Initial impressions of FC3T1

[rkl]

Finally got around to burning the DVD ISO image of FC3T1 and installing it on my standard test partition. Here's some quick thoughts for folks out there:

* DVD ISO confusingly has a volume name of "FC-2 i386", because F3CT1 is versioned (yes, also confusingly) as "2.90". It's especially bewildering when you do a media check and it says "Checking Fedora Core 2 DVD"

* Installer's not changed much, except for the "Firewall Configuration" section where SELinux is enabled by default. Sadly, the help text down the left isn't "enabled" to actually describe what SELinux does, so I guess that'll have to wait for FC3T2. The help text also hasn't been adjusted to reflect the changed firewall options either. Needless to say, I installed with SELinux disabled - I might be braver with FC3T2 and try an enabled install for that release.

* Didn't like them using "hiddenmenu" in /etc/grub.conf by default - it gives a much less professional/pretty impression to grub if you ask me. I took it out straight away - this is something they should revert back, IMHO.

* Didn't seem to get prompted for monitor/X settings until the first reboot and even then, it wouldn't let me go above 800x600 (I have an Nvidia Geforce 4 MX 460, which is happy at 1280x1024). Had to copy my xorg.conf from FC2 and install the Nvidia 3D drivers to fix that problem.

* Still way too many services enabled for a "desktop" or "workstation" config. "chkconfig --list | grep on" comes back with *32* of them, half of which aren't really needed.

* openmotif2.1 seems to have quietly been dropped from the FC3T1 release (FC3T1 ships only with 2.2.X). This means that RealPlayer9 RPM floating around the Net can't be easily installed (yes, I guess I could install FC2's openmotif2.1 RPM and cross my fingers...). I say "quietly", BTW, because the Release Notes make no mention of this omission at all.

* Sadly, Firefox didn't make it into FC3T1 in time. It desperately needs to be in there, along with Thunderbird, which is also missing. At least it does ship with Mozilla 1.7, but FC3 final is going to beautifully time with the release of Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0, so really they have to be in the FC3 test releases ASAP. One hopes, it will be the default "Web browser" for FC3 Final - a quick hack to htmlview is all that's needed really.

* OK, where's OpenOffice 1.1.2 ?!! Can't believe FC3T1 still ships with 1.1.1

* Update: I spotted this but thought I was wrong (maybe I hadn't checked "Kernel Development"? But it turns out I had...) - "kernel-sourcecode" is not installed, even if "Kernel Development" is selected - someone else confirmed this, so I wasn't dreaming...

Initial impression conclusion: Not different enough from FC2 to warrant an upgrade. Some omissions and non-updates mean that the only "advance" here is the move to kernel 2.6.7, which for most people won't be that important. In other words, exactly as I predicted before FC3T1 was released - all the major updates were done for FC2 and this is just a minor revision (should be called FC2.1 if you ask me!).

Things left for me to check out:

* Wireless access with my Netgear MA311GE card on my second PC. Hoping it will be supported out of the box, rather than having to fiddle getting wlan-ng working.

* Updates from the development tree via "yum update" - yep, there's a shedload of them downloading right now in a terminal window. Let's hope for no breakage... Update: Yep, some things broke after a dev update - worst was iptables, which now segmentation faults when opening a port for NTP. Serves me right for being on the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge

[Picomp314]

i think i am still gonna install onto my old window's partition; i have decided that windows needs to die now since it hasn't run for 8 months and is only wasting 15 GB of my space

feature set for Fc3T1 doesn't look to be too impressive, but i will bug test i guess...

[Bana]

I think the main item of FC3 is SElinux

[Inola]

* OK, where's OpenOffice 1.1.2 ?!! Can't believe FC3T1 still ships with 1.1.1

It's only the first TEST release... not the SHIPPING release. Most of the GNOME packages are 2.6, but I have a strange feeling, that it won't be shipped, dunno why, maybe because it's 3 months till the final release?

[fjleal]

How about Gnome 2.8?

[xsos]

yeah, how about gnome 2.8. Could you guys give a screenshoot of gnome 2.8 in this forum , if moderator dont mine. Thanks

[Picomp314]

i just installed FC3T1 over windows
here is the out of the box look

[Dragoran]

How about Gnome 2.8?

Gnome 2.8 isn't realsed yet . It will be in FC3 Final (read the Realse Notes )

[xsos]

Picomp314 Thanks for the screenshoot, from the interface i seem look that fedora core 3 has same interface with core 2.
and for Dragoran thanks for the info.

[Ug]

Well I never thought they'd keep the same look between FC2 and FC3T1.

</sarcasm>

[rkl]

It's only the first TEST release... not the SHIPPING release.

So you're seriously suggesting that the FC team should hold back on updating OpenOffice until the FC3 final comes out? Remember that 1.1.2 was released on 28th May, some 6 weeks before FC3T1's release on 13th July, which - considering it's such an important package (only second to the Web browser, IMHO) - should have been enough time to beat the FC3T1 freeze.

Even if it missed that FC3T1 freeze deadline, 1.1.2 really should be in FC3T2 and yet the development tree alarmngly shows that it's still 1.1.1 cooking in there (last rebuild on 6th July). I'll be very disappointed if it's in neither FC3T2 nor FC3T3...

[crackers]

Remember, the RH engineers have to tweak and build and package and test from the source code, for each and every package that's on the DVD/CDs - and that takes time and scheduling. It's not quite as simple as you would make it sound. Building a full-blown distro like this is a very complicated process and 6 weeks is, in the grand scheme of things, an awfully short time span.

If it doesn't make it, despite your "alarm," you can always install it yourself, right?

[BrEakbEaTs]

TEST 1 doesnt seem like much, Hope TEST 2 is a bigger step. Im going to stick with FC2 for now, but I still have an excited feel about Core 3...
To me Fedora is cutting edge linux for Desktops, cant help but love it.

[crackers]

You're not all that likely to see huge differences in the packages provided. With the "test" releases, RH/Fedora is going for stability with what they've got, not absolute bleeding edge. Heck, their extremely agressive release schedule is pretty durn amazing as it is! (Making a stable distro ain't rocket science, but it's just as hard...)

And Fedora is not "cutting edge" - it's actually back from that, just a bit. You want "cutting edge," use Debian unstable!

[BrEakbEaTs]

I cant beleave you said the "D" word!!!