Re: FC5-test3 Install: the good, the bad, etc...

AnonymousFC4 wrote:
Hello:
this is a brief report.

I originally installed CC5-test3

1) by typing "Linux xfs", on the DVD command line...

2) By installing the / directory on /dev/hda5, formatted as XFS, and the
rest, just a basic install.
The resulting install, was that my USB Logitech Marbletrackball, just did
not work.

AFTER RE-INSTALLING FC5-test3 an formatting /dev/hda5 as ext3, then the USB
trackball worked just fine. Obviously the type of partition has nothing to
do with the USB driver, I am guessing that the XFS code is just calling
different install scripts, etc...

I already had other problems installing FC4 on an XFS partition, and
obviously the Fedora developper did not do much testing in this area.
For the file system install, Anaconda is still clunky, and you can have
pretty much any file system, as long it is EXT3 !

SUSE 10 (also Mandriva) is much better for this, and SUSE 10, allow you
Reiser, XFS... and even encrypted file systems, in the install... and it is
boring (it just workd!)

3) My system is based on an ASUS A7N8X motherboard, (two ethernet ports) and
the anaconda install does not seem to be able to detect which ethernet port
is connected to the internet... As a result my internet connection is so far dead.
I will have to troubleshoot and fix this manually. No so much fun.
As a difference, SUSE 10.0 (and before) could detect the active port and
Firefox worked right away, "out of the box" this is nice..

4) The KDE is not installed or proposed in the default install...
This is a pity, in the sense that KDE is may preferred windows manager.
It is also the preferred windows manager of lots of people, by the way!

5) After logging with Gnome, I could see thatthe system is faster than ever
(nice), but now I will have to fix the internet connection, and also
install KDE before doing more.

CONCLUSIONS:

1) Fixing the XFS system install should be, in my view a high priority.
XFS is just too good to ignore.

2) KDE logging should be a proposed option, possibly even the default
install?

3) Not detecting the "Hot" ethernet port, indeed, is not a bug, but having
the internet (ethernet) working at the end of a normal install, would be
quite nice, and should be considered: it has been a long time since the
first Linux, and now it is a reasonable expectation that all the basic
stuff, works at the completion of the install, even for the "non geek"
user. I would submit to you that FC5 should aim at this, but this is a
philosophical argument. I am wondering how many users choose SUSE or Mandriva, just because they are
easier to install, and use?



Wouldn't it make more sense to post this information in a forum where the FC package maintainers and developers actually would read your comments and might be in a position to do something about it before FC5 goes into a freeze mode before release?

To my knowledge, none of them read posts here, because they are all reading the posts made to the FC test e-mail list, which is the primary forum for communications regarding FC test releases.

More information is here:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate

and if you prefer a newsgroup interface, gmane provides one here:

http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.testers

Otherwise, your comments here are not going to influence FC's development and are largely wasted.

Make them count and post to the FC test list via whatever means you feel comfortable with and actually be heard.

Otherwise, the old rhetorical question about "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a noise?" comes to mind. The proper people are not hearing you in this group.

BTW, ext3 has been the default FS for RH releases for some time. No surprise there.

In addition, FC4 has support for dm-crypt/LUKS, which I am happily using with 256 bit AES to encrypt several partitions on my laptop. Does it happen during the install? No, but it's pretty easy to setup post install. Will it get better? Sure, but you have to provide the feedback to argue and get support for change.

Marc Schwartz
.

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