Re: Linux - a quandary!

From: aq (njl_at_localhost.localdomain)
Date: 01/15/05 

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 02:58:03 GMT

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 12:38:38 +1030, Tim wrote:

> Steve <nospam@nospam.com> posted what may well be a troll:
>
>> I`ve been using Linux for about 5yrs now after throwing the towel in
>> with Windows 98 and its sodding blue screens and recently thought I`d
>> upgrade my desktop pc from Core 2 to Core 3 so biting the bullet went
>> for it and low and behold the usual things that worked before and don`t
>> now occured- bog standard Robotics external modem - no chance (why
>> Kinternet doesn`t like it I don`t know), usb scanner - nah!, onboard
>> sound - sort of!, Epson printer - nada! and so on so I thought "Sod it
>> here we go again"

People always seem pretty obsessed with upgrading to the latest and
greatest version of their distro in spite of the fact that everything
works. It is nice to have the snazzy new interface or the new artwork and
to know that under the bonnet you've got the newest software but
seriously, was there any _real_ need to upgrade?

> I had noticed that Fedora Core 3 seems to be a step backwards in a few
> regards too. Scanning isn't working like it should do, like it used to.
> Video display isn't, either. Though printing was working better (in the
> sense that it found the network printer all by itself, and it worked
> without me having to do anything).

I did have problems with my upgrade from FC2 to FC3 although i think that
was mainly because of the extra rpm's i'd installed and some software i'd
compiled out of .tgz packages. Upgrading a fedora distro to the next new
release seems quite hard to me and i think this may stem from the fact
that some desireable features are missing (due to patents with mp3 for
example) from the install disks and therefore even a fresh install
requires some configuration, an upgrade can't be any better.

i think however most of the bad press may be due to the buggy udev that
FC3 shipped with. IMHO though you have to remember Fedora is
_bleeding_edge_ which simply means things may not work or may take a
little effort to get them to work.
 
> There's too much reinventing of the wheel from one Red Hat release to
> the next, and with Fedora the releases are too close together. Stop
> redesigning the system, get that right once, and just fiddle with the
> applications that go with it!

In defence of Fedora (yes, i'd call myself a seasoned redhat/fedora
user and advocate) the differences between core 3 and core 2 are
quite large, the actual implementation of SElinux and udev for examples,
which both seem like pretty major revisions in the way linux works
nowadays and are not limited to fedora. Also, if no-one ever made major
changes (note the _major_ release number change) then things simply would
not progress or atleast not at the rate that fedora does.

I did a fresh install of FC3 on another machine however and things seem to
work excellently (especially after upgrading udev) apart from a few
hiccups which were documented on the fedora website.

They have made a few changes which i don't particularly like (and some
things persist too) mainly aesthetic stuff though. For example the
relocation of the /mnt directory tree to /media. Maybe this makes things
more intuitive for windows users who may migrate but really, what was the
point? Oh, and if any fedora developers are reading-ditch the ugly
(and AFAIK proprietary too!-please correct me) RedHat Graphical Boot-let
us use bootsplash by default instead and _choose_ what it looks like!

Kind Regards.

Ps. Wired networking in linux is A Walk In The Park [tm] :-)
Not sure about wireless though...

Pps. I've never bought a linux mag during my experience although i have
been tempted by the software usually on the cover of such magazines ;-)
IMHO and i'd like to stress that it is _just_ my Humble Opinion the best
documentation is on the net (bit of a bugger if you can't get there tho...)

Relevant Pages

  • RE: Accessing A Fedora 7 Box FROM The Net
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