Broken Fedora

[Thetargos]

Maybe I'm getting old, maybe I've just reached that point where I want to use things and expect them to work, maybe Fedora is no longer for me...

I used to love Fedora because it allowed me (and encouraged me) to tinker around and because it offered the best of two worlds: On the one hand the freedom to accomplish everything through the "traditional" way (getting down and dirty with config files, console commands, etc), but also a nice balance of GUI tools which accomplished their target, and yet did not tied the system configuration to their utilization. It also used to "just work ™" most of the time, especially with things that you expected to.

Recently, though, and ever since Fedora got mor into the bleeding edge (where it seems it's becoming a -testing distro, instead of a -stable release) with the release of Fedora 9 (and the more stable Fedora 10, and the yet again unstable Fedora 11) Fedora seems to have lost many of the aspects that made me stick with it for so many years. For starters, besides its good balance of tools and ways to accomplish things in the system, Fedora used to be associated (and also had the feel to it) with Red Hat's stability and polish. In fact, up to Fedora 7 all Fedoras to that point felt very much like the predecessor Red Hat Linux 9, which was actually a "good thing ™"! However, it would seem as if for some people in the community or in the contributors production line that was a bad idea and Fedora should avoid that.

I have not tested the recently released Fedora 12 testing images, but Fedora in its current "stable" (11) state feels, acts and well, is, broken. There are a number of things that just stopped working, simple things that never before I thought would get broken at some point (for example the inability to recognize audio CDs, inability to mount mass storage SD media, instability of many applications, flaky multi user support, strange behaviour of printers, scanners acting up, etc) I've battled over the years with some of these problems, but certainly not all of them simultaneously in ONE release!

I love and used to love Fedora, and I don't write these lines as a means of a "threat" that I'm leaving Fedora (I've left Fedora in the past, and returned to it, and left again, etc). I write these lines because I see a dichotomy that was more patent in Fedora since Moonshine (7) in that it seems to be striving at becoming a viable Desktop Operating System, and yet keep being a Lab for testing the bleeding edge, where things will break and do get broken. But if that is indeed the case (as is the perceived perception of many of the FFO regulars), why then doesn't seem to be the official Fedora stance, and further from that, the project as such seems to be wanting more people to adopt it and use it... Is Rawhide obsolete now and instead simply push things to release, breaking things all over the place and making Fedora into Rawhide the way the community wants Fedora to evolve? At this point, I'm not sure, but it certainly feels that way.

I don't intend to leave Fedora, I just want to vent these things out.

[Dan]

Well said, Thet. But you also know the more effective feedback access point is over on the project website. Posting here will get the venting done, but won't put the pressure where it needs to go.

In short, hit the feedback list, and copy & paste.


Maybe it'll be effective, maybe it won't. There seems to be a disquieting rash of ignoring reasonable and thoughtful feedback in almost every aspect of modern life these days. <....>

[JN4OldSchool]

Fedora had a strange sort of "balance" in the past that it has lost. The proof of this is I could have wrote Thet's post but I feel it is the EXACT OPPOSITE scenario. I think Fedora has been more bleeding edge in the past and is now trying to become an Ubuntu like "user doesnt have to think" distro. But it is VERY broken and this is what Thet sees. They want the best of two worlds and they can only have one. Either be cutting edge or be user friendly. You CAN NOT have both. It used to be a very polished, stable, well thought out distro that tried to go after the newest stuff while still being stable. I did not mind the two or three bugs we would have to fix every release because I knew that once beat into submission it would be a darn good distro for the next 7 months. But F9 was the death knell, releasing a final distro with no capability for 3D (ATI or nVidia) was the height of stupidity. Things have not been the same since. I have no idea what or where the focus is these days but I hope they can get it back and we can get back to the Fedora of old. I am now on Arch but I really wangt to come back. But every release that is more and more botched is pushing me further and further away. F11 just keeps breaking for people...Maybe F12 will be better...I keep hoping anyway.

[Dan]

The term, "Preaching to the choir" comes to mind. <....>

[scottro]

I'm going to disagree on two points, while agreeing with a great deal of it.

Point one. Schizophrenic though Fedora seems, as Adam has explained eloquently elsewhere on these forums--and of course, I can't find the post--it is pretty much defining, for itself at least, its purpose.

It is a testing desktop distro--I'm not being funny. Again, Adam has explained this far better than I can. For example, it throws pulse audio in before it's ready--this way, the bugs get ironed out, because the large numbers of users *do* work on it, some file good bug reports, and eventually, they get it working so that, in theory, it's better than the other systems available. Now it's in Ubuntu too. (And, judging from their forums, still not completely fixed, but even my own, rather cranky impression is that it works pretty well for me now, even with my highly customized installs.)

So, it aspires to be a testing distro for deskto users. It makes sense if you think about it. It puts these things in, so that, in the long run desktop users have a system that will be, as we've all agreed, here and elsewhere, a fairly Windows like system, in the same way as Ubuntu and Mint. The final product will have more problems, because of the testing aspect.

Secondly, I think that Rahul, among others, has made effort to make it pretty clear that it's not going to be the distribution for users who need to have a trouble free, stable distro. They don't emphasize it the way we do in our rants, but they do their best to make it clear. Of course, on the project page, they're not going to say, "Look, it's broken by design." Does WIndows says, "Here you are, we've given up security for convenience." Does Mac say, "Our customer service, and our only having to support a few different types of hardware has resulted in higher prices for you."?

So, I think they make an effort to be fair about what they're doing, though of course, the project page does want to encourage people to use it.

Now, the other major aspect of Thetargos' post is something which I've been moaning about for ages too--I think it is tending to drive away both sets of users--the power users are annoyed about how Fedora is making the decisions for them and the desktop users want something that Just Works(TM) so they both go elsewhere. On the other hand, judging by the numbers, it's still right up there as one of the top few distributions, so...

As for me, my taste goes to things like Arch. However, work is RH based, and so, these things I figured out while troubleshooting Fedora wind up helping me do my job better. Plus, there are always little quirks of a system and coming across them on my Fedora desktops can often help with the CentOS servers.

So, I think I'm part of the choir, as far as the major complaint. It's just the garnishing with which I disagree.

[JN4OldSchool]

Originally Posted by scottro

I'm going to disagree on two points, while agreeing with a great deal of it.

Point one. Schizophrenic though Fedora seems, as Adam has explained eloquently elsewhere on these forums--and of course, I can't find the post--it is pretty much defining, for itself at least, its purpose.

It is a testing desktop distro--I'm not being funny. Again, Adam has explained this far better than I can. For example, it throws pulse audio in before it's ready--this way, the bugs get ironed out, because the large numbers of users *do* work on it, some file good bug reports, and eventually, they get it working so that, in theory, it's better than the other systems available. Now it's in Ubuntu too. (And, judging from their forums, still not completely fixed, but even my own, rather cranky impression is that it works pretty well for me now, even with my highly customized installs.)

So, it aspires to be a testing distro for deskto users. It makes sense if you think about it. It puts these things in, so that, in the long run desktop users have a system that will be, as we've all agreed, here and elsewhere, a fairly Windows like system, in the same way as Ubuntu and Mint. The final product will have more problems, because of the testing aspect.

Secondly, I think that Rahul, among others, has made effort to make it pretty clear that it's not going to be the distribution for users who need to have a trouble free, stable distro. They don't emphasize it the way we do in our rants, but they do their best to make it clear. Of course, on the project page, they're not going to say, "Look, it's broken by design." Does WIndows says, "Here you are, we've given up security for convenience." Does Mac say, "Our customer service, and our only having to support a few different types of hardware has resulted in higher prices for you."?

So, I think they make an effort to be fair about what they're doing, though of course, the project page does want to encourage people to use it.

Now, the other major aspect of Thetargos' post is something which I've been moaning about for ages too--I think it is tending to drive away both sets of users--the power users are annoyed about how Fedora is making the decisions for them and the desktop users want something that Just Works(TM) so they both go elsewhere. On the other hand, judging by the numbers, it's still right up there as one of the top few distributions, so...

As for me, my taste goes to things like Arch. However, work is RH based, and so, these things I figured out while troubleshooting Fedora wind up helping me do my job better. Plus, there are always little quirks of a system and coming across them on my Fedora desktops can often help with the CentOS servers.

So, I think I'm part of the choir, as far as the major complaint. It's just the garnishing with which I disagree.

Scott, that was very well stated and I agree. It SHOULD be like Adam says, THAT is what Fedora should be all about. What has me cranky is this:

Now, the other major aspect of Thetargos' post is something which I've been moaning about for ages too--I think it is tending to drive away both sets of users--the power users are annoyed about how Fedora is making the decisions for them...

Yep! Dont wrap my OS up in a nice, tight package that forces me to do things the "fedora" way. If I want this then I will just pick a distro that does this that ACTUALLY WORKS!!! Instead you should quit worrying about keeping users from shooting themselves in the foot (to continue an analogy used elsewhere) and just focus on offering something that is easily accessible and tweakable. We NEED things like being able to log in as root or x-zapping whereas distros like Mint do not. Untangle everything, make it modular again, hard as that is with the policies we have now. GDM should not be controlling my system! I should be able to remove ALL Gnome components if I so choose. I dont want to be tied to someone else's idea of what my OS should be.

I dont know, I am probably better off where I am at. I just miss the community being part of the action...

[RahulSundaram]

Hi

"I dont know, I am probably better off where I am at. I just miss the community being part of the action..."

If you want be part of the action, you need to act and contribute.

http://join.fedoraproject.org

Being opinionated by itself doesn't really help much. If this community doesn't fundamentally fit your needs, then yes, you are better off using something else but then you need to let go instead of ranting about everything that you don't personally agree with. That is just wasted energy.

[JN4OldSchool]

Originally Posted by RahulSundaram

Hi

"I dont know, I am probably better off where I am at. I just miss the community being part of the action..."

If you want be part of the action, you need to act and contribute.

http://join.fedoraproject.org

Being opinionated by itself doesn't really help much. If this community doesn't fundamentally fit your needs, then yes, you are better off using something else but then you need to let go instead of ranting about everything that you don't personally agree with. That is just wasted energy.

It is MY energy to waste.

Being opinionated certainly does help, You have many strong Fedora users voicing the same displeasure at the same things. MAYBE YOU SHOULD LISTEN? Why would I want to contribute in a project that does not care about its users? Maybe if I felt my input and time had some kind of value it would be worth the effort to send off some bug reports. I just have not found this.

I have let go Rahul, I have not used Fedora in over a year and a half now. I briefly tested 10 and 11 and played with your Xfce spins. I will also pop in 12 to see what it is about. I keep waiting to be pleasantly surprised. It just isnt happening. This is YOUR problem, not mine. Too bad you do not seem to be interested in the reasons why. Especially if many other long term users feel the same way. But I guess YOU know best, huh? That is your Achilles heel.

I hang around this forum for the conversation. It is my right, last I checked anyway. I think if you read my recent posts you will find that I defend Fedora as much as I criticize it. I dont think it is a matter of "letting go," after all, a quick click of my mouse and I am in another forum of various kinds that I frequent. Some people are addicted to games, I like forums. Sue me....

[RahulSundaram]

Originally Posted by JN4OldSchool

It is MY energy to waste.

Being opinionated certainly does help, You have many strong Fedora users voicing the same displeasure at the same things. MAYBE YOU SHOULD LISTEN? Why would I want to contribute in a project that does not care about its users?

If you believe that the project does not care about its users, you are again, entitled to your opinion but I as a individual certainly do.

You seem to think I am the one making the decisions you don't like. You are wrong about that. Me listening to your rants will change absolutely nothing. I disagree with several of your opinions after carefully considering them anyway.

For example, the idea that it is somehow hypocritical to change a default and document how to flip it back doesn't make sense at all to me because that's what I do very often in the release notes. Not just Fedora but every major distribution does that. Why? Precisely because we care about users even when we disagree with them.

I never questioned your right to spend your time however you want but it is only fair to warn you of the impact it will or will not have. If you want your opinions to have any impact at all, you should communicate them in a way that reaches the developers making those decisions in the first place (believe it or not, it is rarely me). Doing it in a end user forum isn't very useful. Feel free to ignore my view point however. Have fun.

[dragonbite]

I've always seen Fedora as a bleeding-edge kind of distro which has recently added some stability to the mix.

Now I am no Linux guru or gear-head so I welcome some of the stability, and don't last long when things get borked (hey, is it supposed to smoke out of the back there?...). I've liked the idea of CentOS but have been turned off my the older packages.

Why not take Fedora in both direction, sort-of?

The DVD includes all of the bits and pieces of Fedora and allows you to assemble them as you would like. This should be kept for the development/bleeding edge group who may have some projects they are involved in or specific pieces they want to test and work out.

The LiveCD, though, could be made more polished as a desktop group for handing out and using in more general means. There should still be warnings about it being a "development distro" and that there are no guarantees it will work. This one may be more "hand holding" for the user and focus on stability and usuability and may do more for people but for a quick Fedora installation you build off the LiveCD.

Just an idea.

[JN4OldSchool]

Originally Posted by RahulSundaram

If you believe that the project does not care about its users, you are again, entitled to your opinion but I as a individual certainly do.

You seem to think I am the one making the decisions you don't like. You are wrong about that. Me listening to your rants will change absolutely nothing. I disagree with several of your opinions after carefully considering them anyway.

For example, the idea that it is somehow hypocritical to change a default and document how to flip it back doesn't make sense at all to me because that's what I do very often in the release notes. Not just Fedora but every major distribution does that. Why? Precisely because we care about users even when we disagree with them.

I never questioned your right to spend your time however you want but it is only fair to warn you of the impact it will or will not have. If you want your opinions to have any impact at all, you should communicate them in a way that reaches the developers making those decisions in the first place (believe it or not, it is rarely me). Doing it in a end user forum isn't very useful. Feel free to ignore my view point however. Have fun.

I believe that there are many people in this "end user" forum (the place that I feel I once contributed to Fedora BTW) that are voicing the same concerns as I am. If the project cares about our opinion then they should show it. Not just give us a link to bugzilla where we will be promptly ignored.

I do not think you make the decisions, I think you are an important member of the project who certainly has the ear of those that do. However, I dont much give a flip on whether you disagree with me or not. We obviously both have very different visions of what Fedora should be. You are in a position where your vision counts, my vision means nothing. Other than being material for many good rants.

I am not the one who called you a hypocrite. And I understand what you are saying about caring enough about the users to show them how to override the default. Fine. My point is why put it there in the first place? Why not just leave things as they should be and keep everyone happy? Go read William Haller's post, he says the EXACT same things I do. We are not alone. Why do you think all these "log in as root" posts are started in the first place?

My opinion will obviously have no impact on the Fedora project so why bother? You seem to mis-read my motives, I am not trolling here, I really dont care where fedora goes. No, that is not entirely true, I do like Fedora, it was once the best distro out there. I no longer think it is. That is simply MY opinion, obviously MILLIONS of people disagree as they still use Fedora. Great! I am here to discuss where I think Fedora is, among many other topics, with my friends. I am not out to change the world, or even Fedora. Maybe someday I will base a distro off of Fedora, I think it would make a fine base for an end user distro. Better than Ubuntu anyway.

[troyatlarge]

I see things different than you hard working bit head types. I was so sick that we had actually paid for Windows Millennium that I got Red Hat 8 as an act of defiance. It worked for me, a pure windows user who knew how to turn on a computer and click a mouse. I did manage to learn something about the rpm command and the art of loading up dependencies, sometimes for days on end, before I got what I wanted, but that was ok.

Fedora came out and I had no idea of it until version 3 or 4. I decided to switch over on version 5 but it would not work on the computer, at all. I'm sure it would for one of you people, but not for someone like me who only knew the "rpm" command. After 5 came 6, and like 5, I bought its book too and again it would not work (this time it fired up and ran fine until you turned off the computer - then you had to reload the whole thing to get it going again - unless of course, you where like one of you guys).

After that I stopped buying books for awhile until Fedora 10 came out, and that was like a god send to me. I put it on the computer, it fired right up and stayed fired up. Sure, it had problems, but not like what the problems my Red Hat 8 was having after all those years of no updates!

From there I decided that damn, its time to be a help with this effort (which I'm not much of, but still, at least some). I studied the Bash book I have, and did a little programming, and now onto Python (what a cool language - the relation between variables and objects is really well thought out). In time, I will get to C and then I'll be able to really study the actual kernel and actually be of some real help, if I'm lucky. Now all of that comes straight out of the Red Hat image and thinking about what it is they are doing - free ware, the point and intelligence of free ware - the spirit and effort to those ends, not only for the bit heads, but for people to have to use. This is all made possible for me via Fedora advancing, or being friendly to idots, to the point I could get it to run on my box.

Thank you guys, thanks to your efforts. Sure there are disagreements and all that, but from where I sit, I think your doing one hell of a job. Yeah, 11 is not 10, and it really sort of gets to me that I can't seem to get 12 to fire up as I really want to be a part of it (I'm trying again Monday evening) .... but all and all, my kids are being brought up using Fedora, they are learning its philosophy, and they are understanding that the bleeding edge is going to have its times - so you wait for an update or to to fix what just went south - SO WHAT - its better than a dang virus attack and it actually contributes if you can manage to be clear about what exactly went south - plus, you learn - Fedora is for me.

[Thetargos]

I didn't mean to cause a stir...

Dan, I know this is not the place to "complain" and expect things to get "fixed", but rather a community of users where us, users, can share our frustration and opinions, help fellow users, and the like. And that is exactly what I did, vent out my frustration.

I don't mean to be negative to Fedora (though I'm aware my last few posts would seem to indicate otherwise). I simply don't have the time, energy and maybe the will to keep on hunting down problems and bugs and seeking a solution to them... Or to patronize other users and try to convince them to stay on Fedora and give it time.

I'm actually happy that Fedora is intending to become a general purpose Desktop OS (or so it would seem given the last few releases), I even applaud the effort and reckon it has not been without difficulties. But the project has sensitively lost its polish by knowingly putting out buggy releases. Sure, the best way to get software to mature is to let people find the bugs and report them back, but stuff like PulseAudio (which seems to be in a working state now) would have never been released to production in the early days of Fedora without it being a bit more stablized (I'd dare to say that in its current state would have been considered in earlier releases), I'm also aware that given the amount of feedback on it was what made it possible for it to advance in a few releases to where it is now. However, these kinds of decisions, which seem to be more and more frequent in Fedora is what have made the distro feel like a permanent Rawhide, to the point where it would seem as if Fedora could just as well be simply called Rawhide intechangeably.

I don't think that is the intention of the project as such, and that these decisions were made with some reasoning behind them. Same goes for Network Manager (or as some people call it Network Nightmare). These tools are indeed good, but seem to also cut on the users freedom to tweak their systems. NM sure is convenient... For laptop users and mixed wireless/wired networks, for wired networks on desktop computers, though... It is not such a good idea (IMHO). Maybe users shoulde be given the option to use it or not in the First Run system configuration (there are many ways to get it right, but certainly forcing things down people's throats is not the way).

I know I could point these things out to the right people using the right channels, and I eventually intend to do it, however I also want other users to know about these issues and if Fedora is indeed striving to become a testing deskop system, that should be part of the message in the main page of the project, which doesn't seem to be that way.

[RahulSundaram]

Hi,

The intention is described in detail at

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview

You can make up your own minds. We don't have space in the front page for detailed descriptions however. So that'ts not going to be done.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by Thetargos

... I didn't mean to cause a stir...

Road apples!

A stir was exactly what you wanted. And that's what you got. Once in a while a little venting does some good, though. Note that I did not say cut and paste. <....>

But on the subject, I have to admit to being a little amazed at two of the most bizarre disconnects I've seen in a while.

The first being the disability of the average fedora user to either read or grasp the meaning of the clear and announced goals and documentation of the fedora project. That, coupled with a deliberate misunderstanding -- approaching abject denial -- of what the distro is, in favor of what they want it to be, frequently result in misplaced anger. Fedora is not RHEL! Nor will it ever be. These are two different products, with two different goals. Pardon me for shouting ... but, FEDORA IS NOT INTENDED FOR AN ENTERPRISE/DAILY USE ENVIRONMENT! It is experimental, it has a murderously fast release schedule, the updates break things, and sometimes the door panels are held on with duck tape when it's released. No apologies are offered. Nor does the project feel there should be.

Which brings me to the second stunning disconnect.

Whereas I fully understand and agree with the concept of "sticking to your guns," the general clamour for a middle ground release, one designed to bridge the gap between fedora and RHEL, has been just a bit deafening. (I will deliberately ignore the very real existence of CentOS here. <...> ) Yet ... such an idea continues to be looked upon and then dismissed with a disdain bordering on contempt.

Bottom line? History and the market place are inexorably unforgiving of those who abuse volunteers, and the blunt reality here is, both the developers and the project itself, and the end users of the product, are all made up of volunteers.

Once in a while, both sides tend to remind me of a six year old kid with his fingers jammed into is ears, and his eyes squeezed shut, saying, "Lalalalalalalalalala, I can't hear you! Lalalalalalalala!" <....>