are getting problems, or have you not installed it?

I suggest you click on the flashing link at the top of this page "Fedora Set-Up Guides". I think what you need most is the AutoTen link (also I would read through mjmwired's guide it will explain a few things I believe.

[steelaworkn]

I am having some serious problems, too. The first one is that Fedora doesn't boot up about half the time. I get a page with a boot status error and a lot of text. That's some of the time. Other times the Fedora icon appears in the middle of the screen, and the booting process stops right there .Other times there has just been a blank screen after I enter my passord, and the process stops.

Also, I cannot play DVDs with the Totem Movie Player. There is an error that says "URI handler not implemented for DVD." I have looked at multiple postings regarding the issue, mostly for Ubuntu. The only solution that might work is to download "totem-xine," but darned if I can figure out how to do that. Then, there are the downloads that I can't figure out how to install. No good old Install Wizard like Windows OSs.

The worst problem is the fact that Flash Player is not supported. I cannot watch my TV programs on the networks Web sites. I cannot listen to Pandora or last.fm.com, two Internet streaming radio services. That means that I cannot do most of the things I used to do on my computer.

I would like to go back to Windows 7. I had no idea this Linux system would be so inadequate. It would cost me $200 to have the hard drive wiped (including the partitions) and reinstall Windows.

The only good thing I've experienced so far is the brightness and contrast of the user interface and the beneficial changes in appearance of the top panel, desktop, and browser pages. I was able to change the font size and set the text to bold with no problem. The top panel looks really cool as it is now transparent. I've been able to add the date and time there, too. These improvements to my Fedora 12 experience are faint praise from someone who only had a very minor problem with Windows 7 and decided to rebel a little at Microsoft.

By the way, I have a new Acer computer (bought in August of last year) with all the bells and whistles. At least, it had them before I decided to experiment with Linux. I can see I made a huge mistake (another big mistake was installing the system on the hard drive, when I could have just left it on the CD).

Anybody who has any ideas about repairing these problems, especially the one with Flash Player, please let me know. An imminent fix would keep me from paying big bucks to my computer guy.

Thanks.

Take a breath. It's not that bad. Many people can help you. First, on this forum page, look at the top right where the blue flashing light is. Follow the link that's right next to the blue flashing light. There are three guys who have worked hard so you don't have to. The easiest, one that I always use, is Autoten. It works really well.

While some things in Fedora might be similar to Windows, it is just coincidence. That said, Fedora is not for everyone, but if you give it a fighting chance, it just might surprise you. You are right though, you probably should not have taken the plunge. If you think you must put W7 back on your system, I'm sure there is someone here who can help you with that.

[PowerUp]

followed it to the letter just wouldn't work
and i hand it to 3 IT guys and they couldn't get it go either

Component Details
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.66GHz


Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Gaming graphics 1279 MB
Primary hard disk (298GB Total)


System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manufacturer System manufacturer
Model P5K-E
Total amount of system memory 2.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4
64-bit capable Yes

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 298 GB
Disk partition (C:) 226 GB Free (298 GB Total)
Media drive (D:) CD/DVD
Media drive (E:) CD/DVD

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Total available graphics memory 1279 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 512 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 767 MB
Display adapter driver version 8.17.11.9621
Primary monitor resolution 1680x1050

[bob]

(moved to Reviews, Rants & Things That Make You Scream)

[steelaworkn]

The first the I like to do when I log into Fedora for the first time is to open a terminal and do:

"su
password
yum -y update"

Then I do

yum -y install firefox

Then I do:

reboot

When it comes back online I install Autoten per the instructions you will find on the tutorial at the blue light. This installs really fast. Then you find the icon in your start menu in System.

Just click on the Autoten Icon and select the things you want to install. Having Firefox installed first will give Autoten a place to put the adobe flash plugin.

Autoten will install everything but the Nvidia driver. Unless you are wanting the 3D graphics, you can stick with the default driver for the time being. Otherwise, there is a tutorial on installing the right Nvidia driver for your machine.

I'm not sure if this is your first time with Fedora, but welcome aboard. You just need to get your sea legs and you'll be fine. Just think, once you personally fix this thing, you can teach you IT team a thing or two. Have fun. There's a lot of help on this forum. I'm just an "end user" and simply would rather push buttons, but there are guys on this forum that grew up with Linux before Linux was even a word.

[SwampKracker]

followed it to the letter just wouldn't work
and i hand it to 3 IT guys and they couldn't get it go either

Component Details
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.66GHz


Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Gaming graphics 1279 MB
Primary hard disk (298GB Total)


System
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Manufacturer System manufacturer
Model P5K-E
Total amount of system memory 2.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4
64-bit capable Yes

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 298 GB
Disk partition (C:) 226 GB Free (298 GB Total)
Media drive (D:) CD/DVD
Media drive (E:) CD/DVD

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Total available graphics memory 1279 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 512 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 767 MB
Display adapter driver version 8.17.11.9621
Primary monitor resolution 1680x1050

I have been using the Nvidia proprietary drivers for several versions of Fedora and have the same experience every time. It always works. No special tricks. Just need the packages to build the driver module.

[steelaworkn]

You probably should start over and use the 64 bit version especially because you have the quad processor...I would...and when you build it, reserve 16 gigs for your swap...that's just in case you want to add more RAM down the road. It's easier to do this now than to wait and have to back-up your whole system again.

[CiaW]

You probably should start over and use the 64 bit version especially because you have the quad processor...I would...and when you build it, reserve 16 gigs for your swap...that's just in case you want to add more RAM down the road. It's easier to do this now than to wait and have to back-up your whole system again.

Depending on what you'll be doing with your system, I don't think more than 3-5gb of swap is needed even if you had 4+gb of ram. I have 2gb of ram and the only time I've seen swap used is when I used to be able to hibernate. (The hibernate option disappeared recently...)

I have an AMD triple core 2.3ghz, and even when having K9copy create an iso from a video dvd while I was installing an update, no swap was used. I am using the 64bit version, fwiw.

[bob]

Okay, I'm dense, but wasn't it that 2X swap to RAM went out the window ages ago (like at 256meg?). The way I understood it was that the more RAM you have, the less swap you need. So, a gig would be overkill for 4 gigs+ of RAM.

Can someone explain why that's not true? http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-swap-space.html

[trustnoone]

I really like Fedora 12, albeit I've had quite a few problems but I am new to linux so I kind of expected that. It's been pretty great so far I've tried a couple of different distro's but I keep coming back to Fedora.
An I just use easy life http://easylifeproject.org/ to install all the things I need like flash and DVD codecs and everything, works a charm

[SwampKracker]

Being that swap has always been much, much slower than RAM, any use of swap is less than ideal. Why a modern OS doesn't disable swap given adequate system RAM is puzzling.

[steelaworkn]

I don't know. I have a lot of space to experiment with and I was only following the suggested swap from the official documents. But 16 gigs of swap does seem a little much even for 8 gigs of ram. 8 gigs is totally overkill for most apps unless I'm just rendering some massive thing in blender. I've checked the system to see how much swap is actually being used. I've only seen 1.5 gigs of that 16 being used. (Currently, it is hardly even being touched)

I also thought setting aside 500 megs for boot was a little overkill but now I hear F13 is going need that. I'm still getting my "sea legs" too.

When the system is in Power Management mode, I have it set to suspend to disk. Is it using swap for that? Suspending to disk sure works better than Suspending to Ram.

[marko]

[/COLOR]Being that swap has always been much, much slower than RAM, any use of swap is less than ideal. Why a modern OS doesn't disable swap given adequate system RAM is puzzling.

Linux does effectively disable swap because if you have enough ram the swap partition won't get used, it'll just be available and idle.
Here's my laptops swap usage where I have 4GB of ram (running Fedora 13 rawhide, KDE4 and Firefox), it doesn't use any of it.


free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4035780 2807628 1228152 0 247712 1479604
-/+ buffers/cache: 1080312 2955468
Swap: 4095992 0 4095992

swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda2 partition 4095992 0 -1

[steelaworkn]

So, I've explained the concept of "swap" as being like that of Windows' "paging file". So, are they similar or am I just blowing smoke to people?

[wolfen69]

16gb of swap is WAY overkill. I have 6gb of ram, and only have 300mb of swap, and I've never used any.

[SwampKracker]

So, I've explained the concept of "swap" as being like that of Windows' "paging file". So, are they similar or am I just blowing smoke to people?

You got it exactly right. Just different names for the same thing. How Windows uses compared it to Linux may differ (me thinks Linux is more likely to use swap before available RAM is used up), but the end result is the same.

There is a kernel parameter for adjusting the tendency to use swap in Linux - vm.swappiness.

[jeffsherman001]

Autoten appears to have fixes for most of my issues with Fedora 12. I tried to install autoten-4.4-2.fc12.src.rpm after downloading it. By the way, I have never used a command line and do not know how to access one.

Error message:

Source packages cannot be installed.
Source packages are not normally installed this way.
Check the extension of the file you are trying to install.

More details
Backend will not install a src rpm file

Any suggestions? It would be really nice to be able to install autoten in order to check it out before deciding whether to switch back to Windows 7. Also, instructions on how to uninstall Fedora 12 and reinstall Windows 7 would be greatly appreciated. It would be nice to save the repairman's fee. Finally, I have not been able to figure out how to post new messages to this forum. Please help.

Thanks a lot, Jeff

[steelaworkn]

So, Jeff, if you are in the terminal, then you need to log in as root. (Command line is found under the Application, System menu)

Type su
Type password

Then you should see [username-]#

Now you are root. The AutoTen install is two lines. Copy and paste the first line:

rpm -Uvh http://dnmouse.org/autoten-4.4-2.fc12.noarch.rpm

then push enter.

Copy and past the second line:

rpm --import http://dnmouse.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-dnmouse

push enter.

Now you are good. Close the terminal window

Look for the puppy dog icon (actually a spotted mouse) in "Applications", "Systems Settings".

Click on it and follow the instructions. It may have you enter your root password. After that, just click the boxes you want.

[jeffsherman001]

Take a breath. It's not that bad. Many people can help you. First, on this forum page, look at the top right where the blue flashing light is. Follow the link that's right next to the blue flashing light. There are three guys who have worked hard so you don't have to. The easiest, one that I always use, is Autoten. It works really well.

While some things in Fedora might be similar to Windows, it is just coincidence. That said, Fedora is not for everyone, but if you give it a fighting chance, it just might surprise you. You are right though, you probably should not have taken the plunge. If you think you must put W7 back on your system, I'm sure there is someone here who can help you with that.
steelawrkn:

I do not know how to find the terminal where I can type the data you show in your latest msg regarding autoten. Please tell me what to do.

Thanks,

Jeff

[steelaworkn]

Jeff, if you are running KDE you can right click you desktop and select Konsole from the menus. Or you can push the big "F" on the bottom left, then "Applications", then "System" and then select "Terminal" which is KDE's "Konsole".

From there you should log in as root like I mention above and then copy and paste.

[SwampKracker]

And if you are running the Gnome desktop, click on Applications, System Tools, Terminal.

[PowerUp]

Ive follow fedora from the first release
Fedora 12 was a big let down.
Why is so hard to install 3 party nvidia in Fedora 12.
What happen to its user friendliness ?
Why all make is so annoying to use having to switch off annoying nags etc...
Some areas should be already refined which there not.
Fedora 11 was by far more user friendly.
Hopefully when fedora 13 comes out its a lot more user friendly...
Gone back to using fedora 11 for now.

not realy solved the problem
a mate suggested switching the drive to the other computer which is identical in every way
same spec's what a surprised which works no problem

but put it back in the other computer and it refuse to run
we try swapping components nothing works which is rather strange
so i just leave it in the one that works and the just run windows
yeah happy now :D

[steelaworkn]

There's got to be a command line diagnostic thingy. There is no way both computers are identical in every way, otherwise, both would work. Fedora like hardware that works and if you have memory card issue or a video card issue, Fedora gets really picky. I've seen it reject an install because it detected a harddrive problem. These are issues that MS Windows tends to ignore until the thing just breaks w/o notice.