owakroeger
2005-04-24, 08:28 AM CDT
I understand that adding software applications to a test release adds unexpected and extranious variables to the test. As such, the things I have added should not be considered in the over-all success/failure considerations of this release. However, some of the applications which I need to have installed must be installed from outside the yum or up2date repositories. Also, some of the applications which I prefer, such as mozilla suite instead of firefox/thunderbird also must be acquired from outside the designated repositories. So, I will share my results here for consideration by other users after the final release of Fedora Core 4.
As mentioned, I prefer Mozilla-suite to Firefox/Thunderbird because all the plugins I want for Mozilla come as moz-*.rpm's, and install completely and work with no more tinkering by the user, such as the java plugins, etc. Following the threads on this site, I frequently see folks having problems getting plugins installed and working for Firefox without lots of problems. With Mozilla-suite, as I said, the plugins are written as moz-*.rpm's.
The latest release of GRAMPS 1.0.11-1, though written for FC3, works just fine on FC4.
For those who use Win4Lin, the latest stable kernel from kernel.org, the 2.6.11.7 patches with the latest 2.6.11 patches from Win4Lin and builds/installs cleanly. I was able to successfully patch, build, and install the 2.6.11.7 kernel on both my FC3 installation, and the FC4t2 installation, and Windows98 launches and works on both. Like it or not, I must still interact with the rest of the world, which, unfortunately runs primarily on Windows. Sometimes, excel documents edited with OpenOffice and saved as *.xls cannot be opened by folks using Excel on their Windows box. The workaround, for me, was to install Win4Lin and then I could use my Office2000 to exchange Word and Excel documents without fear of them being corrupted somehow in the conversion from .doc or .xls to OpenOffice, and saved back as .doc or .xls. If FC4 can handle my Win4Lin setup in the final release, the move from FC3 to FC4 will be less painful.
RealPlayer10GOLD installs and works just fine on FC4t2. I do NOT have volume control from the RealPlayer panel when I am connected to a streaming source. Yet, the volume control does work from the RealPlayer panel when playing from either a playlist or from cd. This seems curious to me. When playing from a streaming source, I have to control volume from Alsa panel, or from the knob on the speaker.
I have never been a real fan of yum, but yum seems to work quite well with this test release. To my surprise, it is every bit as fast as apt/synaptic on FC3.
I stopped using up2date back on FC2, and hadn't used it at all till a couple of days ago, when yum update faulted with dependency problems about KDEoffice, I think. On a whim, I tried up2date, and it completed a bunch of updates without a hitch.
The next day, yum update no longer had problems. Hmmm. That was interesting!
A word of caution to those who dual-boot with FC3 and FC4; There are some differences between the two which can corrupt your FC3 files. I first installed FC4t2 to share my /home directory with FC3. I'm not savvy enough to know what caused the problems, but after a few days, my FC3 began having problems, running slow, hanging when programs launched, even crashing.
I edited /etc/fstab to make sure neither installation could see the other. I made a new /home partition for FC4t2, and forced a filecheck on FC3. Now, those problems seem to have been resolved.
I use FC3 mostly, but I do boot to FC4 almost daily and do some things, and keep it up to date. So far, it seems to work ok. I can't say that I'm exuding excitement about it, but it works ok.
owa
As mentioned, I prefer Mozilla-suite to Firefox/Thunderbird because all the plugins I want for Mozilla come as moz-*.rpm's, and install completely and work with no more tinkering by the user, such as the java plugins, etc. Following the threads on this site, I frequently see folks having problems getting plugins installed and working for Firefox without lots of problems. With Mozilla-suite, as I said, the plugins are written as moz-*.rpm's.
The latest release of GRAMPS 1.0.11-1, though written for FC3, works just fine on FC4.
For those who use Win4Lin, the latest stable kernel from kernel.org, the 2.6.11.7 patches with the latest 2.6.11 patches from Win4Lin and builds/installs cleanly. I was able to successfully patch, build, and install the 2.6.11.7 kernel on both my FC3 installation, and the FC4t2 installation, and Windows98 launches and works on both. Like it or not, I must still interact with the rest of the world, which, unfortunately runs primarily on Windows. Sometimes, excel documents edited with OpenOffice and saved as *.xls cannot be opened by folks using Excel on their Windows box. The workaround, for me, was to install Win4Lin and then I could use my Office2000 to exchange Word and Excel documents without fear of them being corrupted somehow in the conversion from .doc or .xls to OpenOffice, and saved back as .doc or .xls. If FC4 can handle my Win4Lin setup in the final release, the move from FC3 to FC4 will be less painful.
RealPlayer10GOLD installs and works just fine on FC4t2. I do NOT have volume control from the RealPlayer panel when I am connected to a streaming source. Yet, the volume control does work from the RealPlayer panel when playing from either a playlist or from cd. This seems curious to me. When playing from a streaming source, I have to control volume from Alsa panel, or from the knob on the speaker.
I have never been a real fan of yum, but yum seems to work quite well with this test release. To my surprise, it is every bit as fast as apt/synaptic on FC3.
I stopped using up2date back on FC2, and hadn't used it at all till a couple of days ago, when yum update faulted with dependency problems about KDEoffice, I think. On a whim, I tried up2date, and it completed a bunch of updates without a hitch.
The next day, yum update no longer had problems. Hmmm. That was interesting!
A word of caution to those who dual-boot with FC3 and FC4; There are some differences between the two which can corrupt your FC3 files. I first installed FC4t2 to share my /home directory with FC3. I'm not savvy enough to know what caused the problems, but after a few days, my FC3 began having problems, running slow, hanging when programs launched, even crashing.
I edited /etc/fstab to make sure neither installation could see the other. I made a new /home partition for FC4t2, and forced a filecheck on FC3. Now, those problems seem to have been resolved.
I use FC3 mostly, but I do boot to FC4 almost daily and do some things, and keep it up to date. So far, it seems to work ok. I can't say that I'm exuding excitement about it, but it works ok.
owa