First, allow me to say that I have only been using Linux for about 5 months, so I’m a comparative newbie to many in the Linux world. I don’t make presumptions to know everything. With that in mind, this review is not geared toward the Linux veteran, but for people who have more curiosity than experience with Linux.
First some hardware specs:
Motherboard: MSI “865 Neo2-PFS (Platinum Edition)” i865PE Chipset
Processor: Intel Celeron 2.0GHz (Yes I know it’s lame. I care not.)
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9500 Pro
RAM: 1024MB Kingston PC2700
Sound Card: Soundblaster Live 5.1
Hard Disks: 120GB WD “Special Edition” IDE; 40GB Seagate IDE
Optical Drives: Lite-on DVD-ROM; Sony CD-RW
Mouse: Logitech MX300 (USB)
My brief experience with Linux so far centers mainly around Fedora Core 1. Naturally, I was excited to try FC2 (Tettnang). I downloaded the 4GB DVD iso using BitTorrent, and burned it on my Mac. From there, I did a clean install of FC2. The slick, python-based Anaconda installer is very similar to FC1, and in my opinion is easier than a Windows XP install. I chose a slightly modified “Desktop” install, which took roughly 20 minutes to complete on my system. The installer correctly identified ALL of my hardware, and upon first boot I had full networking, sound, and video. My 3-button mouse had full functionality as well. The only problem is that I do not yet have full 3D-acceleration. FC2 has dropped XFree86 in favor of X.org, and as far as I know ATI has not yet released a driver that will support X.org. If I’m wrong, let me know.
Grub is the default bootloader for FC2, and during the installation it correctly identified that I also had a Windows installation and allowed me to painlessly set up a dual-boot. Somewhat humorously, it labeled the Windows partition as “Other”, but it was simple to relabel it using the “Edit” button.
Some highlights of FC2 include kernel 2.6.5, Gnome 2.6, KDE 3.2.2, Mozilla 1.6, and the GIMP 2.0. The default desktop is Gnome, which is fine with me. If you’ve never used it, Gnome 2.6 takes some getting used to. To explain, Nautilus, the file manager, is now “spatial”, focusing more on drag & drop and productivity. In a nutshell, each folder opens a new window, and files open in their respective applications rather than opening within the file manager. At first, I disliked this “spatial” UI, citing that it felt too much like Mac OS 9/Win95 for me. But, it is slowly growing on me. The best part is that switching back to the older “browser-styled” navigation scheme is easy. Simply fire up GConf (Fedora -> System Tools -> Configuration Editor) and browse to /apps/nautilus/preferences. Now check “always_use_browser”. Voila, you are now back to the old style.
/* If you had any windows open, you may have to re-log in to Gnome for the changes to take effect. Also, you can fire up GConf at the terminal by typing $ gconf-editor */
One of the first things I do on any Linux install is add my user name to the /etc/sudoers file. It’s a good idea to do this, because then you can execute the sudo command to make changes outside your home directory instead of running as root in the terminal. Coming from an OS X background, this makes sense to me. Fire up your favorite editor (nano in my case) and proceed as follows:
$ su
[enter your root password]
# nano -w /etc/sudoers
[now under “User privilege specification”, you should see root ALL=(ALL) ALL. In my case I’ll add brian ALL=(ALL) ALL. Substitute your user name for mine.]
[press ctrl+x to exit nano]
[press y then enter to save changes]
# exit
Now when you execute a command that requires root privileges, simply add sudo in front of it and give it your user password instead of the root password.
There are at least three ways to update software packages on FC2. The obvious one is up2date, which notifies you of updated packages by changing the blue check in the bottom right of the “tray” into a red exclamation mark. A less obvious, but more powerful method of updating is through yum. Open a terminal, and type:
$ sudo yum update
[enter your user password]
$ sudo yum upgrade
Voila, your system is up to date. You should also be aware that a port of Debian’s apt is also available for Fedora. One of the first things I do on a Fedora install is download and install apt.
Download the rpm, and install it with:
$ sudo rpm -Uvh apt-[package-name].rpm
Once it’s installed, type:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install synaptic
Synaptic is a GUI frontend for apt that makes installing software a cinch. Both yum and apt automatically handle dependencies, helping to eliminate the dreaded “RPM Hell”. From what I’ve read, up2date is slowly being phased out in favor of yum or apt.
For legal reasons, FC2 doesn’t come with built-in MP3 support. However, this is easily remedied with synaptic (Fedora -> System Tools -> Synaptic Package Manager). Or type:
$ sudo synaptic
Use synaptic to browse the available packages, and install xmms-mp3 as seen in the picture. You now have mp3 support.
I like to use my computer as an FTP server,so I set one up using vsftpd. I’ve had no crashes or stability problems. One of my biggest pet peeves about FC1 was that I would occasionally have to activate my NIC (eth0) manually after a reboot. I’m pleased to say that I have not had that problem with FC2.
Conclusion:
Positives: FC2 is a stable, reliable, professional distro that will only improve in coming months. There’s a plethora of help available on the web, and it’s easy to find support because it’s one of the more popular distros. I appreciate having the power of apt/synaptic available as well. FC2 feels noticeably faster than FC1, due in part to the nature of the 2.6 kernel. I’ve tried a lot of Linux distros, and for some reason I keep coming back to Fedora. Perhaps I’m just partial to the Bluecurve theme.
Negatives: FC2 does not have as much out of the box support and user-friendliness as other distros, such as Mandrake 10 Official. One has to do more installing and configuring of extra packages, such as the Flash player, and obtaining mp3/java support/3D acceleration. Thankfully, none of this is too difficult. Like its predecessors, FC2 is still only optimized for i386. Perhaps I’m out of line here, but who still uses 386s? More importantly, who would attempt to run kernel 2.6 and the latest KDE/Gnome on a 386? Even though FC2 is noticeably faster than FC1, I would really like to see FC2 optimized for at least i586!
Habibbijan’s recommendation and rating:
FC2 is a fine workhorse of a distro that won’t appeal too much to the Arch/Gentoo/Slackware crowd, but is stable and flexible nonetheless. However, unless you enjoy growing pains, wait a month or two to allow it to mature a bit before installing it. 8.5 out of 10.
Brian Bondari
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
FC2 works great on my notebook, I have DVD, MP3, and I can download/upload with my digital camera (Powershot A70) using gphoto2, and than there is GIMP. OpenOffice isn’t bad either. I had a problem with FC2 on my desktop however, CD files would magically dissapear. This is the first Linux system that I’ve been able to get working great on my notebook, so I erased WindowsXP and I don’t use any Microsoft products anymore!
I know I’m going to regret using FC2 as test server for a filtering proxy server at work.
It’ll only be there for a few weeks while we evaluate it as a replacement for our ISA server. I was gonna use Gentoo (which I use primarily at home) or Debian (for stability), but due to the weirdness of the councils network I couldn’t get past the main proxy to download packages… Long story I’m afriad.
Anyway, I can vouch for the setup – it was really easy (compared to the 5 Gentoo installs I’ve done in my time.
FC2 has a bug where it will wipe out your Windows partition and MBR and leave you unable to boot into XP even if you run XP’s repair tools. Basically the kernel is reporting the wrong drive parameters and things get confused. If you dual boot I strongely suggest you backup your disk or avoid FC2 right now. To be fair not everyone gets hit by this bug but a LOT of people have and they aren’t too happy about it.
Another problem is many people with Yenta PCMCIA hardware don’t start on boot. And since your using a Laptop you shold known that unlike FC1 Synaptics touchpads aren’t working correctly for some people either. Oh and several people’s laptop screens on Dell’s go black and don’t work. Lastly Nvidia drivers don’t work.
When I saw this review I didn’t know if I was going to say anything but I guess I will. Compared to FC1 this release just seems buggy. I don’t know if I’d call this a “Red Hat 6.0” release but its disapointing to say the least that there are so many problems with it. I eagerly downloaded both the DVD and CD iso’s and was planning on installing it this weekend but I’m not. But being that I have a Dell Inspiron 4000 there is just no way this release has a chance of working correclty. I can deal with one or two problems but not every major feature being broken. I mean didn they just not test this release with common hardware? Many people ever reported regressions from the Test versions. That is NOT supposed to happen.
Anyway I’m usually a big Red Hat fan. I always stop and post positive things about Red Hat/Fedora when I see someone bashing them. They’ve just done too much for OSS for me to let that type of talk go unanswered. But in the case of FC2 I won’t be speaking up. Note, that’s its very likely that you may install FC2 and have it work perfectly. I hope that’ s the case. But personally I’m sitting this release out.
I’m finally Microsoft free, now that FC2 works great on my notebook. I’ll never be using Microsoft products again. So why would I go backwards to XP dude?
Personally, I’ve had no such problems dualbooting FC2 and WinXP. Anaconda reported that there was a problem aligning the partitions, but I haven’t had any problems booting XP, FC2, or any other Linux distro installed on my system.
I am running Fedora 1.92, and it is very unstable. This distro, at least the bleeding edge, is best left to testers or extreme masochist fanatics. With that said though, Fedora is one of the easiest *nices I have ever used. Hardly any problems setting up my printer or my adsl connection, just a line or two of answers and you will be up and running.
By the way before anyone brings up Apple/Microsoft, please spare us all and find betterways to spend your weekend.
I have a dual boot XP/FC1 laptop and I just installed FC2 as a fresh copy, not an upgrade. Install was fine and everything works including my XP install. Got everything installed I needed from freshrpms.net, but only have 2 major issues.
One, ever since FC2 test1, the pcmcia drivers have failed to detect properly. If you edit the /etc/init.d/pcmcia file as described in bugzilla to fix this problem it works. Why hasn’t this been fixed!!! It existed in test 1,2 and 3, and many people have struggled with it, yet if doesn’t get included in the final release???
Two, can’t get nvidia drivers working! The nvidia driver compiles properly but freezes my machine upon booting xorg. Does anyone know if xorg supports the nvidia drivers?
Otherwise everthing works pretty good. I plan on writing a guideline to add-ons for FC2 after I get mine finished and stable. If anyone know how to get nvidia drivers working, please email me! It’s a little buggy still, but it’s cutting edge, kernel 2.6, KDE 3.2.2 and Gnome 2.6 all look very promising, with a few bug fixes, it could be great.
Windows partition goes f***ed up.
Yes, there are some cases salvations are on fedoraforum
NVidia doesn’t work:) As with any kernel up from 2.6.5. 4KSTACKS. Someone can still build patched kernel, but personaly I think it’s a positive move that’ll finally made NVidia fix the BUG.
Synaptic touchpad: GRUB parameter “linux psmouse.proto=imps” will solve all your troubles.
As for sitting out. I won’t, I will just wait a little amonth or two, just as with any other distro that came out. Let others test the bugs.
1) Nvidia probably doesn’t work because the hardware specs are not open, so Linux developers can’t write any drivers.
2) Dell does not support Linux, and now Linux doesn’t support Dell. I have a compaq notebook and it works great with FC2, the best system I’ve ever had, even my Canon digital camera works with gphoto2, and DVD with Mplayer.
3) If FC2 crashes XP partitions, that’s just another payback, for all the years that Microsoft installed over the MBR.
Security concerns about sudo aside (and it *can* be a security enhancement if used correctly), if you are going to be using sudo, the recommended way to edit the /etc/sudoers file is to use the visudo command as root. visudo provides some protection against faulty editing.
How long will Red Hat provide security updates for Fedora Core 1? On the Fedora site Red Hat mentions that the “Update Lifetime” is “2-3 months after next release”. So is every FC1 user forced to upgrade within that time frame? I believe that SUSE provides at least 2 years of security updates for each version, but i could be wrong about that.
All distribution based on Linux 2.6 have this issue (Mandrake, SuSE, …) :
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html
– “Reports are from users of Mandrake 10, SUSE 9.1 and Fedora 2”
I noticed several reports of Nvidia drivers not working. I don’t beleive this is an issue with the X.org server because they work fine with that on my gentoo box. But I’m also using a 2.4 kernel.
I installed FC2 on a second hard-drive and I thought it was weird (annoying) that Grub didn’t include a boot option for my existing Linux installation on the first hard-drive.
Not exactly a deal breaker, but I don’t like having my main O/S unavailable to me after an install.
(I know … I could have elected not to install a boot loader, and could have then booted back into my main Linux install and then added an option to Grub/LILO, and then rebooted again to go to FC2 … but I personally don’t think that should be necessary.)
Nvidia doesn’t work with linux >= 2.6.6-rc3. FC2 use 2.6.6-rc3-bk3 with 4KSTACK enabled :
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.6
– “At present 4k stacks are selectable in config. When the feature has settled in we should remove the 8k option. This will break the nvidia modules. But Fedora uses 4k stacks so a new nvidia driver is expected soon.”
http://www.fedoralegacy.org/
Read this. Or you’ll still be low level troll, providing same thing over and over again. And please read FAQ and About.
The driver from ATI works fine in FC2, but must be patched to give 3d accelleration…
Download the driver from http://www.ati.com, then get these patches
http://rambo.its.tudelft.nl/~ewald/patches/fglrx-3.7.6-fedora.patch
http://www.kaseorg.com/fglrx-3.7.6-regparm.patch
As root, install ati driver, eg
rpm -i –force fglrx-4.3.0-3.7.6.i386.rpm
cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/
patch -p1 -i /download/fglrx-3.7.6-fedora.patch
patch -p1 -i /download/fglrx-3.7.6-regparm.patch
chmod 777 make.sh
./make.sh
cd ..
chmod 777 make_install.sh
./make_install.sh
The xorg.conf entry for the card can be copied from an old XF86Config-4
This is due to the 4k stacks option. The next release of
the Gfx drivers from Nvidia and Ati should work. My
understanding is that Fedora c2 and Suse 9.1 use the 8k
stacks. I am running a Gforce 4 MX WITH 3D ok
Ive tried the nvidia drivers in Suse 9.1 Pro. They work fine. AFAIK Fedora 2 is the only distro that has the 4K stack problem.
FC2 use a 4k stack.
Apologizes I am wrong. FC2 Dose indeed use 4k stacks. I
on Suse 9.1 Pro
I made an upgrade from FC1 to FC2 and the Windows 2000 partition wasn’t touched, no problems with that. But, my Realtek RTL 8029 network adapter (made by Encore) didn’t work and I had to put a Realtek RTL 8139 in it’s place, I’m having problems with the sound and the ADSL connection is not starting during the boot, I have to start it after login in.
Thank you for the link. Although i don’t understand why you immediately feel the need to call me a “low level troll”. You are really promoting Linux this way aren’t you? If i were new to Linux i probably would go back to Windows right now.
Don’t know about others. But there was a funny bug in FC1 with ADSL on boot. Delete connection you have and enter ppp0 for provider name.
One of my friends had the same problem and it was solved like this. If it doesn’t work on FC2.
If you feel offended, well I apologize.
But you’ve taken wrong topic. All 31337 are bashing the same thing (this one is second to the one that RH left out desktop bussines), not knowing the fact. It’s a Pretenderle and 31337 (and imaginative as Ken Brown) zealotry and FUD.
Personaly, I never felt good with OS as I do with Fedora.
Nvidia probably doesn’t work because the hardware specs are not open, so Linux developers can’t write any drivers.
Have you been living under a rock? Nvidia has made, and still does make, very good drivers for Linux.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-5336.html
Dell does not support Linux, and now Linux doesn’t support Dell.
Total misinformation. Dell’s website doesn’t agree with you at all.
http://linux.dell.com/
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/alliances/en/all…
“Nvidia doesn’t work with linux >= 2.6.6-rc3”
Working fine with 2.6.6 final here. You just have to disable 4K stacks and things go smoothly.
Dell not only supports Linux, it sells it and Nvidia has publish drivers for awhile now.
Please don’t misinform people. If you don’t know, don’t act like you do and misdirect others. Dell supporting Linux and Nvidia publishing drivers is common knowledge and a simple google search could have verified that! Let’s be somewhat responsible with our comments as others use them as a source of help. Including myself. 😉
How do you disable 4Kstacks and is there a disadvantage to doing so? If you could post that here that would be great! If its to long or complicated, please email me directly so I can implement it and note it in the article I’m writing. Thanks 😉
I really hope FC2 doesn’t look like the screenshots.. so, why did he change the theme when he was trying to show how FC2 looks like?
3) If FC2 crashes XP partitions, that’s just another payback, for all the years that Microsoft installed over the MBR.
I believe it to be shortsighted on the part of the moderators to let this comment slide. All this does is give the user another needless headache, and does not inconveience Microsoft in the least (meaning that refering to it as “payback” is absolutely absurd, as only the poor user suffers).
But what do you care Anonymous? It’s me posting and therefore what I say must be a troll right?
.. know if Wide Open Mag will ship FC2 included now that the Mag subscription is free?
cd3 of the fedora core 2 (downloaded from official mirrors, first by torrent then by ftp), keeps failing.
first the install failed on installing kernel sources from cd3, then a media check failed. redowloading, using different mirrors, again keeps failing media check.
and yes, i did check the md5 sums before all of these…
i’ve seen a few others complain about this, and with fc1 … i’ve had no problem installing gentoo, debian, mdk, solaris x86, freebsd 5 on the same hardware… and recently too.
hmmmm
stock apt-getted 2.6.6 kernel on debian sid has no problem with the nvidia drivers
Add CONFIG_4KSTACK (as FC2 does) to your kernel and try again.
I am running Fedora 1.92, and it is very unstable. This distro, at least the bleeding edge, is best left to testers or extreme masochist fanatics.
Umm. That’s the test realeas. ofcourse it will have bugs, that’s why it’s called a test release.
Why are there so many people who can’t see the difference between a test release and a final release?
I am running FC 1.92 (recently downloaded the released version of FC 2 but ran out of RW CD’s to burn it onto.
and I am pretty sure that when I boot it identifies the kernel as i686, which would be more or less correct for my dual PIII’s. I think the apps may have been compiled for i386 compatibility, but perhaps there are kernels on the CD that are more optimized? I don’t know, and I haven’t looked. Also, it feels like it runs better on my PIII’s than on my dual 2600+ MPs… Anyway, I also found FC 1.92 to be pretty stable. I am looking forward to installing the FC2 final version.
re: Audun… I was thinking the exact same thing. Did they change the default theme?!
Mike
Like its predecessors, FC2 is still only optimized for i386. Perhaps I’m out of line here, but who still uses 386s? More importantly, who would attempt to run kernel 2.6 and the latest KDE/Gnome on a 386? Even though FC2 is noticeably faster than FC1, I would really like to see FC2 optimized for at least i586!
Like others before you, you are incorrect when saying this. I once used src.rpm from the Fedora discs. When it compiled by default it used not only optimisations for i386 but also optimisations for architectures above it.
I don’t know the technical details of compilation, but I understand that they optimise it for newer architecture while still creating a binary that can be used on i386.
Does that make sense?
Some real weirdness in FC1 *&* 2 intall. I cannot for the life of me get the install to run properly on my box with any sort of Grub configuration other than single OS (Fedora) w/o some sort of intervention. I am trying to install Fedora 2 on a box that also contains two other installs (Debian on Reiser and FreeBSD). The install process will just *not* finish and seems to hang when installing the bootloader. You are, of course, forced to reboot. When you reboot the machine, the post-install insn’t quite done so a bunch of stuff (like X configs) are missing.
In addition, the install disk doesn’t support lilo. Even when the bootloader config asks for “other boot loader”, it offers grub and none. (Lilo isn’t installed by default. Even when you install Lilo and then run the boot disk (upgrade) config it doesn’t add lilo to the roster.
Some distributions have other problem: i686 optimisation. And I can’t run this on my old k6-2 450Mhz box. So I prefer i386.
I don’t know the technical details of compilation, but I understand that they optimise it for newer architecture while still creating a binary that can be used on i386.
Does that make sense?
Not really. I don’t see how it’s possible to optimize for something higher than a 386 and still be compatible with a 386. It just doesn’t make sense. Where did you hear this?
Some distributions have other problem: i686 optimisation. And I can’t run this on my old k6-2 450Mhz box. So I prefer i386.
Seems like nobody reads the release notes, RedHat 9, FC1 and FC2 ARE optimized for i686.
optimization: -march=i386 -mcpu=i686 options make binaries using only i386 compatible instructions with ordering and timing optimized for i686 machines. Some packages (kernel, glibc) are build multiple times, with -march=i586 and -march=i686. This is in release notes!
Also most people don’t know, but 686 cpus are more efective at executing 386 optimized than 586 optimized binaries.
nvidia drivers: you are talking about different thing (nvidia makes binary linux drivers) than the anonymous (nvidia publishes specifications). The fact is, that not everyone can use nvidia drivers. I would love to have 3d acceleration on my pb12 with FX Go5200, but I can’t – and for similar reason, nvidia drivers don’t work with FC2.
What this optimisation does is to optimise binaries for the i686 for example, whilst only making use of i386 level instructions. So it will not use some new features of the x86 instruction sets.
There are two ways to target an cpu type. The first is -mcpu, which targets a specific processor but makes binaries useable on an i386, and hence anything above it. (i586, i686, i486). The other way is -march, which targets a specific cpu using only that cpu’s instructions set. These binaries are not protable to lower architectures. So i586 should not run on a 386 for example.
So it makes sense to optimise for say i686 whilst making the binary compatible with an i386 processor.
Red Hat uses i686 instruction ordering but not any new i686 instructions. This means that it orders instructions in such a way that it will run faster on i686 machines, and (possibly) slower on earlier architectures.
For the kernel and glibc (the things that really matter) it uses both i686 instruction ordering and new i686 instructions (You will notice that the kernel and glibc comes in many different architecture packages).
Everyone with a bit of clue on this subject, as opposed to 31337 Gentoo users, will tell you that the difference when using new instructions on every single other application is miniscule.
“Everyone with a bit of clue on this subject, as opposed to 31337 Gentoo users, will tell you that the difference when using new instructions on every single other application is miniscule.”
>>>>>>>
Sure, 17% on oggenc is usually miniscule. But three weeks ago when I reripped my CD collection to ogg-vorbis I was glad I compiled the ogg-vorbis stack with more than Fedora does.
I have been using Redhat 9 at work for past 2 year during that time I never had any virus issue like windows users and my uptime some times has beeen for 6 months. I just did a clean install of FC2 and I am please by the performance gain. I have not run into any install issue . The install is smooth as silk. I have not seen any issue so far for the past 3 days. I do all my task at work in linux and development in java with Eclipse is sweet . FC2 is my desktop for years to come.
I installed it initially on a PC with a Windows partition and it messed up my MBR, then I installed it on a PC with Slackware (my default) and I’ll admit even though I am not a fan of Redhat/Fedora, it is a good solid distro.
To restart Nautilus, just open a xterm, type xkill and klick on your desktop.
You told me “Delete connection you have and enter ppp0 for provider name.”. I did that and now it’s OK. The adsl-start command wasn’t working with the provider name, but with ppp0 it works. Thanks!
Now my problem is the message: “Error while initializing the sound driver. device /dev/dsp can’t be opened (No such device) The sound server will continue, using the null output device”. The C-Media Eletronics Inc CM8738 is detected, but no sound is produced!
I can’t stand reviews where the reviewer replaces otherwise well designed user interfaces with horrible toy-themes, it makes the product look bad in the screenshots, it’s not fair.
Even well designed 3rd party themes/skins should be avoided in reviews, the screenshots should show the product as it was originally intended.
So you say that you use vsftpd; just want to add my $2e-2. I use vsftpd on production systems in a University environment and have (so far…touch wood) not been owned. It has a very sensible set of defaults and an only marginally-too-permissive example configuration file. I use it for distributing Windows Updates, because I don’t expect the Microsoft SUS to survive for long enough. It works. It’s good. More people should use it.
” I use vsftpd on production systems in a University environment and have (so far…touch wood) not been owned.”
i second that. its very well written code and beats proftpd and stuff anyday
Downloaded and installed FC2 on my Sony Vaio PCG-F650 laptop. I am very impressed with its speed. The out of the box experience is a little rough so far, as it failed to correctly setup two items that windows xp and many other older and newer linux distros were able to. My Yamaha DSP and my Linksys USB network adapter. Not a good start in my book. A quick fix for the sound is in order, but I haven’t looked for the drivers for my network adapter yet. My install was a pretty large one, but it is still very quick. Still more tinkering with it on my laptop is needed to give it a final word on my end.
I am referring to Gnome.
Install went very smoothly and I haven’t suffered from the XP boot bug at all. Fedora found and installed all my hardware apart from my winmodem which I need drivers for (and currently no drivers for 2.6 kernels, thanks Intel…).
However I’m still rather dissapointed about no default MP3 or video playback which meant I had to go and download the relevent RPM files from within Windows XP. But now everything is operational.
I find Fedora 2 a lot better than Fedora 1 which I liked very much. Personally I find Fedora an excellent distribution as it is both easy to use and powerful if needed to be. I will never go back to Mandrake…
http://linuxiso.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18282
optimization: -march=i386 -mcpu=i686 options make binaries using only i386 compatible instructions with ordering and timing optimized for i686 machines. Some packages (kernel, glibc) are build multiple times, with -march=i586 and -march=i686. This is in release notes!
Well to be honest I did not take that into account. To me that is not optimised for 686. It is just as you said, a difference in ordering, but not optimised with the same extensions as 686.
nvidia drivers: you are talking about different thing (nvidia makes binary linux drivers) than the anonymous (nvidia publishes specifications). The fact is, that not everyone can use nvidia drivers. I would love to have 3d acceleration on my pb12 with FX Go5200, but I can’t – and for similar reason, nvidia drivers don’t work with FC2.
Yes I know this but what the anonymous poster said was:
Nvidia probably doesn’t work because the hardware specs are not open, so Linux developers can’t write any drivers.
That’s not the reason for Nvidia not working. Fedora broke compatibility with the driver. I’m sure this will be remedied but it has nothing to do with not having open source drivers. It would have broke if it was open source too, and someone in the community would have to fix it.
fedora didn’t break compatiblity with nvidia.
LINUS & ANDREW did!
When are people going to get it? It is in the 2.6.6 kernel and if the final for 2.6.6 was released w/ enough time that is what Fedora whould have been using.
People need to quite blaming Fedora for a kernel/nvidia issue.
I tried what you listed for using yum and get the following error. Any ideas?
[root@localhost root]# yum upgrade
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 1 – i386 – Base
retrygrab() failed for:
http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/1/i386/heade…
Executing failover method
failover: out of servers to try
Error getting file http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/1/i386/heade…
[Errno 4] IOError: HTTP Error 404: Not Found
No they didn’t. See, when you configure a 2.6.6 kernel (don’t know about pre 2.6.6), there is a section in the _Kernel_Hacking_Section to enable 4K stacks. If you use this setting, nvidia drivers stop working. Now, this may be a bug in the drivers, but it still is the responsibility of Fedora to compile their kernel in a way that does not break them. The setting is in the kernel hacking section for a reason. I just installed a stock Debian 2.6.6, and the nvidia drivers worked.
So IMHO, it is clearly Fedora’s issue, and may nvidia’s, but sure as hell it isn’t Linus’ or Andrew’s
I have had problems with the b44 (broadcom) kernel module, an ethernet card that is frequently used in Dell Laptops. This seems to be related to some memory patches in FC2. However the broadcom driver that can be downloaded from the Broadcom website works just fine. Just in case anybody gets bitten by the same bug then me. Also, the kernel now in the development series is supposed to now support firewire, which means all my hardware is now supported (Insipron 9100).
The point was it is in the kernel.
Haven’t you noticed that RH/Fedora is what puts Nvidia in it’s place? So by them including it should jump start Nvidia in getting a driver that can handle 4k instead of 8k.
That’s all I’m going to say, this is pointless to argue about.
I agree with your reasons for using sudo…. everyone should. But your method of setting it up is a bit off….
You really should use visudo to edit your sudoers file….
[root@localhost root]# yum upgrade
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 1 – i386 – Base
retrygrab() failed for:
http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/1/i386/heade…..
Executing failover method
failover: out of servers to try
Error getting file http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/1/i386/heade…..
[Errno 4] IOError: HTTP Error 404: Not Found
It means the url is not found/valid anymore and you have to edit /etc/yum.conf. Check http://www.fedoraforum.org. Do a search with “yum repository” as keyword and you will find the list. Hope it helps.
Regards