Stop Microsoft
Operating Systems => Linux and UNIX => Topic started by: mobrien_12 on 8 October 2005, 23:50
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I decided to install Linux on another one of my computers. I was seriously considering going with Novell's SUSE Linux, but I couldn't find a copy of it for sale in stores (CompUSA sold out of it, and didn't order more... even though they have dozens of copies of Linspire :p ). I figured that I'd give Fedora a try, since I've had the most experience with RedHat distributions (although this was my first Fedora install).
The system runs fine now, but I was frustrated by a lot of things.
The partitioning system of the install process (Disk Druid) seems bug free and pretty easy to use. However, it really annoyed me. I already had two primary partitions (suspend to disk partition and Win98 (for games) ). I wanted to put the whole linux install (root partition, swap partition, home partition) on one extended partition, while saving the slot (and enough free space) for a future OS (FreeBSD maybe). Disk Druid would not allow me to do this: it insisted on putting the root partition as a primary partition. I could go fix this later with GNU parted, but WTF?
Fedora Core 4 uses a graphical boot program called rhgb, instead of the console based boot sequence. It looks pretty, and would probably appeal to many people. However, it completely broke the virtual text consoles (you know, the ones accessed by CTRL-ALT F1,F2,F3,F4,F5, or F6). Even worse, it broke the shutdown and reboot sequences, causing the computer to lock up at the end of the sequences instead of powering up or rebooting. I was able to disable rhgb by taking "rhgb" out of the kernel arguments in /etc/grub.conf, but again, WTF?
After installation, I ran yum in update mode and found 640 MB of updates needed to be downloaded and installed. This took a long time, even with broadband.
I installed the auth package so I could run identd and access IRC, but the default arguments for it in xinetd.config were broken. It took about a half-an-hour of trial and error before I got it running.
Postfix wouldn't start up with the /etc/rc.d/init.d/postfix script. It starts up fine from the command line though.
The installs of Firefox and Mozilla are coded to use what looks like a GNOME-based interface for saving downloaded files. It's a little awkward to use, but I could get over that. However, if you create a new directory for the downloaded file using this interface, it forgets what the file name was.
Windowmaker won't compile on FC4. No RPMs were available for Koffice. Many source RPMS built for FC3 which don't exist in FC4 wouldn't compile.
Oh yeah... the GNOME desktop uses spatial nautilus, and it's not clear how to switch the behavior away from spatial. I always found spatial file managers to be cumbersome and annoying, and with a linux system they seems almost unusable. Some people may like them, but it should be something that is easy to change. Pretty much enough to make me stick to KDE.
Overall, FC4 struck me as being very beta-ish and required a significant amount of work to get it running smoothly. It works fine after all that work (much of which I think would be beyond a raw newbie), so I think I'll keep it, but I think people should know what to expect.
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i like FC4, its bootloader was fine for me, not problems shutting down. I didnt have that many updates to go through
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i used fedora when i first switched to linux but found too many problems and now im running debian :)
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Although I haven't tried FC4 I've tried both Redhat 9 and FC2 and they were fine except they were a bit slow and Redhat did lock up a bit.
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Fedora, fucked up. So I tried Ubuntu, came fucked up out of the box. Debian died on me. Now I run slackware.
Finally I am happy.
Slackware rules.
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you shoulda went further to find SuSE. SuSE and Slackware are my favourite distros to use.
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I would, but I am far to stubborn for trying anything new.
Im old.
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Slackware rules.
Agreed, Fedora was far too slow for me. :fu:
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glad to see i'm not the only one. I installed fedora over the summer and couldnt stand it. I know it's not a perfectly stable release, but that's no excuse for having a distro that has so many "odd" things in it.
I prefer suse over any other distro. besides, novell gives away free software/trials every year.
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Tried Mandrake way back when. Fucked up.
FC1. Fucked up.
Ubuntu. WAY fucked up.
Back to Win98 while deciding what to try next. :(
Im old.
STFU 18 year old hippie. :P
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Try Slackware 10.2, I have it installed now, and it's great so far.
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Gentoo. 2.6.13-hardened. Eat it. :D
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Tried Mandrake way back when. Fucked up.
FC1. Fucked up.
Ubuntu. WAY fucked up.
Back to Win98 while deciding what to try next. :(
STFU 18 year old hippie. :P
Sounds like you need a real saviour...
(http://www.slackware.org/%7Emsimons/slackware/grfx/shared/stenclbSW.jpg) (http://www.slackware.com)
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I've got Vector Linux SOHO. Based on slackware.
Its absolutely gorgeous (once you got your hardware working).
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FC 4 works fine for me ... I couldn't install SUSE cuz it wouldn't recognize my hard-drive, is that even possible ? The fewer packages you pick in FC the less you will have to download. By the way FC has never locked up on me. You know I can't think of a better distro ... the only one that can even compete is FreeBSD, but that's not linux. I say try FreeBSD if you get around to it.
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Funny that, because every Fedora Core release I have used (up to 4) has been absolutely horrible, one of the slowest distros I have EVER used, second to Linspire actually :rolleyes:
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Gosh, I have used Fedora since version 1, and it has always been good to me. It's not exactly OSX, but it is still pretty good. SuSE I didn't like because it was so heavily dependent on KDE - I like Gnome better. In fact, FC distros are all about Gnome, so they do it a bit better than anybody else. I use Slackware on my ftp server, because it can run securely for years without me ever logging in, but it doesn't have any of the handy graphical system management tools that Fedora has. I've been incredibly pleased with the Fedora project, and I use it as my primary OS at the office.
Of course your mileage may vary - all distros are somewhat different, and I've been using Fedora so long that it feels like normal to me, and KDE seems foreign and ridiculous. Difft strokes, they say.
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I agree with MarathoN here, Fedora has always been slow for me too.
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Well, the reason why I love Slackware so much, is because it's quite a manual distro, everything you want to do you can do yourself, so it's quite an "independent" distro in that instance.
But that's why I don't really like Gentoo, it's too manual for my liking. :P
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Funny that, because every Fedora Core release I have used (up to 4) has been absolutely horrible, one of the slowest distros I have EVER used, second to Linspire actually :rolleyes:
:nothappy: NO NO NO !!! Nothing is worse than Linspire except M$ Window$ ... I disagree, I've tried Linspire and it sucks ass, it wouldn't even recognize my modem, I was going to buy a new fucking modem for a piece of shit distro called Linspire. Fedora reconized my modem instantly, I didn't even need to do anything. Linspire sucks, Fedora is far better than Linspire. :nothappy: It's not slow on my computer, Linspire was like twice as slow to boot, and Mandrake was in-between.
Speed rating by me: (these are the 3 distros that actually installed on my computer without major issues)
Fedora > Mandriva > Linspire
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Whoa - just because an OS doesn't automatically include settings information for your modem doesn't mean it sucks. Actually, the fact that some companies distribute settings files with their distros is a bonus. And some rare or outdated hardware support isn't usually built into the installation kernel. That makes a distro smart, not sucky.
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Whoa - just because an OS doesn't automatically include settings information for your modem doesn't mean it sucks. Actually, the fact that some companies distribute settings files with their distros is a bonus. And some rare or outdated hardware support isn't usually built into the installation kernel. That makes a distro smart, not sucky.
I tried everthing to make it work, I was NOT expecting it to work right from the start. I interrogated the tech support for hours on end. I searched every corner of the internet for a fix. I talked to all the Linux experts about it and NOBODY COULD FUCKING FIX IT on Linspire at least. And it goes of and works perfectly on Fedora ... it's not that I was expecting it to work perfectly ... its that it would NOT work at all !!! (You can tell, I'm a bit angry)
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Probably a propriety driver written by the company, its not surprising because Fedora is a commercial focused product and has been around for quite a while so they would have gone through the trouble of making it work.
You should trash that win modem and use a linux supported model anyway. From now on I'm only going to purchase hardware with good linux support.
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:nothappy: NO NO NO !!! Nothing is worse than Linspire except M$ Window$ ... I disagree, I've tried Linspire and it sucks ass, it wouldn't even recognize my modem, I was going to buy a new fucking modem for a piece of shit distro called Linspire. Fedora reconized my modem instantly, I didn't even need to do anything. Linspire sucks, Fedora is far better than Linspire. :nothappy: It's not slow on my computer, Linspire was like twice as slow to boot, and Mandrake was in-between.
Speed rating by me: (these are the 3 distros that actually installed on my computer without major issues)
Fedora > Mandriva > Linspire
You dumb shit, that is why I said it's SECOND to Linspire in terms of speed. :rolleyes:
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You dumb shit, that is why I said it's SECOND to Linspire in terms of speed. :rolleyes:
Second to Linspire as in Linspire is 1st in speed ? or the other way around ? ... yes I tend to be a dumb shit sometimes, but not too often.
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no fedora core is second slowest to linspire.
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Ahh ... I see ... so you are comparing slowness not fastness ... duh ! :D
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no fedora core is second slowest to linspire.
Indeed, I would never call Fedora or Linspire fast, because they have both always been slow as shit. :p
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I've used Windows XPm, I used to use Redhat 5 years ago, Mandrake before it got brought out by Mandriva, and Fedora Core. Fedora core has been much faster than Windows XP. I have a POS 550 MHZ PC w/500 MHZ ram, 1 38 gb hdd and 1 28 gb HDD.
My computer is a relic, but runs better on Fedora in terms of speed than the above mentioned. Thanks for the heads up on Linspire.
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Slackware 10.2 w/ the XFCE desktop environment runs great for me.
But, I have a 1.53ghz AMD Athlon XP 1800+ and 512mb of DDR RAM. :P
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From my personal experience, Fedora Core 4 itself is not much slower than other systems. What matters is how it is configured.
Currently i use ubuntu 5.04 (upgrading right now, actually, to 5.10) and I notice some speed improvements upon Fedora Core 3 (the last one I used), but that is most likely because I know more about linux systems, and do not currently have server software and everything else running that I didn't need in Fedora Core 3.
The only reason I'm choosing Ubuntu over fedora core is trivial; They are both great Linux/GNU Operating Systems.
When I first converted to linux 3 years ago, I liked Redhat's GUI config programs. There are not quite as many in Ubuntu, and they are not quite as nice as now-Fedora's, but I don't need them anymore, really.
SuSE is a very nice, well polished distro that I hope to test out soon after setting up ubuntu 5.10.
In the past, every major distro release I re-asses my choice of distro. Back with redhat I compared it to mandrake, and redhat won. I compared fedora with slackware and suse, fedora won. FC4 came around and when I compared it with ubuntu 5.04, ubuntu won in my mind.
Are there any tremendous differences? not really. They are all linux. They all run fast (on my AMD 2600, 768mb DDR266), they are all stable, and they are all easy to install. The only differeces are their user-friendliness. That part I won't comment on, because I can no longer responsibly make claims to user friendliness as a Linux novice would notice it.
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Well, I gotta follow up on this thread two and a half months later. After learning how to use the yum search tool more effectively I'm finding alot more precompiled software and libraries are is available for FC4 than I originally thought. Things like windowmaker and koffice and zillions of libraries. I still have problems building some stuff that doesn't come prepackaged in repositories, like the latest windowmaker or scigraphica (darn things just won't compile without errors), but there's alot more available that I don't have to compile than I originally thought.
Everything else still stands.