Common Issues With Fedora Core 2

[Ug]

With the impending release of the first test edition of Fedora Core 2 we've decided here at FedoraForum (many thanks to Foolish for the idea) to start a "Common Issues with Fedora Core 2" thread. This should benefit both the Fedora FAQ with easy targeting of common issues, and could also benefit the whole project at large as we intend to email the results of the bugs and other technical issues to the fedora-devel-list.

So if you think you know of a common issue in Fedora Core then post about it here, together with some evidence of threads available about it in the forum and whether or not the issue can be resolved (and if so - how?). These should be posted on an issue by issue basis, to prevent duplication of work. At the same time the moderating team will also be trawling through their respective forums, so that we can compile a definitive list.

I would like to point out however, that this thread should be to the point and contain no off-topic posts. Such posts will be removed by the moderators. This thread is also going to be more relevant to the experienced Fedora users of our community.

Have fun trawling!

[cathal]

Stop loading X twice, i know its easily changed from grub and doesnt effect me because i use a custom kernel but by defualt its kind of stupid and a wastes resources.

[rkl]

The tg3 driver supplied for various Gigabit Ethernet cards doesn't work well at all in FC2 for Broadcom BCM57XX cards (long pauses, many framing errors and dropped packets), which makes many models of Dell PowerEdge servers next to useless (because they often ship with those cards).

The solution is download the official Broadcom drivers from http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/downloaddrivers.php but you'll need to edit the source - see my (now closed) bug report at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla...i?id=124057#c3

Note that I haven't gone back and checked whether the updated FC2 kernels have fixed this tg3 problem because the servers with the Broadcom cards are now in active use (and working very nicely).

[rkl]

Stop loading X twice, i know its easily changed from grub and doesnt effect me because i use a custom kernel but by defualt its kind of stupid and a wastes resources.

If you're using a custom kernel, you're probably savvy enough to realise that you can edit /etc/sysconfig/init and change the graphical boot line to:

GRAPHICAL=no

I find the graphical boot doesn't give me enough details by default - particularly if there's any stderr error output - and I'm lazy and don't want to keep clicking on "Show Details" every single time I boot. If you boot in text mode, it only starts X once, so that's another useful benefit.

[rkl]

Fedora Core 2 starts up far too many services that will never be used by the vast majority of users. For example - how many desktop PCs or servers need any of the following:

pcmcia
atd (supplied with no pre-configured "at" jobs - useless!)
snmpd
mdmpd
mdmonitor
gpm
irda
isdn
acpid
cpuspeed

Several of those are clearly only for laptops, but FC2 no longer has a "Laptop" configuration option in anaconda, which I think is a mistake in my books and they compound it by crazily running these laptop-only services on any machine that's configured (yes, including servers too).

To remove services from running on the next reboot, issue the command (as root) "chkconfig servicename off", where servicename is the name of the service you want to avoid running on the next reboot. Personally, once my machine is set up as I want it, I do "chkconfig kudzu off", which saves up to 5 seconds on every reboot (my hardware rarely changes, so running kudzu on every reboot is a waste of time).

If you want to immediately stop a service without having to reboot, run "service servicename stop" as root.

[cathal]

If you're using a custom kernel, you're probably savvy enough to realise that you can edit /etc/sysconfig/init and change the graphical boot line to:

GRAPHICAL=no

I find the graphical boot doesn't give me enough details by default - particularly if there's any stderr error output - and I'm lazy and don't want to keep clicking on "Show Details" every single time I boot. If you boot in text mode, it only starts X once, so that's another useful benefit.

I know its very easy to change like all things just requires a minute if you know what your doing. But i dont see the point off loading X twice by default. Only just wasteing resources like windoz...

[penguin_roar]

To make linux secure by default is something i think is very important. No service should be listening to the outside without the user explicity telling it to. Every service thats on by default is a security threat laying dormant. Id rather see most boxes secure and just the ones configured wrong unsafe. Thats much better than every box out there without proper patching being a rootkit infested spambot.

It would also be very good to have an option in anaconda to turn on the yum update daemon. Many people doesnt even know it exist and since its pretty rare for a package to break things in redhat it should be better than to have unpatched boxes all over the internet.

Ohh, and mp3 support would be nice too.

[foolish]

Issue: No software mixing by default.

Symptoms: Users with sound cards that doesn't have hardware mixing will only be able to play sound from one application at a time. Example, while xmms is playing, gaim isn't able to play notification sounds.

Solution: Fedora Core 2 introduced ALSA, with ALSA you can enable software mixing. This is done by adding a .asoundrc configuration file to the users home dir that allows software mixing. The .asoundrc can look somewhat like this:

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm "swmixer"
}

pcm.swmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1234
slave {
pcm "hw:0,0"
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_size 4096
rate 44100
}
}

There's some discussion on the mailinglists:
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedor.../msg00143.html
and
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedor.../msg00989.html

[panomax]

The classification of package groups is always a problem in Red Hat and Fedora. As seen from the yumgroups.xml, this problem still remains in FC3 T1. Following are just some examples of the unreasonableness of current group classification.

1. The distinction of Core and Base is vague.

2. There are many packages that are not member of the Core or Base group, but are required by some packages in the Core or Base group. Since Core and Base are always implicitly installed, these packages are then always implicitly installed. Why not just include these essential packages to the Core or Base groups?

3. Dialup group is required by the Base group. So Dialup group is no less important than the Base group according to current classification. But now, wideband networking is getting more and more popular. Dialup access is no long a "must" item. Why insist using it on each and every Linux box?

4. Many non-essential packages are included in the Core or Base groups. Sendmail and software Raid are just examples of this kind of packages. How many ordinary users will need sendmail runing on their desktop or laptop?

5. The designation of "mandatory, default, optional" should be more prudent. Many mandatory or default packages should actually be optional. One example is the up2date.

6. Many software packages are still depending on other old packages rather than using the most recent version. So we often see "ugly" package names such as GConf vs. GConf2, gtk+ vs. gtk2, libpng10 vs. libpng, etc. Imaging, in 10 years, we may need to install gtk+, gtk2, gtk3, gtk4, gtk5, ..., gtkhtml, gtkhtml2, gtkhtml3, gtkhtml4, ..., all on our machine at the same time!

7. Even if you choose to only install KDE, lots of Gnome packages are still installed by default: gnome-desktop, gnome-keyring, gnome-libs, gnome-panel, ......

I hope the classification of package groups could be seriously reorganized and optimized. At least, the Core and Base groups should be truly minimal and essential. More groups and more levels of groups can be created if necessary. Then administrators can add what they like to the top of Core and Base, easily.

[taylor65]

I'd like to see fewer scripts in the cron.daily directory by default. Since a lot of people turn their machines off when they're not using them, many CPU intensive and HD intensive scripts are always running when you first log in. Like:
slocate.cron
makewhatis.cron
rpm
yum.cron
prelink

[jholzman]

I have noticed several things that could be improved with the fedora core series:

1. I run a dual-head setup. Consequently the graphical bootup which uses the same X configuration as the desktop one looks really stupid, plus I have to wait for the NVIDIA splash screen to load twice. If it is desired to keep the graphical bootup, then make it use either a non-X display method like an svga framebuffer or use a different X configuration that only uses the primary head and will work on most computers, maybe 640x480 svga mode

2. Add the ability to install packages from cds to yum and then create a new graphical frontend that combines Add/Remove Packages with online updates a. la Mandrake's urpmi. Because atm yum will d/l and install packages that are already on the cds which is a waste of bandwidth and Add/Remove Packages sometimes doesn't recognise that some packages have been installed via yum and will not then install other packages that rely on them

3. The package dependencies and installation configurations needs to be looked at so that they make sense and basic functionality that should be there works. For Example, I chose the workstation configuration on install which installed gnome, but didn't install samba, so the Window Network function just didn't work and when I tried to add a windows printer the printer wizard just spat the dummy. Also the wizards should be able to call Add/Remove pacakges if required packages aren't there for them to complete their tasks (e.g. having the printer wizard install samba)

4. A better explanation for why the distro won't play mp3s, dvds etc and an easier ability to update it. E.g. in xmms have a fake mp3 plugin which when used pops up a window saying, "You have attempted to play an MP3 file. Fedora has disabled this for licensing reasons. If you want to stick it to the man and enable this anyway click here to download an update package which enables it. Fedora takes no responsibility for you sticking it to the man"

5. The layout of the configuration tools in the gnome menus is way too confusing. There are system tools, system settings and also gnome configuration tools all mixed in together. Creation of some sort of control panel to separate out the system wide configuration tools from the gnome local desktop tools, which places them all in task oriented menus would be much easier. Yes I know it's what windows does, but not everything windows does is bad.

6. For heavens sake start optimising things for at least i586 if not higher. There aren't too many 386s or 486s with enough ram and grunt to run this stuff so why are we bothering to retain compatibility with them.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure I'll post more later.

[rkl]

The "firstboot" utility that, unsurprisingly, runs on your first boot of FC2, should have a section w.r.t. setting up online updates. It should do the following:

* Show what's in yum.conf at the moment and ask if a list of all repositories is wanted. If it is, it downloads a yum.conf.new from a central site such as download.fedora.redhat.com, parses and shows that, allowing you to pick which ones you want to add to your yum.conf (allow for mirror sites too).

* Once yum.conf is properly set up, do a "yum check-update" and state there are "X packages for update, do you want to update?" and if you do, then goes and gets them and updates your system (optional reboot if new kernel downloaded of course).

As it is, it's all too easy not to get the updates as part of your install process and this can lead to some pain as you set up your machine. Ultimately, the above steps could also be a standalone GUI to replace the up2date stuff that's on the task bar at the moment.

[jzke]

This probably can't happen, but I'd like to see Mad-wifi drivers included and installed, just because I could never get them working, even with a good tutorial. Also the already-patched ATI drivers, something else I had difficulty installing.

[satovey]

I have noticed several things that could be improved with the fedora core series:

1. I run a dual-head setup. Consequently the graphical bootup which uses the same X configuration as the desktop one looks really stupid, plus I have to wait for the NVIDIA splash screen to load twice. If it is desired to keep the graphical bootup, then make it use either a non-X display method like an svga framebuffer or use a different X configuration that only uses the primary head and will work on most computers, maybe 640x480 svga mode

2. Add the ability to install packages from cds to yum and then create a new graphical frontend that combines Add/Remove Packages with online updates a. la Mandrake's urpmi. Because atm yum will d/l and install packages that are already on the cds which is a waste of bandwidth and Add/Remove Packages sometimes doesn't recognise that some packages have been installed via yum and will not then install other packages that rely on them

3. The package dependencies and installation configurations needs to be looked at so that they make sense and basic functionality that should be there works. For Example, I chose the workstation configuration on install which installed gnome, but didn't install samba, so the Window Network function just didn't work and when I tried to add a windows printer the printer wizard just spat the dummy. Also the wizards should be able to call Add/Remove pacakges if required packages aren't there for them to complete their tasks (e.g. having the printer wizard install samba)

4. A better explanation for why the distro won't play mp3s, dvds etc and an easier ability to update it. E.g. in xmms have a fake mp3 plugin which when used pops up a window saying, "You have attempted to play an MP3 file. Fedora has disabled this for licensing reasons. If you want to stick it to the man and enable this anyway click here to download an update package which enables it. Fedora takes no responsibility for you sticking it to the man"

5. The layout of the configuration tools in the gnome menus is way too confusing. There are system tools, system settings and also gnome configuration tools all mixed in together. Creation of some sort of control panel to separate out the system wide configuration tools from the gnome local desktop tools, which places them all in task oriented menus would be much easier. Yes I know it's what windows does, but not everything windows does is bad.

6. For heavens sake start optimising things for at least i586 if not higher. There aren't too many 386s or 486s with enough ram and grunt to run this stuff so why are we bothering to retain compatibility with them.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure I'll post more later.

I'd like to see an option of providing a path on the drive for rpm files. This would allow people if
they prefer, to copy all rpm files off the cd's onto the drive and install packages from their.
This would speed up installs of new programs and eliminate the hassle of having ot provide
the different cd's when installing new packages from the add remove packages tool.

As it is, you are asked for the different cd's mulitple times when you are installing several programs
that you find you need at a later date. Why have to insert cd1 two or trhee times and then cd 2
the same number of required times? Kind of annoying it is.

[TomRiddle]

Stop loading X twice, i know its easily changed from grub and doesnt effect me because i use a custom kernel but by defualt its kind of stupid and a wastes resources.

Ok - how were you able to get a "custom kernel" working?

I built kernels about 7 times, just to get AGP working, and to take out some features not relevant to the computer I have. But using standard instructions, "official" source, and the .config of my main running kernel, AGP is broken. Even if I use the same instructions to compile, I don't get the same result. I don't have a fast machine. You can't imagine the time lost. Good practice, but still. Everything else seems to work, feel is zippy, low RAM imprint. But no 3D video, like I had with the pre-built.

Are there fudges, fixes, cheats, patches, that occur to the production kernels, that are not reflected in the source docs?