The Fedora Project has pushed out its 9th release. The release announcement is one of those fancy story ones, without much actual information, but an earlier email by Fedora project leader Paul Frields had some more interesting things to say.Frields writes to the fedora-announce list:
It’s been less than five years since the first release of Fedora (back when it was called Fedora Core), and in that time Fedora has become not just a vibrant, innovative, and extremely popular Linux distribution, but also a thriving community. A community that believes that free and open source software is not just something you *use*, it’s something you *do* – something to which you *contribute*.
Fedora 9 comes with GNOME 2.22, KDE 4.0.3, Xfce 4.2.2, PackageKit, Firefox 3.0 beta 5, a 2.6.25-based Linux kernel, and much more.
DistroWatch already took a look at the KDE variant of Fedora 9 – it only ships with KDE 4, KDE 3.x is no longer included. They concluded:
If you are Fedora KDE user and expect some sort of a recommendation whether to upgrade to Fedora 9 or stay with Fedora 8, I would (somewhat reluctantly) say “go for the upgrade”. Expect some major functionality loss, however, especially if you do a lot of file management in Konqueror, and you’ll also get fewer options for configuring some of the important areas of KDE, including the desktop itself and the KDE panel. What you do get in exchange is much increased speed, a potentially more functional desktop with sexy widgets, and a faster Firefox.
You can download Fedora 9 from the project’s download page.
Downloading now via bittorrent, i sure hope it can detect my screen res better than ubuntu!
There are some funny X issues in Fedora 9 GOLD. You will probably end up needing to specify a “Modes” line to your video card section in xorg.conf. This is the price you pay for bleeding edge. Hopefully it will work for you, but X is a bit funky until you tweak it just right.
Ah, yes Modelines, yearly 1980.
Linux at it’s worst. Still in 2008, struggling with basics…
New features comes with new bugs. The latest Xserver has a much improved architecture in certain areas. If you have to use modelines, then you are just working around a bug, autodetection usually works fine.
Edited 2008-05-14 10:10 UTC
It’s awesome that you manage to confuse both X with Linux and Fedora with Linux.
I haven’t had to use modelines since, uh, 2002 and then only because I was using a Sun sync-on-green monitor with an Intel PC.
Yeah, and Windows detected my 24″ LCD using its native resolution without the need for the manufacturer supplied inf file.
Oh wait, both Vista and XP used the default 1024×768 resolution; Fedora nv drivers worked just fine at 1920x1200x60 – so did the nVidia binary driver – should I assume that both XP and Vista still struggle with the basics?
Sadly enough OSNews doesn’t support “-10 flamebait/trolling”…
– Gilboa
Edited 2008-05-17 04:24 UTC
Now all I need is for ATI to fix their kernel module so it will compile on 2.6.25 and im all set
I’m running accelerated fglrx against 2.6.25 on Frugalware as we speak, so there must be fixes/workarounds.
Indeed, the problem isn’t only with the kernel, Fedora 9 comes with xorg 1.5 (not final btw), the ABI changed and nvidia and ATI closed drivers don’t work.
I wonder if rpmfusion will be out soon..livna is supposed to be replaced by that – doesn’t seem to be available yet, so i am using freshrpms
http://www.linuxcompatible.org/rpm.livna.org_repositories_for_Fedor…
On another note, I have to admit that I lied. Last November on this list I wrote:
> Fedora 8 will be the last release livna will be offering its add-on
> packages for. But don’t despair, the future is bright: The Livna
> contributers are busy working together with the guys behind dribble and
> freshrpms to offer a unified repository in the future bringing you
> games, multimedia software and other tools from a single source. This
> merged repository is called “RPM Fusion”; you can find more information
> about it at http://rpmfusion.org/
>
> Interested? Want to help? Then don’t hesitate and subscribe to the
> developers mailing lists at
> http://lists.rpmfusion.org/mailman/listinfo/rpmfusion-developers
> or meet us in the #rpmfusion channel on freenode.
That in fact didn’t happen, but is about to happen soon; the whole idea got delayed as we had lots of interested packagers but a lack of infrastructure and people willing to work on infrastructure bits. That slowed things down a whole lot, but we have most bits in place now and will start soon. The plan is to migrate users automatically over from Livna to RPM Fusion slowly once the repos are available.
Bye!
Thorsten Leemhuis
thanks for the info
Looks beautiful, I’m downloading right now, I’ll add it to the queue though, first I have to finish my Arch install to give it a try.
As an os tourist i sincerly thank all those people involved who made this release possible.
I have been using Fedora 9 since the beta came out to do production work. It works well. I don’t have the Nvidia drivers yet but I am looking forward to them coming out. I took a screenshot of Fedora 9 final running XFCE. The default theme and Fedora icons are quite nice. Theme is MurrinaStormCloud running the GTK Murrine Engine ‘yum install gtk-murrine-engine.’ Audacious is running using the mp3 library from Livna. Thunar is the file manager. Gmail notifier is running in the system tray. Xpad is the sticky yellow notepad. OpenOffice quickstarter is enabled to open openoffice files quickly. http://markbokil.org/images/fedora-9-sulfur.png
If you are more used to the command line use yum to install non-free mp3 and mpeg decoders:
http://www.fedorafaq.org/
If you like to watch Flash videos I would also suggest you add the Adobe flash repo or download the RPM:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Versio…
Edited 2008-05-13 19:15 UTC
Along with flash, yum install libflashsupport. If you are on x86_64 you will need libflashsupport.i386 nspluginwrapper.i386
loads of screenshots for you while you wait for the iso…
http://www.linux-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3455
cheers
anyweb
KDE4 shots. What can be done with that panel these days? Can it be moved? Reduced in size? Made something other than solid black?
P.S. In the screen shots, the cashew is still there. Can it be changed in any way?
Edited 2008-05-13 19:24 UTC
Can I take the “mod down” as meaning “no” to all the above at this time?
I’m currently running opensuse 10.3 and kde 4.0.4 packages from the build service, and I can do all of those: create multiple panels, change their appearance (new themes pop regularly on kde-look.org), and resize it (although you can’t for example have a horizontal panel that doesn’t cover the entire width of your monitor, you can only adjust height with horizontal panel, and width with a vertical one).
openSUSE does backport more things than are in the original kde 4.0.4 packages, but there you have it, at least on openSUSE you can today have stable packages with all those features included.
(And finally, I guess it’s easier to press + or – than to give a straight answer).
Thank you for the helpful response, Ivo. 🙂
when i’ve installed and tested F9 myself i’ll be happy to reply, however the screenshots were not taken by me. Sorry for the delay in resonding…
cheers
anyweb
4.0.4 panels can be moved and sized. (At least on my Fedora rawhide machine)
I haven’t tried changing the color, but even if it doesn’t, it should land soon.
4.0.x is still, at best, a preview of 4.1.
Hopefully 4.1 will land on time.
– Gilboa
Hi, two pre-download questions:
1. How many of the traditional install CDs are necessary? There are 6 CDs, but are they all necessary to install a lightweight system?
2. What is Fedora’s policy for updating packages? I use Ubuntu, but it irritates me that they never update packages until the next release six months later, even if the program has a new major release.
Thanks!
1. There is a live CD option you can use which will fit on a 1 Gig flash drive.
2. Fedora updates packages with fixes as they become available. Security updates happen quite regularly. You don’t have to wait until the next version to get updates. You can use the built in package kit update GUI or open a shell and type ‘yum update’
That of course completely depends on the packages you need. I can’t exclude there is some specific goodness that you like to use on CD 5. Lightweight, does that mean no GUI? Try to install the first CD and download the rest you need from the Yum repos you can enable when installing.
There are lots of updates all the time in Fedora Land. Kernels too. This abundance, in turn, irritates other users.
Thanks to those who replied…
I guess what I am asking is, “will the installation complete with just installer CD #1, without asking me to insert another CD?” I’d rather not use the Live CD, because I need to install it on some old slow computers as well, and I like to customize my package selection. I depend on a WiFI connection for internet access, so I won’t have that available until my system is installed to the HD. I want to install a custom lightweight Gnome system without most of the default packages and clutter.
So Fedora does generally update desktop program packages (i.e. office suites, web browsers, media players) as they become available?
IIRC, the default selection is two CD’s and yes Fedora does tend to update to newer releases of many applications as they become available that includes new features and not just security/bug fixes.
Love Fedoras rapid development there is always something new. only one annoyance is i can’t double click the touch pad anymore which really sucks when you want to highlight something. Not sure why it broke in fc9, worked fine in 8. Its a bug not a new feature right?
Haven’t got around to bug report yet but i will.
You mean this bug https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439386 ?
And to rklrkl, Livna is already done can be found here:
http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-9.rpm
Edited 2008-05-14 06:05 UTC
Er, no, it isn’t. Firstly, they haven’t officially announced it on their home page and secondly, although I’d already downloaded the repo RPM you mentioned, it does *not* have the ATI/Nvidia RPMs. See the 64-bit F9 tree for example:
http://livna-dl.reloumirrors.net/fedora/9/x86_64/
No sign of fglrx/nvidia stuff in there at all, which was the point I was making in my original post. BTW, I wandered into the Livna development tree and got all the equivalent F9 bits for fglrx that I had for F8 – I then installed them, but it just doesn’t work (screen flickers like crazy at the console and never fires X up). I think they must have issues with the kernel/fglrx combo in F9.
Both nVidia and ATI/AMD have yet to release X-server 1.5 compatible drivers.
I’m guessimating that nVidia will release a new beta driver within a week or so. (No idea about ATI/AMD).
Having said all that (and even though I’m using the nVidia binary drivers on a large number of machines) – this is the price of using closed source binary drivers: If the manufacturer fails to deliver working drivers on time, you’re essentially screwed – and Fedora, rightfully in their perspective, refuse to be held hostage by the hands of proprietary driver developers. (Especially when the option of OSS drivers is always open)
… Hopefully, with AMD opening all the design documents, it’s just a matter of time until ATI/AMD OSS drivers will be viable option for those who require fast 3D on their machine. (I for one, am willing to pay twice as much to get the same performance – but use an OSS driver instead of proprietary ones)
– Gilboa
I’ve just been playing with the final release of Fedora 9 and it’s not bad, but there’s an awful lot of minor niggles that really do spoil your initial enjoyment. In no particular order, they are:
* Screen resolution wrong on my 4:3 CRT monitor (even if I pick the exact model from the monitor list) – it appears that an “unknown” monitor only gives you options for mostly widescreen resolutions or a surprisingly low 1024×768 4:3 resolution. Yep, Modes line needed in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to fix this – a major step down from F8.
* GNOME Terminal blinks the cursor by default (aarggh! my eyes!) and that app has *no way* to turn it off any more. Ludicrously, you have to go to a wildly inappropriate config dialogue (System -> Preferences -> Hardware -> Keyboard) and even then it’s a global setting for all apps. GNOME devs, hang your heads in collective abject shame – this is a UI disaster!
* System sounds are now on by default and are *incredibly* infuriating, whether it be some pointless melody when you start your desktop or irritating-beyond-belief noises when you click on almost anything. Yep, it’s as bad as Windows in this respect – I don’t want my desktop sounding like it’s got nervous tics…this should never, ever have been turned on by default.
* Firefox 3 Beta 5 is shipped, which I consider a mistake really (it’s not stable enough and many extensions/themes are missing). Yes, Ubuntu made the same error and I’m surprised Fedora followed suit.
* Luxi Sans font has been dropped cos it apparently can’t be modified (license issues). A big shame because it was the best font for Firefox Web browsing out there and there isn’t one in the same league with Fedora 9, IMHO. Another step back from F8 there (yes, I can probably mess around and copy the F8 font, but why should I have to?).
* Not the Fedora devs fault, but it’s slightly annoying that Livna isn’t ready on launch day with some of its most important RPMs, namely the ATI/Nvidia closed source drivers. Yes, I know you can run manual installers for these, but Livna is supposed to take the pain out of the process…
* SELinux is on by default (enforced) and surprisingly, the installer never mentions this or gives you an option to disable it. Yes, you can use System -> Administration -> SELinux Management to switch it off, but how many people will do that (very few I suspect) and then panic when something third party they download doesn’t work because of SELinux issues? Similarly, the firewall isn’t mentioned at all (note here – ip6tables was enabled when I had no network interfaces enabled for ipv6…ho hum), but that generally causes less issues than SELinux does.
Overall, it’s a good release, but I’m just a bit surprised at some of the steps back Fedora have taken with F9.
Edited 2008-05-13 22:38 UTC
I hope you file bug reports on some of the issues you are facing in there. Livna cannot package drivers that don’t exist. Proprietary drivers usually play catch-up to major releases and associated ABI changes. That’s going to take sometime. Alternatively Intel cards for example work out of the box since they are maintained as part of Xorg upstream.
When you start using Fedora 9 you will most likely start to enjoy the perceivably better performance ( i do).
Both KDE and Gnome are running smooth. I have ubuntu installed on my laptop. And i’m tempted to install fedora 9 on it too.
Bug report this to fedora and xorg upstream. The point of the new Xserver architecture is that you shouldn’t need to have a xorg.conf file at all, everything should be autodetected.
Should, and Do are two different things. Autodetection is *not* perfect, nor will it ever be, so why tempt fate?
Dave
And not due to deficiencies in the detection algorithms. Monitors lie about their capabilities and the manufacturers don’t care. They just ship a driver disk (for Windows, of course) with the monitor to “fix” it. EDIDs were never more than a pleasant fantasy.
I’ve never seen someone use a installation disk for a monitor! I’ve seen generic monitors work perfectly fine on Windows at various resolutions other than default crappy ones.
I’m always funny why Linux guys just simply can’t admit that Linux has some major issues that are not being fixed, and it seems there is no interest in fixing them. And we wonder why Linux isn’t the desktop of the year, and never will be?
Dave
Dave,
You are being unnecessarily negative. I was responding to your skepticism about autodetection and more or less agreeing with it. Why do you want to turn this exchange into a Linux users vs Windows users battle?
Edited 2008-05-15 05:34 UTC
It’s not a matter of Windows vs Linux, it’s a matter of the *user* being able to use the system. I’m simply pointing out that when X doesn’t work (for whatever reason, and it’s quite frequent I might add), it drops you to a very unfriendly, daunting logon prompt. For the average user, they’d say “this is crap, Linux sucks”, reboot the system and take the CD out and throw it away. A few percent will persevere, but most won’t, and they shouldn’t have to. With Windows, it’ll drop them to a butt ugly VGA screen, 800*600 256 colours, no *matter* what. Which is better?
In the end, both Windows and Linux are pretty good at detecting hardware (personally, I’d say Linux is better at it to be honest), but Windows handles it far more gracefully with the screen side of things. And that’s what really matters.
This has been an ongoing problem for a long while with Linux, and it’s very sad that something so basic, has been ignored for so long. It really does seem like that there’s some sort of raggamuffin attitude to Linux development that says stuff you to the average user. Sure, it’s getting better, but it has a *long* way to go to really look after the average dumbass user who doesn’t want to learn about computers (that’s 99% of users from my experience). Why can’t xorg just drop you to a 800*600 256 colours screen if it can’t autodetect it all? It’s not that hard. Windows has been doing it for years. For those complaining that it might *break* the monitor, that’s utter rubbish and we all know that.
As an example, I recently tried to run a Live CD variant of Ubuntu (not the very latest release) and also dreamlinux 3.1. Well, Ubuntu was good, it didn’t detect the monitor properly (Samsung 245T 24″ widescreen, I use it for my photography related work), but it did at least show it at 1024*768 16 bit. So, Ubuntu is doing the right thing. Dreamlinux wouldn’t even start X, not even manually configuring xorg.conf did it (although I’m pretty sure that I didn’t enter one line for widescreen that I need to, simply because I couldn’t remember the right thing to enter). This just shouldn’t happen – ever.
I’m really sick and tired of the pro Linux brigade modding down anyone who dares knock Linux. It has many issues and I believe in saying what you believe. Windows has many issues as well, and I bash it to bits sometimes, and I get modded up for it. Why is Linux so revered by so few, that it gets godly treatment for whenever it screws up? It’s a phenomenon that I used to participate in myself a few years back, but thankfully commonsense has prevailed and I’m a bit more even minded now.
Dave
Are you saying that as long as there are any Linux distros which do not do the right thing then it is a global fault of Linux? I am more than willing to consider criticisms of FOSS, but today, in 2008, I would classify that is a problem with Dreamlinux. It took us too long to get to this point, but bullet proof X is here. Any distro targeted at users who would be dead in the water without X should see to it that X always comes up, even if it is in 640×480 16 color vga.
I think that we are all disappointed, at times, with having our well meaning criticisms modded down. This is hardly specific to Linux related topics. You can minimize this by putting on your “Sarek ears” when proof-reading your post. Is it truly constructive? Does it read that way? Can it be easily misconstrued to imply something unspeakably vulgar about someone else’s mother? Does it convey a sense of “working with” rather than one of “attacking” others. And, of course, does it convey your criticism clearly?
If you have something critical to say, use the mod score as a tool to give you valuable feedback as to how effective you were at getting your criticism considered. As human beings, the first thing that we do when we feel insulted is stop listening. Mod downs are a pretty good indication that you’ve caused some people to stop listening.
Edited 2008-05-15 13:26 UTC
I suspect that it’s a wider issue than just dreamlinux to be honest. And judging by others comments about black screens instead of X post install, that seems to validate my thoughts.
Dave
Please provide references.
On one partition, I re-installed Vista Ultimate on my HP dv9720us. Guess what, I need to install the drivers to get the correct resolution
Re-read my original post – I wasn’t talking about installing drivers to get the *correct* resolution etc. On Windows, you at *least* get a VGA screen (admittedly not good) if the drivers don’t work. On Linux you get a very unfriendly logon prompt saying X didn’t start. Which is realistically more friendly to the newbie? Which is really more productive?
Dave
anyone else notice that the three silly vector faces are no longer there? I liked those
I’m totally happy with Fedora 9. KDE4 is awesome, and has some very nice default wallpapers. Gnome is bleeding edge too.
They have put a lot of time in the default security as well (fortify source, SELinux). And in my perception Fedora 9 is notably faster.
Man, I really want to test this…
One thing that still keeps me back in going back to rpm distros is because I love the way of (and amount of) packages in debian-like distros.
My advice is to stay far away from this OS distribution. I tried it. Installation went OK (had to do it twice) but then as soon as it boots X is not working with all nvidia graphics chips and it can be a real pain in the butt to get that working. The reason is because Fedora included a non-finalized version of X (1.5 beta) which nVidia will not develop drivers for (I don’t blame them either).
This distribution is much more about bleeding edge than it is about giving you a working OS. I managed to get X (for both KDE and Gnome) working but the first thing KDE gave me was a crash dialog before the desktop. Then if I do things like try to start Dolphin (the file browser/manager) it took about 30 seconds to launch. Also I tried to change themes (in KDE) and it took over a minute and the progress bar counted to 100 percent and then started over again and then hung.
There are many issues with this incomplete release! Stay away! This is only part of what I experienced but am not going to type it all out.
My specs: E8400 cpu, 4GB of ram, 8800GTS 320, tons of HD space, etc etc..
Edited 2008-05-14 18:17 UTC
If you just have to have the drivers from nvidia.com, the stick to Fedora 8 until Nvidia releases them.
Thanks for the advice but that’s not the point here.
Fedora, as far as I know, made no public statement about this fact that nvidia video cards/chips will not work. They announce the OS as finished and ready for consumption but it is not. It is using incomplete beta software including Firefox and X and these are two central applications to the OS. Also KDE is unstable and I’m not sure if that’s KDE’s fault or Fedora. I’m glad to blame Fedora because they included it and touted it as a main feature of the release.
Also, why are nvidia drivers mandatory to get X working? Even windows 3.1 will work in VGA mode, and so will WinNT, Win2K, WinXP and I presume even the much despised of them all, Vista.
This OS is not ready for consumption by anyone who isn’t technically inclined and patient. And by that, I say that while it is potentially great, it is an epic fail.
VGA mode people, use it! It’s a standard for about 20 years now.
You know it’s bleeding edge, why use it then?!?! I’m running the rawhide version of sulphur for ages. And with every update it became more reliable. For now it’s the best Fedora version I ever have seen.
BTW you cannot blame Fedora for the bad NVIDIA attitude, if they opened up there specifications there was not a problem at all. I’m currently using the 2d driver and it’s oke for now, but I hope NVIDIA will release there 3d drivers soon!
Debian Sid is cutting edge as well, and it doesn’t screw things up like this. This has always been the problem with sticking to release dates, rather than a release when ready methodology.
Dave
Obviously you were able to make Fedora display some sort of video output, since you are commenting on the stability of its KDE. So you were able to use VESA mode some how. “VGA mode” as you suggest would just leave you at 1024×768 with 16 colors, which would probably be a little disappointing for you.
Fedora never claims to be the most stable, easiest to use OS. It’s claims to fame are firstly to be a completely free and open source OS (no NVidia binary blobs will ever be included) and secondly to be on the bleeding edge. That bleeding edge of open source is sometimes very painful. The NVidia drivers not working are not exactly Fedora’s fault, if NVidia had opened at least their 2D specs the community would have excellent open source driver support for these cards. Yes it is a little irritating that proprietary video drivers from NVidia and ATI are currently unavailable, but that is not entirely Fedora’s fault. The Fedora project has never officially supported these drivers and instead relies upon third party packagers such as livna.
Regarding the KDE environment’s instability, it is widely known that KDE 4 is still in need of a lot of work. It is progressing quickly, but I think it is very telling that Fedora is the only major distro currently shipping it as their default KDE. Even OpenSUSE isn’t ready to ship it as the exclusive KDE option in their upcoming OpenSUSE 11.
I’m a Gnome user personally and I find Fedora 9 to be one of the fastest, most up to date, and most complete Gnome distros available today. If you have any issues with it, report the bugs to the Fedora team, they are usually very timely with updates and bug fixes.
Maybe because it isn’t true that “nvidia video cards/chips will not work” with FC9? My Nvidia card works with FC9 using nv or nouveau, indeed I’m using it with nvidia closed drivers. Only GLX doesn’t work, but hey, you have the same problem in any distro if you don’t install the closed driver! Anyway, as many people said, it is impossible for Redhat to modify a closed driver.
“Fedora still doesn’t support 3D in nvidia cards” is a very far from “nvidia video cards/chips will not work in FC9”.
That’s exactly what I’m saying: all I got is initlevel 3, a text login. Typing ‘startx’ does not work. No GUI login of any kind. That’s what I said, it didn’t work.
I got 2d acceleration working by searching the internet and running a beta nvidia 173.08 driver. But even doing that took me a few hours because there were other problems, like trying to get the file. Hard to browse to a web site if I have no gui and I don’t have the exact url to the file.
Every reply to my previous post got it wrong. Basic standard VGA mode on my nvidia card did not work. Instead for ‘bleeding edge’ I got a 1970’s state of the art, textual login prompt.
You might think I criticize Linux but I mean to do so only to point out that this is a huge kind of failure I repeatedly get with linux because X is so bad at self configuring for even a simple bare bones VGA login. I’ve used quite a few linux distributions over the years and every single one gives me hurdles with X.
Forget the nvidia driver issue, it’s a bit irrelevent. Give me a reasonable GUI login, and not a 1970s mainframe login and I’d be a little happier.
The average Joe Bob farmer and Jane soccer mom would throw the disc away when confronted with that login. Oh and yes, it was the ‘nv’ driver and it didn’t work. I have no idea why, and I wasn’t given an alternative during any step in the installation process.
And even then when I did install the beta nvidia driver, X burps out a huge error message about ABI. The Fedora forums have posts from other people getting this error and a user-created solution. No patch is coming, so far. What a waste of time just trying to get the very basics working. Bleeding edge my *ss.
What nvidia card do you have?
Quote: “The average Joe Bob farmer and Jane soccer mom would throw the disc away when confronted with that login. Oh and yes, it was the ‘nv’ driver and it didn’t work. I have no idea why, and I wasn’t given an alternative during any step in the installation process.”
Agreed. However, without the full support of the proprietary hardware vendors, it is hard. That said, as you’ve pointed out with Windows, it just doesn’t chuck you back to DOS and so say sorry, can’t get a GUI working, so why does Linux do this? It should have a default 800*600 256 colours GUI that will launch if there are *any* problems with detecting the hardware at all. I’m sure that can’t be that hard to do, if Microsoft developers can do it, so can open source ones.
Dave
Did you even try Fedora 9? This is riddled with bunk. I have three different desktop/laptops that have nvidia cards and they all seem to work just fine with the “nv” driver. Which is default driver for nvidia cards.
How did you even test kde enough to know it is full of bugs if you couldn’t even get into vga mode?
I say your full of crap and lied.
Listening to people talk about the X.org issue with Fedora 9 has made me think it was probably a mistake to ship it with a beta X.
I think it is important to remember Fedora releases are bleeding edge and it is always a good idea to stick to the previous version for production work. Also, Fedora is geared towards free, as in non-proprietary, software. The binary drivers usually come out after a release. I recommend Fedora to new Linux users but I always tell them to stick to the previous stable version. That way all the non-free drivers and mp3 libraries, etc. are available. While I do miss Compiz and turning my desktop into a spinning cube, it really doesn’t affect my production work on Fedora 9.
I don’t know why I’m digging this so much, but I find it to be pretty cool. I’m just using one of my 1gb usb keys with the gnome livecd and everything I install is saved and starts up on what ever p.c. I want.
Fedora 9 has a lot of great features but this one just is a cool gadget kind of feature.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo
What i really like about Linux software, is the
incredible lack of features compared to the
windows versions.
Like what?
Okay,
how about my pda/blue tooth in windows i have up
to 8 services, in Linux 4. and limited in what I can do
with my pda and with my computer. Browsers no back key
wont work. a lot of programs don’t have drop down menus
many wireless cards still don’t work. this computers
video 3-d is not supported in Linux yet etc…….etc
I really like the soundsystem in Fedora 9. Superb if you listen a lot to internet radio stations!
What’s better about it? Per app volume controls maybe. I’ve been pretty unimpressed, otherwise. The sound works, as usual, for modern Linux distros.
I somehow find the sound of different OS’s with their sound driver interpretation remarkable.
At this moment I am running Zenwalk Linux and I love it. My question is: What does fedora have that would make me want to switch????????
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