A couple of general Fedora questions

jordanwb · #1 17th August 2008, 02:48 AM

Hello,

I've tried Gentoo, Arch, Debian and Ubuntu and none of those really grew on me, so I'm considering Fedora. So I have a couple of gernel Fedora questions:

When I do install Fedora, do I get a command line or a preinstalled desktop?

If I get a command line how do I go about installing, say Xorg?

Is there somewhere a list of all available packages? Like http://gentoo-portage.com

I read that Fedora 10 is now Alpha. Is it worth waiting for version 10? If so how long is it till 10 comes out?

What desktop environment is this ?

What is the difference between the DVD and CD Install disks? (Besides size)

Thanks.

PatMcLJr · #2 17th August 2008, 03:18 AM

DE
see above
yum something or rpm something, just man yum and man rpm it will show you
then install yumex and now you can see them in a list, you might want to look up livna too
fedora is ever changing, why wait, soon 11 will on the horizon if not already
beats me, looks like a doctored up ubuntu gnome
I think the difference is more disks, more of a difference between the 386 and 64 bit versions, you might want to stick with the 386 versions and try a LiveCD it's a good way to see what fedora is like without installing it.

You're welcome,
Pat Jr.

scottro · #3 17th August 2008, 03:21 AM

Of all of them, I think that the one you'll find most similar is Ubuntu.

Preinstalled desktop.
You'll get a preinstalled desktop, rather similar to Ubuntu's---they both use Gnome by default.

If not, how to install.
Since you get the preinstalled desktop, I guess the second question isn't applicable.

List of packages
3. Right now, there's a bit of server trouble, hopefully fixed soon, but the easiest way, once it's installed, to get a list of packages is to use one of the GUI package managers, such as yumx. There's probably a list of packages somewhere, but I've never looked. (It's a matter of, I had it installed, and could then use tools at my disposal to check if a package was available or not.

Is it worth waiting for F10. There don't seem to be major differences save to those with AR5007EG wireless cards, where Fedora 10's kernel will support it more or less out of the box. However, keep in mind that in many ways, Fedora is a testing distro, and new releases tend to have some major bugs that weren't caught. I'm not sure when the official release date is, but it usually gets pushed back a bit.

There are live CDs of both F9 and F8, and you could try one of them to get a feel for it, and see if you think you'll like it or not.

Not sure about what desktop environment that is. (I use fluxbox myself, so I'm not really up on the fancier ones.)

The DVD will contain the full installation. This would be indentical to the series of CDs if they still offer that, that is, CDs 1-7 or whatever it is. If you're talking about the single live CDs--I'm not sure the DVD is live, I suspect it isn't and the live CDs have far fewer programs than will the DVD. So, size does matter.

That being said, you can probably install one of the CDs and just install the other things you need afterwards.

jordanwb · #4 17th August 2008, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro

Of all of them, I think that the one you'll find most similar is Ubuntu.

Preinstalled desktop.
You'll get a preinstalled desktop, rather similar to Ubuntu's---they both use Gnome by default.

So when you mean that Fedora installs Gnome by default, does that mean that I can choose what DE I want somewhere in the installer? Or am I interpreting it wrong?

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro

The DVD will contain the full installation. This would be indentical to the series of CDs if they still offer that, that is, CDs 1-7 or whatever it is. If you're talking about the single live CDs--I'm not sure the DVD is live, I suspect it isn't and the live CDs have far fewer programs than will the DVD. So, size does matter.

That being said, you can probably install one of the CDs and just install the other things you need afterwards.

So the only difference is that the DVD has more packages? Also there's 6 Install CD's.

scottro · #5 17th August 2008, 02:07 PM

No, you are correct. You could choose to not install Gnome and install KDE (and there are possibly a few others avaiable at installation, I'm not sure.) Unfortunately, so much of Fedora is tied to Gnome that I usually wind up installing it anyway, as otherwise, things tend to not work for no obvious reason. It's gotten to the point where I find it's not worth my time to try to fix it--so I (personally) install gnome, choose to boot to runlevel 3 (text mode) and install fluxbox afterwards.

By default, Fedora will boot into runlevel 5, graphic mode. So if you choose to not install gnome, it's still going to look for the gdm (Gnome Display Manager). I'm not even sure which script does that, but if you, for example, install KDE and not Gnome, you *might* (this is a guess, not tested) get an error upon boot that it can't find GDM so it will go into console mode. It's possible that if you install KDE without Gnome that the scripts point to the KDM (KDE Display Manager) instead though--I really don't know.

Upon booting to GDM, though there's a a button at the bottom where you can choose your session. It should list all avaiable desktops. (This is just like Ubuntu's, though the appearance may be different.) At that point, if you choose a different one, it will ask do you want to make the new one the default.

As for 6 CDs vs. 1 DVD, in that case, no there is no difference. I wasn't sure if you were referring to a 6 CD set or a single live CD.

jordanwb · #6 17th August 2008, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro

Unfortunately, so much of Fedora is tied to Gnome that I usually wind up installing it anyway, as otherwise, things tend to not work for no obvious reason.

Well I don't dislike Gnome but I prefer KDE. I just finished downloaded the LiveCD of Fedora with KDE, so once I'm finished downloading the install DVD I'll give the CD a shot.