Fedora not "safe and sane" ?

[radu5er]

I just read this article about our beloved operating system. I didn't realise that it was so unstable and problem ridden and that it's "wacky" and the developers "go nuts". I guess I've just been lucky :D

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/567

I hate to break it to Ms. Schroder, but Fedora runs trouble free on my hardware and is up 24/7 here...maybe she needs to check hers. Additionally, she fails to mention this forum ( the best on the net ) in her list of on-line resources.

[klutzini]

I agree, I also saw the article and wondered the same.

I run it on 2 machines with no problems at all....

So what makes it unsafe? and why are other dists more sane to use?

[bob]

Guys, I have to be honest - we're the lucky ones. There's a batch of people out there with Nvidia cards that have been through a few weeks of hell and plenty of people whose sound cards stilll are muted. The reason that we're nearing 125K in Posts on this forum is because members are looking for help with problems. That said, working with a system that employs the latest and 'greatest' advances is just plain FUN! Here's looking forward to FC-4 .... maybe my favorite game, Armagetron, will work again.

[imdeemvp]

Remember were beta testers for rhel. I wish we had a REAL OS not beta os.

[Shadow Skill]

My only real disagreement with the reviewer is that sh claims the service nessecary for samba should not be defaulted to on....quite frankly so many people have home networks that it can't be a bad idea to have the ability to browse your network shares after a fresh install, or right after the person sets up smbclient, it really is not nessecary to turn the thing off by default. However the pcimcia service running on a desktop is totally idiotic.

Imdeemvp:

I totally agree I just had to fight with ndiswrapper and prism54 to get my wireless nic to work, right now it seems like I have to do a modprobe -r prism54 then modprobe ndiswrapper to get the card to work every time I boot...any idea's on how to get it to not use prism54 and automatically add in the ndiswrapper module? How can I just uninstall prism54 anyway? We definetly are the very lucky one who have minimal issues with fc3 and the occasional nightmare issue like I had two days ago.

[jtang613]

Bob, to be fair to Fedora, the "nVidia Issue" isn't a "Fedora Issue", it's a "nVidia and Linux Issue". The reason some have problems relates to a combination of reasons. Most problems are minor and stem from users not reading the installation documentation - remember the acronym RTFM. Others relate to nVidia's refusal to release their driver source to GPL. It's understandable, but anoying nonetheless.

I totally agree I just had to fight with ndiswrapper and prism54 to get my wireless nic to work, right now it seems like I have to do a modprobe -r prism54 then modprobe ndiswrapper to get the card to work every time I boot...any idea's on how to get it to not use prism54 and automatically add in the ndiswrapper module? How can I just uninstall prism54 anyway? We definetly are the very lucky one who have minimal issues with fc3 and the occasional nightmare issue like I had two days ago.

You might be able to modify your /etc/modprobe.conf to fix this. If not, you can at least automate the loading of drivers by adding those two commands to your /etc/rc.local file.

[Shadow Skill]

I'll try that thanks.

[jale2ice]

I didn't have any problems with my installation of FC3 on this box nor did I have trouble with the nvidia drivers (I used the patched up one once before 6629 came out). At any rate, my system is rock-solid with the exception of GNOME-PANEL CRASHES. God is that annoying.

I like my Fedora Core 3! Great work for a beta OS.

[crackers]

I wish we had a REAL OS not beta os.
If you're that dissatisfied, why don't you switch? There's plenty else out there to choose from - and that's the point: the ability to choose what software you want.

Others relate to nVidia's refusal to release their driver source to GPL. It's understandable, but anoying nonetheless.
Why would opening the source make it "better?" I think they've done an amazing job of it being pretty equal across a whole lot of variations of the kernel and distributions. As I noted in another thread (calm down, SS! :D ), given the realities of the marketplace, I think it also does them real credit that they provide the amount of support for a "marginal" OS (Linux) at all, not to mention the level of support available. And, if they did open up the drivers, then there goes their advantage and their competitor(s) would eat them for lunch. Not good for the bottom line, y'know... ;)

I sincerely doubt that they're realizing significant portions of their income from Linux-based systems. Heck, they may even be taking a financial loss paying developers to work on the Linux drivers. But the marketing value and returns on that are pretty high. They're pretty smart guys, me thinks.

[imdeemvp]

If you're that dissatisfied, why don't you switch?
Shouldn't there be a reward if you contribute for beta testing? So you are saying because it is free it's OK for to be broken? Would you get let anyone do dental work on you or would you prefer a dentist? Now if I dont switch it is because I know how to work around my fedora issues. But for people that want join the linux world is not an easy task.

[Myra]

Well, I agree on the services thing. Fedora should at install time ask which services to enable at boot (or have sane defaults depending on install (workstation etc)). Most newbies won't know services are slurping their CPU time away, of course talking about the slower computers here.

[bob]

Shouldn't there be a reward if you contribute for beta testing?
Hey, you have 124 points, plus the admiration of thousands! Add $3.00 and you've got yourself a latte! Seriously, though, a lot of the fun with Linux is the tweaking and this distro's got more than any other. For instance, one week and counting trying to get Armagetron working with FC3, sans Segmentation Fault... :p

[sailor]

I am glad that nvidia has drivers available, they are doing a better job than most vendors...BTW I just bought a nvidia card because it is compatiple with linux.
"nVidia Issue" isn't a "Fedora Issue", it's a "nVidia and Linux Issue". The reason some have problems relates to a combination of reasons. Most problems are minor and stem from users not reading the installation documentation -someone had to say it...:p *clap clap*

I think that my reward is the experience and knowledge I am getting ..:)

[bob]

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=26260 32 days, 108 posts, 12447 views and counting....

Point taken - at least Nvidia is making the effort to provide drivers and I am very happy with my card. I will now become as mute on the issue as an AC97 Audio Controller. ;)

[radu5er]

[url]... I will now become as mute on the issue as an AC97 Audio Controller. ;)

Awww...that's a cheap shot :D ROFL

[imdeemvp]

Hey, you have 124 points, plus the admiration of thousands!
I would just like to be neat and clean. Hassle free in other words. I dont mind the tweaking, its a challange. But if you want to convert others you have to pave the way. And it starts with redhat themselves.

[crackers]

If you want to "convert" someone, you don't use a hobbyist distribution!

Look, you get it for free (as in bheer) and you know it's a testing ground for RHE. There is absolutely no reason for it to be 100% solid and hassle-free.

[KiwiNZ]

If you want to "convert" someone, you don't use a hobbyist distribution!

Look, you get it for free (as in bheer) and you know it's a testing ground for RHE. There is absolutely no reason for it to be 100% solid and hassle-free.
You have a point , however Fedora is being released in magazine cover disks , thus it will be picked up by those wanting to try Linux. Seldom do you see it labeled as beta software and thus bearing the appropriate warnings.A good example, it is the cover DVD for the December Linux Magazine and there is no warnings. I am not saying this is the fault of Fedora , the magazines should warn. But if Linux Distros want to become mainstream they must realise that providing their products to the high street public caries a need for a higher level of hand holding . If they don't then these people will be try once and dump users.The result will be Linux remaining a "hobby" OS

[imdeemvp]

Fedora is being released in magazine cover disks
Very true indeed. I am in america and here we have an internet provider called AOL. They mail an installation cd to each houshold that has an internet connection. Most of us throw it away because we dont like or have a better isp. Now picture this: Fedora Core cd's or DVD's being thrown away by window users that already tried it.

Desktops dont need beta operating systems or buggy distributions, they need an stable and ready to use OS.

[Shadow Skill]

Hmm as far as I can tell there is not one single Linux distro that is not a beta, the only real difference is the amount of pain found in using a given distro, I sure as hell don't expect a noob to go and install Gentoo hell my own Gentoo install is still pathetically broken haven't even bothered trying to fix it yet....So if we go by your criterion Crackers there really is not a distro one could use to show people the true power of this type of OS. But the OS itself really isn't an issue if you or I somewhat experienced users are guiding the fledglings through the bumps and the pot holes its the third party software specifically general multimedia support that is the issue here regardless of the flavor you choose. I get the feeling that if one decides to deviate from the format "everyone" uses you may find oneself in a situation like this "Convert to this format or suffer under a mountain of ####ware with no hope whatsoever of digging yourself out, convert or die!" I had to re rip all of my cd's and make sure all of my songs were mp3 just so I could have a chance of getting a way from that piece of garbage xmms. [I still haven't finished converting my songs after two days......] the truly weak audio/video players that play practically everything but lack any real sense for UI the lgeneral lack of sane UI techniques really hurts Linux itself as a desktop competitior. For example with Xmms there is no concept of a tray icon, which by itself is forgivable, however when this is coupled with the total lack of global hotkeys configurable within Xmms itself [I have no desire to modify Gnome to do this as it is not up to me to search out the actual switches for every possible Xmms command and attempt to bind them to the Gnome window manager.] it is totally ridiculous and unforgivable when the competition on that other OS has these features. The more I have to struggle with being forced to use such a bad clone of what is now an excellent piece of software, the more I want the real thing that obeys my every command 99% of the time unlike the pathetic clone that can't even come back from a pause command without screwing up half the time. Even as I type this Xmms has found an oh so magical way to not advance through my playlist when it finishes playing a song; apparently it can't understand my desire to have it loop through my play list once it reaches the end not just stopping and queueing track one.....or stalling on the last track it played which right now is track nineteen.

I won't say much about Mplayer as I have already stated in the past why that play is worthless. I will say however that whoever gave mplayer the award of best media player has never tried playing anything with more than one audio track and subtitle track using that thing; or they are a CLI elietest who will swear that typing the absolute path to the file and using all of those flags makes Mplayer great....Thank God the persons who make Videolan and Totem have some freaking sense.

In closing when the flagship multimedia software of an OS is total crapware you are going to have a hard time convincing the non-geek to "convert" when one only has beta OS's to introduce them to.

Ps. I am leaving other software categories out because I need some sleep, but there are more examples.

[crackers]

If it makes anyone feel better, ExtremeTech just did a thorough review of Xandros 3.0 and gave it a 9 out of 10.

As for the magazine "distributions," I'd chalk the non-existent "beta" clause advertising up to them, not RH/FC. RH's been quite reasonable - it's a beta and non-supported. It's all over the README, as well. Yeah, I know - who bothers to read it, even when it comes up as the default start page in a browser? Caveat emptor.

[KiwiNZ]

"Caveat emptor"
This is an ancient commercial cop out that has no place in a modern "comsumer protection" market.
Basically what it was " I takes ya money and runs sucker"
That is simply not good enough .

Also too many "readme's" are pure geek speak. And again if it truely is the desire of the Linux community to become main stream this has to change. Hand holding is a fact of life in that market and if Microsoft does anything well , it does that very well.

I beleive there is still an element of Linux talking the talk with regards to mainstreaming but walking the geek walk and keeping it a back room geek fest .

I have been a Linux user since 1996 and active promoter of Linux , I have always given a warning to all folks that I convert that they are venturing into pioneer country and to act accordingly.

[imdeemvp]

who bothers to read it, even when it comes up as the default start page in a browser?
I do, but I dont remember saying anything about this issues:

1. desktops and laptops will not power off properly (major kernel screw up)
2. udev is buggy (hotsyncing your pda device will be a problem even though there are claims it was fixed some us of can't do it)
3. java issues (not as easy as it should be)
4. kernel is for testing (good luck to us)
5. cd-rom will give DRIVE error when trying to play music (i already know is fixed)
6. multimedia is a do it yourself (well i can live with that one)

that good about america you are able to speak loud and clear and after so many complaints some one in a big corporation will hear US. I have been using fedora for about a year now and all I hear in commentaries, reviews, and other forums is how crappy it is. I like fedora and will not switch but I also have the given right to demand better.

If I see roaches (bugs) in a restaurant I DO NOT EAT THERE! NOT even for FREE!

[Shadow Skill]

I don't see how "It's a beta." is an exscue when the entire Linux world is in a perpetual state of beta.. To Linux's credit Windows can sure as hell feel like a beta OS with all of the security hole fixes and craptapular resource management. :) Do people really have so many insurmountable problems that make them conclude Fedora sucks? An aquaintance of mine a Gentoo user no less considers Fedora "another Windows." :(

One truly annoying bug has to deal with Logitech mx duo for bluetooth sometimes Fedora will decided to disable irq 11 which not only kills my mouse, it manages to kill eth0 as well. This appears to be a Kernel issue and seems to affect every single Kernel I have ever used with Fedora; I always have to reboot and hope things behave when this happens. The latest 2.6.9 kernel doesn't do this as much but it still does it enough to really piss me off.

[radu5er]

Maybe I'm missing something here...

I've been installing and using various Microsoft operating systems for a number of years and paying a good bit of hard earned cash for my own copies of them. In my admittedly limited experience (couple of years) with linux I can not see that MS is really more stable or easier to resolve conflicts with. I've dealt with many customer problems that were because of hardware incompatability issues or software incompatability and the average end user generally doesn't have a clue or even care why, they just want to run their latest cereal box app or whatever. Most end users just want a turn-key system that works for them when they want with a minimum amount of hassle and no BSOD's. Try explaining to a 75 year old little old lady why her system keeps freezing up when she tries to retrieve her e-mail because she installed a piece of software off the net that she saw recommended by a pop-up, and you'll see what I mean.

I've used Mandrake, RH 8, and Fedora, plus some dabbling with DSL and Knoppix and they have all installed and run quite well on a variety of hardware for me. Now I'll admit that I may not try and impliment the latest wizzy applications, but for my day to day routine use I have been exteremely pleased with the distro's I have tried. They have all been stable and extremely crash resistant. The browsers are not plagued by infestations of unwanted garbage and the systems usually do not fall prey to the malicious attacks that are so rampant with Microsoft products.

I believe that all most end users want is to be able to use their systems reliably and wouldn't care at all who made their O/S. Since the price of the O/S is usually "hidden" in the cost of the system that may not be a factor either.

Maybe the linux distros I have used are beta versions, but they all seem to work better for me than the current crop of MS products...or maybe MS should label their products as beta too.

[crackers]

From the GPL:

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

From the FC EULA (/usr/share/doc/fedora-release-3/eula.txt):

3. LIMITED WARRANTY. Except as specifically stated in this agreement
or a license for a particular component, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT
PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, THE SOFTWARE AND THE COMPONENTS
ARE PROVIDED AND LICENSED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. Neither the Fedora Project nor Red Hat warrants that the
functions contained in the Software will meet User's requirements
or that the operation of the Software will be entirely error free
or appear precisely as described in the accompanying
documentation. USE OF THE SOFTWARE IS AT USER'S OWN RISK.

4. LIMITATION OF REMEDIES AND LIABILITY. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT
PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, FEDORA PROJECT AND RED HAT WILL NOT
BE LIABLE TO USER FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING INCIDENTAL OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, LOST PROFITS OR LOST SAVINGS ARISING OUT OF
THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF FEDORA PROJECT
OR RED HAT HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

From the Release notes:

Fedora Core is not a supported product of Red Hat, Inc.

Technically, RedHat is under absolutely no legal obligation to do anything beyond provide the source code of any modifications they've made.

When you "purchase" RHE/RHAS, you are not "buying" Linux - you're buying support for a specific set of GPL'd programs. There is expressly no support for the Fedora Project.

You, the end user, have no legal rights except as expressed under the EULA and GPL. You can demand and protest and whatever all day long, but the facts are quite clear. Y'all are confusing legality with the intangibles of "consumer perception." They are not equivalent.

[kosmosik]

actually this guy is right and honest - this is what fedora is - bleeding edge... if you need stable polished desktop go SUSE or RHEL... Fedora is very nice but it requires some polish... but I don't agree that it is not suitable for servers, sourceforge will run FC3, wikipedia runs on FC2, our servers in my school run FC2 and they are mission critical servers... if you need a RHL-like system but you don't need support for it (you are a geek or you have in house staff) FC is great for everything...

[KiwiNZ]

"You, the end user, have no legal rights except as expressed under the EULA and GPL. You can demand and protest and whatever all day long, but the facts are quite clear. Y'all are confusing legality with the intangibles of "consumer perception." They are not equivalent."

Corporates can put what they like in their "limited warantees" but if the clauses are Ultra Vires the applicable consumer statutes of the Country in which they are doing business ,the said clauses mean nothing.


"You, the end user, have no legal rights except as expressed under the EULA and GPL"

This is also not correct. the end users rights are those extended by statute.

Don't get me wrong I am not anti Linux , the exact opposite is true. I am however just trying to point out what will be needed if Linux distros are to become mainstream.

[radu5er]

crackers:
You are quite correct in that " legality with the intangibles of "consumer perception" " are not equivalent, however many consumers still believe that in using an operating system such as those sold by Microsoft, they are supported by the corporation. And while Microsoft may sometimes support end users, the real world facts are that most folks are on their own when it comes to solving problems arising from sloppy code. It is left to the technician in the field to deal with software problems and trying to explain to the end user why things don't work as easy as the salesman selling the new shiny computer said they would.

As far as legal rights go, all software I have ever seen has some sort of disclamer as to the suitablilty of it's use.

One of Microsoft's standard disclaimers is:

IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE.

IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF SOFTWARE, DOCUMENTS, PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SERVICES, OR INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM THE SERVICES.

So it looks like everyone is basically on their own when it comes to fixing problems with their systems...the only difference as far as I see it is their are far more techs fixing MS because there are far more MS systems in useby the general public.

My original issue with the writer of the article was that she was implying that Fedora was not a stable operating system and only suitable for use by very advanced users. In my opinion and experience, Fedora is considerably more stable and certainly no more "buggy" than the current offerings from Microsoft. I believe that ANY end user could operate a properly configured linux "appliance" at least as easily as they could a Windows box. My 9 year old daughter uses my linux system to satisify her simple computing requirements and has not crashed the system once. Moving from a Windows GUI to the Gnome GUI was easy and natural for her and she required virtually no instructions.

[crackers]

KiwiNZ: As the GPL (nor any EULA) has not actually been tested in a court case resulting in an actual verdict, I'll stand by my assertion until proven otherwise. Personally, I'd have expected Microsoft's more onerous EULA's to have been challenged by now, but Billy Boy's pockets are very deep.

radu5er: The key phrase you used is "sold by the corporation." That is the point I'm trying to make (not with you or KiwiNZ, as y'all seem able to make the distinction). Fedora is not a "commercial product."

As for the article's author, I actually found it pretty well authored and researched. And she is correct: if you are a company IT director, you do not want to use Fedora. Your insurance company will laugh at you and the Board of Directors will fire you. Despite what we may think or have experienced with Fedora, there is no accountability nor liability available for it. That's what you do get with RHAS/RHE, Novell/SuSE, Xandros, Solaris, or Windows.

And it is a tad "buggy" - just look at the number of threads trying to deal with hardware issues that Windows (thanks to it's 400-lb gorilla position) doesn't have.

Linux and the attendant software packages associated with it have come a very, very long way in 10 years. At least now there is some hardware vendor support! I couldn't run X for several years because I couldn't afford a graphics card that was supported (anyone remember the XFree vs. Diamond fooraw?).

[imdeemvp]

You can demand and protest and whatever all day long, but the facts are quite clear.
We have a different consumer approach. There are those who offer poor quality services and those the thrive for excellence. There is 99% of people who "accepts" the agreement but does not mean you approve of it. Any one heard of false "advertisement" ? At least label the product correctly.

[Shadow Skill]

You see what happened here is that corporations have managed to convince people that they the corporation owns the user of the product and not the other way around, they then went out of their collective way to tell you that you should be grateful that they exist, as if they would be able to exist independent of the user regardless of whether its pay for or free software mind you. In America for instance corporations have been considered people for about 167 years, they have more rights as per the actual law than a real person, then of course there are the unofficial rights. Since bussiness [which is nothing more than a glorified crime syndicate.] has convinced people that they own them bussinesses have been able to flood all markets with crapware of any and all kinds, all the while telling you to take it and like it. As long as people continue to think that bussiness should have the rights of an individual person in any respect we will be inundated with various BS liscensing agreements and the like, for you see the customer is not right at all he should be grateful for mediocrity in service of any and all kinds since they do not really need him at all.

[bbigby]

If it makes anyone feel better, ExtremeTech just did a thorough review of Xandros 3.0 and gave it a 9 out of 10.

As for the magazine "distributions," I'd chalk the non-existent "beta" clause advertising up to them, not RH/FC. RH's been quite reasonable - it's a beta and non-supported. It's all over the README, as well. Yeah, I know - who bothers to read it, even when it comes up as the default start page in a browser? Caveat emptor.

Xandros 3.0 seems to be what users need. I just wish that Xandros would provide a Gnome/Gtk version. That would be slick!

[owakroeger]

Well, about a year ago, I started with linux with RedHat9. I did a dual-boot with Win98SE, till I learned a bit more about linux. Before coming to Fedora Core 2, I tried Debian and Gentoo. I settled on Fedora because of the ease of installation and support readily found on this and other forums. I have, since, bought the NeTraverse Win4Lin for $89, and I can run virtually anything I want. Interestingly, since putting Win98 on my Win4Lin 2.6.9 kernel, it is completely stable..... none of the maddening crashes like I had when it was the primary OS on its partition.
I'll stay with Fedora, thanks. I may just be lucky, but the ONLY problems I've experienced with Fedora have been self-induced.
owa

[sailor]

I got Suse 9.2 Pro for Christmas and it works great, but it is not that much better than FC other than some additional softwares and a somewhat better setup/config system.
I have used Xandros but it is limited and easy to break (have not looked at Xandros 3 yet so maybe it has been eliminated). What kernel are they using now?

[telmo]

I have a HP Pavilion ZX5051EA and i've tried more than 10 linux distros last week only (Debian; Slackware; Knoppix; Kurumin; Mandrake 10; Kalango; etc.)... and Fedora, even being beta, was the best linux i tried! Maybe not the most stable, because a few crashs in Gnome, but it sure runs better than everything else... My hardware actually works! Ok, maybe i don't have 3D accel. yet (ATI Radeon Mobility 9600), but in most distros i hardly get to startup x.

So... HURRAY for FC3!!! :D

[Woad_Warrior]

my first linux distro was mandrake 7.0-2. i used it till they got to 10.0. (which i wasn't happy with btw) during that time i also tried a few others for a brief time. xandros, libranet, and i think one other. they all installed without a problem and detected all the hardware i was using at the time. i've been using fedora since shortly after core 1 was released. (i also played with yoper during this time) out of all these distros, fedora releases do tend to start out fairly unstable, but what do you want from bleeding edge? generally though the bugs get smoothed out fairly quickly, (although core 3 seems to be taking longer for this to happen) would i recomend the latest fedora core for a noob? hell no. maybe after the issues have been resolved, but as anyone who has gone through this forum can see, core 3 still has issues, maybe not for everyone, but obviously for quite a few. in my case, i only have a couple small issues left. of course what may be an issue for one person may not affect someone else. look at all the people with nvidia problems. i have never had an issue with nvidia drivers. (only nvidia prob i've had was a hardware conflict between the card and mobo, which may get solved if i ever get around to a bios update) a number of people have commended nvidia for their support of the linux platform. i whole heartedly agree with them. for nvidia to provide what is it right now? 3% of the market with drivers for their products and at quite likely a loss tells me that they care about us. do i think they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? hell no. they're doing it now, because they see that linux is going to be a major player on the desktop in the next few years. it's a long term strategy on their part, which seems rare in the corporate world anymore. and how many other hardware vendors out there actually write drivers for us? do i care that their drivers are closed source? no. not really. their drivers have (except in 1 case) always worked well for me.if they ever do open source them, it would be great contribution, but it would surprise me if they ever did. there are quite a few who'll provide specs and such for us to build our own, and i'm sure alot of us are happy that they do this, but it is a cheap way for them to get our support. the companies who have supported linux one way or another deserve our thanks not our condemnation. end of rant. :)
BTW, my main box is running core3 and my other box is running core2.
disclaimer; the opinions expressed here are my own. feel free to agree, disagree, throw money at me, (i'm poor and want a quad opteron w/ 8 gb ram) or blithely ignore me. :)

[imdeemvp]

i used it till they got to 10.0. (which i wasn't happy with btw)
I also try 10 and now experimenting with 10.1 and I have to be honest I has improved a lot. Multimedia was a piece of cake and so was the hardware detection. I will give a shot for a month or so to see how good it is this time.

[cpost]

I am having problem, but I still love Fedora. I think most of it is that I am just starting out. I haven't used UNIX system since the Navy a few years ago. I like Fedora so far, makes you think some. Hope it getiing it working better than XP.

[bamboo_spider]

Would RHEl that emerges from the beta tests we do be better - was wondeiring because it might be an idea to get rhel for my boss and i keep up with FC3, 4 and whaterver we are supposed to do and have the best of both worlds. Sound kokky and good at the same time

Not that i'am a geek am just plain gui type making fc3 work !

[Reindeer]

Myra wrote:
Well, I agree on the services thing. Fedora should at install time ask which services to enable at boot (or have sane defaults depending on install (workstation etc)). Most newbies won't know services are slurping their CPU time away, of course talking about the slower computers here.

Thanks to Myra, for the reminder to turn off all the memory and CPU hogging services.
PCMCIA is on by default, for instance. I service which I will never use on my desktop system.
I urge every user to check out the SERVICES app, and shut down unneeded daemons.
It will make your system run faster. This will help some of us who have older boxes (like me).
System Setting >> Server Settings >> Services

For what it's worth, FC3 (Dec 2004 release) runs better on my lowly Intel "prototype" PII 348MHz
antique than any other distro. That includes Gentoo, Debian, and FreeBSD (which have all been tried).
My system is an odd beast, and it doesn't deal well with the other distros, for whatever reason.
FreeBSD came close to ideal, but for the fact that it absolutely refused to mount my ext3 partitioned disk.

I do wish that certain annoying problems in FC3 could be fixed.
Any help with these two questions would be greatly appreciated.
(If you just know one answer, that's cool too.)

1. Muted sound.
Is there a way to reset the sound levels in "gnome-volume-control" permanently?
Should I be looking at alsa-mixer instead?

2. CD ROM drive access (ATA-IDE).
What's the trick here? Are group permissions required that I am unaware of?
In FreeBSD, you have to add your username to the "wheel" group.
Is there a similar thing going on here?

I know that these sound like noobie questions, so forgive me.
I'm not a noob, I just haven't found the answers searching.
This is what I get for choosing "Custom" install. Heh.

Fedora Core 3
2.6.10-1.766_FC3
i686 Intel prototype
KDE 3.3.0-5 Red Hat

[jtang613]

I do wish that certain annoying problems in FC3 could be fixed.
Any help with these two questions would be greatly appreciated.
(If you just know one answer, that's cool too.)

1. Muted sound.
Is there a way to reset the sound levels in "gnome-volume-control" permanently?
Should I be looking at alsa-mixer instead?
/sbin/MAKEDEV -d /etc/udev/devices/ sound

2. CD ROM drive access (ATA-IDE).
What's the trick here? Are group permissions required that I am unaware of?
In FreeBSD, you have to add your username to the "wheel" group.
Is there a similar thing going on here?
Yes, there is a 'wheel' group that your user should be a member of to gain cdrom rights. There are also groups: 'disk' for hd mount access, 'floppy' for floppy mount access and 'uucp' for serial port access.
Use the "Menu->System Settings->Users and Groups" tool to adjust your user's group memberships.

[Reindeer]

Jtang613 wrote:
"Yes, there is a 'wheel' group that your user should be a member of to gain cdrom rights. There are also groups: 'disk' for hd mount access, 'floppy' for floppy mount access and 'uucp' for serial port access.
Use the "Menu->System Settings->Users and Groups" tool to adjust your user's group memberships".

Thanks Jtang,
Now I can mount a filesystem on my CD drives.
I am still having difficulty with audio CDs (unless I log into Fedora's Desktop GUI, where CD audio works just fine).
Here is the error message that I get when I try to mount the device:

Could not mount device.
The reported error was:
/dev/hdd: Input/output error
mount: /dev/hdd: can't read superblock

Jtang, you also wrote:
/sbin/MAKEDEV -d /etc/udev/devices/ sound
in repsonse to my audio sound level troubles.

I tried it, and it does not seem to have worked.
I still need to use gnome-volume-control to adjust the levels upwards.
Did I miss something?

Thanks for your help so far. I'm making some progress.

[jtang613]

Audio CDs are not mounted - since there is no filesystem per-se, just raw data. The block device is passed to your cd player. In the case of cdp/cdplay, you need a soft-link /dev/cdrom to point to /dev/hdd.

As for the sound issues - I think I misinterpreted your problem as being that your volumes mute after reboot - that fix solves that problem in most cases. If you are trying to use a console mixer to adjust your volumes without success, then you may want try alsamixer.

[Reindeer]

Jtang, thanks again.

I currently have ( in /dev ):
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Mar 4 08:09 cdrom -> hdc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Mar 4 08:09 cdrom1 -> hdd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Mar 4 08:09 cdwriter -> hdc

hdc is my CD burner.
hdd is my DVD player.

I have noticed some references to /media/cdrecorder and /media/cdrom
Do I need to add links to these in /dev as well?

I have also noticed that the problem only exists in KDE.
When I log into Fedora's default Window Manager, Bluecurve, the problem is not present.
Is this a KDE problem?

I have noticed that some devices are owned by root, while others, including the floppy
and CD devices, are owned by reindeer. Is that expected?
Does removable media require _reindeer_ to be owner?

[Reindeer]

Jtang,

I discoverd the problem.
I logged into Fedora's default desktop, and it loaded my audio CD without error, using gnome-cd.
I then logged back into KDE, and launched gnome-cd, and it worked!
I looked at the settings in gnome-cd, and indicated that it was reading from /dev/cdrom ( not /media/cdrecorder or /media/cdrom ).
I then launched Kscd (my preferred player) and edited the settings to point to /dev/cdrom and it worked.

I had to turn off "Use direct digital playback", because it was skipping all over the place.

Thanks for all of your help. You rock!!
Why the hell did they change it when it worked so well?

[GospelOfLinux]

Well crap, this one's never used Gentoo has she now. I am a recent convert from Gentoo (which still has a place in my heart), and I find Fedora very safe, sane, and quite refined.

However, the one that killed me was the comment on updating. This is the same for every blasted release of every distro and version of Windows I've ever used. Out of box something is always broke, no matter how much you did or did not pay for it.

Oh, and for "bleeding edge", get "Linux from Scratch".

However, the author was just trying to be a bit light hearted so I am going to laugh a bit and move on.

[Reindeer]

Fedora Core 3: Cruising The Bleeding Edge
Life in the Fast Lane

Carla Schroder
Thursday, December 9, 2004 01:23:06 PM

The first thing anyone considering using Fedora needs to know is this is not a safe, sane Linux distribution.

Absolutely false. This evaluation has no merit.
This version (Fedora Core 3) is far safer and saner than my first experience with RedHat 7.2, where an upgrade from 7.0 left me without a working system. I needed to nuke and pave to get it to work. A major hassle.
Redhat 9 was even more frustrating, as the package database was so poorly written that there were multiple entries for the same software, none of which existed after an upgrade.
I find FC3 to be the best of the open source alternatives to commercial software, as it runs on my very odd prototype Intel hardware that was never released to the public.
Gentoo failed to work, as did FreeBSD. Nothing wrong with these distros, but the hardware just wouldn't play with them.
Fedora Core 3 worked without any major hassles.

It's not meant to be.
Bull.

Fedora is the test bed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and is also the replacement for Red Hat Linux, with two major differences: there is no commercial edition, and it is intended to be a community project, rather than solely a Red Hat product. This is the playground for Red Hat engineers and random volunteer developers to go nuts and try out wacky new things, and users get to play along.

While this assessment has some truth to it, I am bothered by the characterization that developers like me "go nuts" and are "wacky". This awful reviewer gives no relevant specific examples, and therefore has no case to pick apart.
Doubtful that Schroder has ever compiled a program, let alone a kernel.
Certainly developers would rip this woman's lousy opinion to shreds, were there some relevant evidence.
Since there is no evidence, there is no reason to listen to Schroder.

It has a fast release cycle of 2-3 times per year, with shiny new things in every release. So you should expect a few bumps and lumps.

Like what? Please elaborate, so that us "wacky, nutty" developers can refute it.

To smooth out some of lumps, be sure to run up2date right away. Most of the updates are minor, but one is a showstopper--you won't be able to use the Nautilus CD-writer without the udev update. And for goodness' sake read the release notes. They are crammed with useful information and solutions to problems.

Does Schroder even understand what udev does?
Who doesn't read the release notes?
Also, why is Nautilus CD Writer the preferred? Has Schroder not heard of Xcdroast? K3B? gRip?
Windows has had too many showstoppers to mention here, including cleartext passwords if you use WinNT with FAT16/32 support (not NTFS). Anyone can use snoop to capture your passwords and violate your security.
This bug has never been fixed, and never will be, as the good folks in Redmond don't consider a major security breach a bug. Go figure. Schroder apparently has never worked in the software industry, and has never tried to get a major software vendor to fix a bug.
The up2date program has evolved greatly over time, thanks to the beauty of the open source model that Fedora Core represents. It works quite well now. I know because I filed a bug on it awhile back.
To all those that enjoy that up2date works, your welcome. :D
The package database problems have also been fixed.
FC3 also has SELinux (secure enhanced) in it, which is a move in the right direction in terms of security.

So what is Fedora good for? It is a good desktop Linux, and it is suitable for non mission-critical servers.

It's also good for mission critical servers, as using a CD burner is not generally a requirement for a server, and could be considered a security risk. Does Schroder even care about security? I think not.
Security updates must always be applied immediately, as the previous poster GospelOfLinux has already noted.
Why would anyone in their right mind NOT apply security updates and patches immediately?
Does Schroder like the idea of being hacked?

For non-programmer users who wish to participate in Linux/Free/Open Source development, Fedora lets you test the latest greatest features and contribute useful feedback.

Unlike Schroder's review which provides only vague criticism and ad hominem attacks.
Yes. Useful feedback is good, and something that commercial distributions often don't provide.
I used to work with a software house that was a business partner with Microsoft, for example.
They refused to accept any bug reports from me, even though my official duties involved reporting bugs to MS.
That's why I use Open Source software today, and that's why OSS will always have an edge over commercial offerings.
Don't like the rough edges? Fine by me. All software has rough edges. Wait for an official, expensive release that doesn't work right and won't be fixed.
Suffer under the yoke of bad software that will never be fixed properly, even if you submit a bug report through official channels. See how far that gets you.
If you like being subjected to that, and enjoy feeling powerless to change anything, well, then that's your choice.
I choose to have the ability to fix software, and I LIKE the fact that a CD burner is not automatically configured on a server.
Schroder, next time you review an operating system, provide some valid criticism.
I'm sure that you can find some real things to criticize, if you look.

[jiin]

If you are not running server class hardware RHEL 3 or 4 is not your answer for a desktop. FC3 runs fairly well with only minor problems. I have 26 production RHEL 3 and 4 boxen that run very well in an enterprise environment. It runs like crap on a desktop boxen. REAL OS? I guess that is defined by your needs.

jiin

[RahulSundaram]

Hello everyone,

For what its worth, I have send in my responses to the reviewer here

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2005-June/msg00005.html

Rahul
Red Hat Inc

[jiin]

Rahul,
Nice reply. Well put and to the point.

jiin


Hello everyone,

For what its worth, I have send in my responses to the reviewer here

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2005-June/msg00005.html

Rahul
Red Hat Inc