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Fedora Core 6 Preview 138

Posted by timothy from the lurking-ahead dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week Jesse Keating announced the availability of Fedora Core 6 Test 1. New items in FC6T1 include Intel Macintosh support (well, mostly), update notification applet, GNOME 2.15, KDE 3.5.3, and the Fedora Core 6 Extras development repository is already available. With FC6T1's availability, Phoronix has published their own preview of this release. The article is focused on an editorial about changes to come for Fedora Core 6, as well as images from Fedora Core 6 Test 1. The next Fedora Core 6 testing release (Test 2) is due out in July, while the final release is due out this September."
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Fedora Core 6 Preview More

Fedora Core 6 Preview

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  • fedora's problem... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by joe 155 ( 937621 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @04:17AM (#15595279) Journal
    I started to use fedora a few months ago and really like it. The main problem I find with it is they seem too willing to update too quickly. I was speaking on a forum about the problems I was having (Kernel update 2107 had real problems) I was told "core 5 is very new, it will get more stable over the coming months"... I kind'a feel like they should make core 5 as stable and as good as it can be and keep it going for about a year or two from when it is completely setled. The only reason that I am a little worried is I'm pretty sure yum will update me to core 6 automatically if i forget to "--exclude" everytime I do a update

    Still, it is a really lovely distro (I know it sounds like I slagged it off)... but give it a go : D
    • That's the entire point of Fedora; if you want something with a slower release cycle, try debian (joking!).

      Seriously though, something like Ubuntu or Mandrivia might suit you better if stablity is more important to you than bleeding-edge.
      • it's not the bleeding edge that bothers me, infact I like it with the software, but I want a stable base for it

        • Re:fedora's problem... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Homology ( 639438 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @05:33AM (#15595401)
          it's not the bleeding edge that bothers me, infact I like it with the software, but I want a stable base for it

          Fedora Core is more or less beta testing of software that may eventually end up in Red Hat Enterprise. So by the time a new, say kernel, feature is part of Red Hat Enterprise, then it has been widely tested in Fedora. This means that Fedora is not very stable, but many (most?) Fedora users find this very acceptable.

          If you want to have a stable base, then you should use another Linux distro or one of the *BSD.


          • YES, in fact.

            At the RedHat summit in Nash last month, the RHEL Roadmap shows a copy of FC6 being split-off later this year and becoming RHEL5 by the end of the year.

            (note RHEL4 is a direct decended of FC3, RHEL3 is of FC1 etc).

          • Not very stable is a subjective term. For day to day use, I've yet to find any Linux dist where crashes are anything but extremely infrequent events. Fedora was pretty stable when I played around with it on my Linux machine. I recall around FC2 or 3 that SELinux policies were pretty flakey but that was about the extent my problems with it. I switched to SUSE 10.x not long after, not for any particular reason but simply for the change and experience.

            I guess if you're trying to run a server then you shouldn

          • Unless you need* a Red Hat like install. Than Fedora is the most legal way I know of getting an up to date one.

            * e.g. my new raid controller only has official support under red hat enterprise - so far running with fedora everything has been ok. As a rule I find that Fedora has the best driver support because it is the testing platform for redhat...
            • What about CentOS?
            • There's always CentOS [centos.org].
          • Your post is slightly misleading. The technology included in Fedora may be new, but the implementation is usually pretty damn stable. This is why plenty of hosting providers now provide Fedora as a choice of OS. Fedora has been the most stable linux distro for me since Core 3, and I've used quite a bit of distros.
            Regards,
            Steve
          • I've used Fedora on servers and workstations with no stability problems. I have servers running Fedora with years of uptime despite the heavy loads and interesting uses I put them under.

            My only real complaint about Fedora is it's use of yum which I don't feel works as well as competitiors such as rug (command-line component of Red Carpet). If they coould bring yum's quality up to snuff I'd be pretty happy with it. It'd be nice if they could calm some of the fighting between offical and unoffical repos too.
          • All my servers are running Fedora, and they are very stable. Much better than the CentOS I've been using... Strange, but real...
      • > "That's the entire point of Fedora; if you want something with
        > a slower release cycle, try debian (joking!).
        > Seriously though, something like Ubuntu or Mandrivia might suit
        > you better if stablity is more important to you than bleeding-edge.

        No that is *exactly* why I use debian, I got sick of Ubuntu's frequent releases. I don't want to think about that sort of thing when I use my workstation, there's just no need to keep updating FF, when a given version in sarge is known stable, and it's ju

    • Re:fedora's problem... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Saturday June 24, 2006 @04:54AM (#15595343) Journal
      Fedora is really for those who want to be on the bleeding edge.
      If you want a Redhattish distro that is NOT bleeding edge, try CentOS 4.3 (which is built from Red Hat Enterprise 4.3) or the other RHEL descendents like WBEL. CentOS is very solid - but it does not tend to have the bleeding edge stuff (and it will remain supported for years).

    • Re:fedora's problem... (Score:5, Informative)

      by smoker2 ( 750216 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @05:28AM (#15595389) Homepage Journal
      The only reason that I am a little worried is I'm pretty sure yum will update me to core 6 automatically if i forget to "--exclude" everytime I do a update
      No it won't.

      yum works by checking for updates to your current version.

      ie. the contents of your /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo read:

      #baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/f edora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os/
      the key term here being $releasever which means it only checks within your current release.

      The only way to make yum upgrade to a newer core version is to download and install the newer version kernel, reboot into that kernel, then tell yum to update. I have used that approach to go progressively from FC2 to FC3 to FC4.

      HTH.

      • ah, I hadn't realised, thanks for the advice... I'll use that method when 6 gets to a workable point of use

      • Re:fedora's problem... (Score:5, Informative)

        by A Masquerade ( 23629 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @08:28AM (#15595720)
        The only way to make yum upgrade to a newer core version is to download and install the newer version kernel, reboot into that kernel, then tell yum to update.

        Actually updating has zilch to do with the kernel. You can normally do an online update by manually updating (with the rpm command) the fedora-release packagae, and then using yum to update from there.

        However this is not the recommended route, and things may be more complex than this (for example requiring you to update yum, rpm and associated packages first). The kernel does not normally need to be updated first, and you run a greater risk of ending up with an unbootable machine if you do so.

        There are normally howtos on upgrading using yum available - Seth Vidal typically has notes in his blogs about doing so.

        However the recommended and supported upgrade route is to boot from a the new version installation image, and then use anaconda to upgrade - that can do more invasive updates like the udev changes, which are much easier to do with your system being offline.

        • However this is not the recommended route, and things may be more complex than this (for example requiring you to update yum, rpm and associated packages first). The kernel does not normally need to be updated first, and you run a greater risk of ending up with an unbootable machine if you do so.

          I'm hoping these kinds of upgrades become supported at some point, especially now Fedora is using yum at install time too. Although I've usually avoided doing upgrades, preferring complete ground-up reinstalls sinc
        • You are correct, I misremembered the procedure I followed. When I went from FC3 to FC4 I did have to install the later kernel however.

          The howto I followed is here. [brandonhutchinson.com]

    • Re:fedora's problem... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Znork ( 31774 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @05:35AM (#15595406)
      Fedora is an early integrator of many things; as those things sometimes havent had as many testers yet, you're bound to run into some issues. As some features get integrated into the base of the system, for example, Xen, you cant get a super-stable base either.

      Dont worry tho, yum update shouldnt upgrade you, you'd have to run yum _upgrade_ for that, as far as I know. Live upgrades of that sort are not recommended tho.
    • If you are interested in stability and support along with a slower release cycle give Slackware a try, simply the best!
    • I'm currently running KDE 3.5, kernel 2.6.17, OO 2.0, and K3B 0.12.15 on my Slackware 10.2 system. Version 10.2 was relased nearly a year ago. The last message on the security mailinglist included security updates for version 8.1 which was released 4 years ago. If you want the ability to install the latest software easily but also a base distro that moves more slowly than the rest, you might consider Slack.

      Ubuntu/FC/Suse are all good distros, but are designed to move a bit more quickly than it seems like
    • I just recently updated from 4 to 5 and did some updates and now gnome is totally hosed. My repo list is fairly conservative, updates-released, extras, and livna. I checked on fedora forums last night and apparently it has bitten some more folks as well. What seemed to happen is loss of PNG support (maybe something else as well), which means a lot of icons don't show up and some of the gnome apps simply don't work. It be real, real ugly, I know it is the worst I have seen with any of my linux installs. I'm

    • The only reason that I am a little worried is I'm pretty sure yum will update me to core 6 automatically

      I don't think that it will automatically upgrade your version number. However, over time you do largely end up with most of the software for the next version because of the huge volume of updates that happen in the current FC version. For example, the update to KDE 3.5.3 was recently posted for FC5.

      This has actually been bothering me lately. Right now yum tells me that I've got more than 500 megabyte

    • Yum will not update you too Fedora Core 6 unless you upgrade fedora-release-5.noarch.rpm to fedora-release-6.noarch.rpm when Fedora Core 6 is released. In which case you would be doing it on purpose and one would hope you would know that Yum would be affected in that way. As for support, it is provided for apporoximately one year after each release. So support for Fedora Core 5 will end about when Fedora Core 7 is released.
  • Can that be done yet?
    • I don't really see any reaosn why not

      there seems to be advice on how to do it with RH around (you can find it on google pretty easily)... if you dig around a bit more fedora should be pretty easy to find. I think it should just be a question of selecting to instal it to sda instead of hda at the start... have a bit of a read round first but give it a go

    • Re:Installing on a USB hard drive? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ankou ( 261125 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @08:54AM (#15595790)
      Maby not the easiest way but I have been doing it since fedora 3:

      Insert Fedora core cd #1 and turn on your computer. Boot to the cd.

      When the boot screen comes up, type "expert" and hit enter. That will allow you to install to the usb drive. Install as normal, and make sure you install grub to the MBR.

      Now, shut down. Boot up with Fedora disk 1 in the cd drive. at the boot screen, type: "linux rescue", and answer the questions about language when they come up. when it asks you if you want it to search for the installation, click "skip this step", and you will be brought to a shell.

      mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/source
      mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/source/boot
      chroot /mnt/source

      Next, create the initrd, with the usb driver included:

      mkinitrd --preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=scsi_mod --preload=sd_mod /boot/initrd.img kernelversion

      Now, you have to edit your grub.conf:

      nano /boot/grub/grub.conf

      put the new initrd file name "initrd.img" in place of whats there. save and exit nano. reboot and it should work

      of course your bios needs to be able to boot off usb devices. Hope that helps.
      • Excellent Tip!

        Any way to install onto an image file? Preferably one on a Winnt filesystem although I would guess that would be way too much to ask for...

        The reason is I want to be able to create a Colinux image. I am using my work laptop so unfortunately hosing it to create some space for a native linux partition is out of the question. There are some existing FC images about the place but I would prefer to create my own - plus I would like to make a Centos image as well. I would like to use anaconda to do

  • Resume (Score:2, Interesting)

    by KarMax ( 720996 )
    Well i was bored and i read the Article, so.. here i quote the (IMO) important stuff. I don't like neither use FC but I admire the effort of his developers, they are doing an excellent work.

    However, at the time of writing we have yet to personally try out FC6T1 on any of these Intel-based Macintosh computers.

    With Core 6 Test 1, not many visible Anaconda changes have been implemented. However, one of the notable features is IPV6 support in the installer. Anaconda had locked up a few times when attempting

    • I installed and ran it on a new iMac with the Intel Duo Core processor with no problem. Install was pretty easy and all the rough spots were actually in Mac OS. The install didn't configure the monitor very well though.. setting it at 800x600 isn't so great. They'll have to do some more work on driver support too as I wasn't able to get the monitor to it's full 1680x1050 resolution and the sound doesn't seem to work. Networking does work. Haven't had time to try out the other hardware yet but it seems usuab

  • patented codec support? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @04:45AM (#15595325)
    Do I still need to jump through ridiculous hoops to get mp3 support in rhythmbox and get *any* support in totem?

    Out of the box, Totem can't play *anything*.. completely useless.

    At least make it like Ubuntu, where I can add a repository that has all the stuff they can't ship in the box.

    • Re:patented codec support? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Saturday June 24, 2006 @04:58AM (#15595348) Journal
      No, you've not had to jump through ridiculous hoops since at least Fedora Core 2, probably earlier. There _is_ just a repo you can add - it's called the Livna repository. It contains all the 'patented' codec support (sound, video, DVD playing etc.) as well as proprietary video card drivers from nvidia and ATi.

      See http://rpm.livna.org/ [livna.org]

      The ridiculous hoop you have to jump through is to simply type:

      rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm [livna.org]

      and you've added the Livna repository. All the stuff in Livna now appears in GUI software installer (Applications -> Add and Remove Software) as well as on the command line (using 'yum'). Couldn't be simpler. Livna is an essential repository for a home user of Fedora Core.

      • Re:patented codec support? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24, 2006 @06:44AM (#15595516)
        I think distros that disallow MP3 playback out of the box are being over zealous for 4 reasons:

        1. All software violates patents
        2. The patent holder says that FLOSS players are ok.
        3. The patents are only valid in the US and Japan
        4. The point is moot in 3 years anyway when the patent expires. So, there's no time to popularize ogg if that's what they're attempting.

        I'm all for keeping things 100% FLOSS, but as long as a piece of software has source code and is freely licenced then personally I don't care if it violates patents. Its one thing being forced by law not to use MP3 playback, but voluntarily removing it preemptively...isn't that a little like jumping off a cliff to avoid getting pushed off?

        • Re:patented codec support? (Score:5, Informative)

          by thebrid ( 772919 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @07:20AM (#15595583)
          1. All software violates patents

          There are so many software patents nowadays, I'm sure it's impossible to write all but the simplest software without treading on somebody's patent. But to suggest that distro owners should knowingly violate patents is kind of negligent.

          The patents are only valid in the US and Japan

          I know they're slightly biased, but on the MP3 Licensing [mp3licensing.com] web site, there's an extensive list of patents which have been granted in an equally extensive list of countries.

          The point is moot in 3 years anyway when the patent expires. So, there's no time to popularize ogg if that's what they're attempting.

          Again, I'd refer you to the MP3 Licensing web page. If you assume a patent duration of 20 years from filing, the first patents may have begun to expire but there's still quite a number of years to go until all the ones necessary to implement a full-featured decoder will have expired.

          I'm all for keeping things 100% FLOSS, but as long as a piece of software has source code and is freely licenced then personally I don't care if it violates patents. Its one thing being forced by law not to use MP3 playback, but voluntarily removing it preemptively...isn't that a little like jumping off a cliff to avoid getting pushed off?

          Apparently quite a number of the big free distros have legal teams who would disagree with you. From what I've used, neither Fedora nor Ubuntu include MP3 playback support and it's precisely for this reason. It's OK you advocating violating patents but these distros are made by non-profit organisations who have a lot to lose if they come on the wrong end of a patent lawsuit. At least they make the effort to make MP3 support available. If you want MP3 support, either pay for a commercial distro or quit whining and take the 2 minutes to install support for your distro. As you say, one day all these patents will have expired and even the free distros will be able to ship with MP3 support out of the box.

          Of course, most Linux distros ship with support for 2 excellent audio formats out of the box: Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com] and FLAC [sourceforge.net], both of which are better than MP3. Ogg Vorbis is a lossy CODEC which provides better quality than MP3 [rjamorim.com] at a lower bitrate. FLAC is the lossless CODEC and provides CD quality with 30-60% compression. Neither contain any patents that we know of (that in itself is important) and both work great on Windows too.

          • I'd just like to point out that the listening test you linked to, supposedly indicating Vorbis' superiority to MP3, actually states right at the top: "Let me try to be clear: there was no winner in this listening test". That test is also exceedingly out-of-date... the latest one can be found here [maresweb.de]. Results are still statistically insignificant @ 128kbps though. At lower bitrates Vorbis does okay, but doesn't come close to AAC-HE (AAC+). Anyhow... off topic.
          • Of course, most Linux distros ship with support for 2 excellent audio formats out of the box: Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, both of which are better than MP3. .... Neither contain any patents that we know of (that in itself is important) and both work great on Windows too.

            Vorbis and FLAC may have been built from the ground up in a FOSS setting, but it's still beyond question that the USPTO has granted some kind of spurious patent that they could be, at this very moment, be seen by an incompetant judge as infringing
          • I'd like to point out that while patents have been awarded in the EU they are done by a seperate indepedant body (the European Patent Office which operates in countries outside of the EU as well as EU members, again it is not an EU institute) and currently have no basis in law. Both the EU parliment and the EU courts have said that software patents are not legal in the EU and parliment recently threw out an attempt to pass them into law*.

            So essentially any software patent held in the EU is an expensive but
      • Yes, this is one of the great things about yum. There is a simple and clean way to have installation and upgrading of base software and third party software managed with a single interface. Livna is not the only such repository, personally I'm quite happy with freshrpms. Probably there are more.

        I don't know if Ubuntu have something similar, but I guess they have.

        I have seen how this is handled on Windows, I have seen how this is handled on Red Hat Linux, and I have seen how this is handled on Fedora Cor

      • But it could be a lot easier.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MarkByers ( 770551 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @07:30AM (#15595605) Homepage Journal
        The ridiculous hoop you have to jump through is to simply type:

        rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm [livna.org]

        Why do I have to type something at the command line to get basic multimedia support? Can't they just make a button during the install that you can press to get 'illegal' software. The button could read:

        'I want to play mp3 files and I don't care if it's illegal. I take full responsibility for my actions.'

        or:

        'Software patents don't apply in my country, give me an mp3 player already!'

        Why do they make you use the command line? It doesn't make sense.

        • Re:But it could be a lot easier.... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by quintesse ( 654840 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @08:00AM (#15595654)
          Because I'm sure a judge would agree with you completely that only putting a button to the illegal downloads would absolve the distro makers completely in case anyone decides to sue them. Besides, I like Fedora exactly for that attitude, they have their principals and they stick to them even though it might hurt them at times.

          And if entering one line on a console scares you maybe Linux is not for you. And I'm not being elitist here or anything, but it's just that you will be confrontend with a shell at some time during your Linux usage. The same way that for Windows you will be confronted with driver downloads (Why doesn't Microsoft give me a big button "Install latest nVidia drivers, I know what I'm doing").

          • Why doesn't Microsoft give me a big button "Install latest nVidia drivers, I know what I'm doing".

            It does. It's part of the automatic updates.

            Yes, it's not the "Latest" driver. But that's not the issue at hand with MP3s. You can't get them to work at all, you don't need the "Latest" MP3 player. You need an MP3 player.

            I've switched to SUSE in the meantime. I was impressed with it being able to correctly identify all the hardware on a PC I recently built for a friend. And I had gotten tired of the weird probl

            • > It does. It's part of the automatic updates.

              Uhm, no, it doesn't, what it installs is A driver that happens to work with your nVidia card but you'll be missing out on a bunch of features that the official drivers give you. Doesn't matter if you "just" want your card to work, but that's the same as saying you "just" want to listen to music. But you say you want to listen to MP3s (not supported by Fedora) and I say that I want to use my stereoscopic glasses that came with my card (not supported by the dri
          • They could have an extra step in the installer to download the codec if the chosen locale does not enforce the mp3 patent. Surely this could not count as facilitating illegal downloads - they are merely protecting the rights of citizens who don't suffer from the mp3 patent in their country.

            I think this issue comes up so frequently that the installer should also mention that "mp3 support cannot be downloaded because it is likely to violate a patent in your country" and to "seek online help if you are sure th
        • Spoiled young'n. If I recall correctly RealPlayer for linux supports MP3's right from the start, if you feel like putting realplayer into your distro. In order to play MP3's you need to have a program that pays the fee to decode MP3's. You used to have to download Winamp or an alternitive if you wanted to listen to compressed music, but now Windows Media Player pays the fee and is included on every Windows computer and iTunes pays the fee and is included on every Apple computer. If you can talk a distro
        • Can't they just make a button during the install that you can press to get 'illegal' software. The button could read: 'I want to play mp3 files and I don't care if it's illegal. I take full responsibility for my actions.'

          Like if that wouldn't get them into trouble. Better warn people that the software is only legal in some countries, and provide them a question similar to this: Have you verified that using this additional software is legal in your country of residence? Yes/No.

        • Re:But it could be a lot easier.... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Saturday June 24, 2006 @11:24AM (#15596330) Journal
          If you really need to do it via the GUI, just point your browser at http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm [livna.org] - Firefox as installed on FC5 understands by default what program needs to handle RPM packages.

          I'm sure the Fedora team has thought of putting some 'install illegal codecs' button somewhere in the GUI, but RedHat's lawyers probably say it's a very bad idea. If Livna does it all independently then RedHat can easily claim clean hands and get the case dismissed if Fraunhofer tries to sue them. It might be harder to get the suit dismissed if they do as you suggest, and that means lots of money - a patent holder's lawyer would be able to argue that it is tantamount to Microsoft putting a link on the GUI to the Pirate Bay in Windows.
        • Why do they make you use the command line? It doesn't make sense.

          Ah! I see you are employing the Chewbacca defense! ... clever ...
    • Set either apt or yum to look freshrpms repository, instructions can be found somewhere at http://freshrpms.net/ [freshrpms.net]. Hardly jumping through a hoop, infact it's exactly the same as Ubuntu.
    • At least make it like Ubuntu, where I can add a repository that has all the stuff they can't ship in the box.
      See livna.org

  • Red Hat's view of Fedora (Score:4, Informative)

    by Builder ( 103701 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @05:00AM (#15595350)
    Red Hat view (or at least did when I was in Raleigh last September) FC as an incubator for RHEL.

    I discussed the release frequency and period of support, and they were pretty unsympathetic to the user's point of view. Their requirement is fast turnaround of new releases to ensure a strong test of new technologies / versions of new packages.

    This has some upsides, like the multipathing support in RHEL4, Update 3 which means we can finally do away with Veritas on most of our machines. But it can suck for the user.
    • On one hand it can suck for the user, however, on the other, it's pretty darned nice having the latest release of everything, integrated (mostly) tested and working. True, it's not for everyone - for those people there's RHEL or even Debian. For those of us that like the bleeding edge (in a desktop distro I don't mind, never would I use it for a server though) it's the best thing since sliced bread.
      • I just thought I would throw in my two cent regarding fast release cycles and living on the bleeding edge. I actually stopped using Redhat / Fedora on my home PC as it was not as recent as I would have liked. I have now moved to Gentoo.

        The other thing that always bugged about Redhat was that I kept breaking the RPM system. I know this could always be blamed on me, but since I started using Gentoo, Portage (The gentoo software repository) has never given me any problems whatsoever.
    • Red Hat view (or at least did when I was in Raleigh last September) FC as an incubator for RHEL.

      I discussed the release frequency and period of support, and they were pretty unsympathetic to the user's point of view. Their requirement is fast turnaround of new releases to ensure a strong test of new technologies / versions of new packages.

      This has some upsides, like the multipathing support in RHEL4, Update 3 which means we can finally do away with Veritas on most of our machines. But it can suck for the us

  • Evolutionary rather than revolutionary (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24, 2006 @05:28AM (#15595391)
    As someone whose been using Fedora since Core 1, this release seems more evolutionary. Even without major changes between releases, the accumulated bug fixes contribute to a desktop that 'works' better and has the functionality I need. We all remember the bad old days of manually mounting your USB peripherals.. well now I have suspend, easy networking (thanks to NetworkManager) and useful stuff like Beagle to play with, so thats quite good progress. This release will be worthwhile just to get the latest of everything, and it looks as if some nice eye-candy will be ready in GNOME 2.16.

    I personally would like to see a general reduction in memory usage in GNOME and various apps; it's been moving in the right direction, I hope it stays that way. I believe there is an effort to remove various deprecated libraries to help here.
    • I personally would like to see a general reduction in memory usage in GNOME and various apps; it's been moving in the right direction, I hope it stays that way. I believe there is an effort to remove various deprecated libraries to help here.

      I have heard that the memory/cpu requirements for FC5 are less than they were for FC4, don't know if it's true though. FC5 certainly feels snapier than FC4 did.

  • Fedora + KDE !=Genuine KDE (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nighty5 ( 615965 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @09:30AM (#15595916)
    Redhat hacks KDE beyond the feel and proper use of KDE. Fedora replaces a lot of QT applets with GTK ones to perform a lot of functions. KDEsu is a prime example although there is others.

    If you are a KDE fan, than you're being shortchanged if you run Fedora or Redhat products.

    SuSE used to be a great product, but 10.1 had so many problems I've lost confidence.

    Give Mandrake, Gentoo, Kubuntu a try.
  • I would like to check this out, but I don't have a spare partition. Is there a live CD of the development snapshot available?

  • Accelerated desktop (Score:3, Informative)

    by r_cerq ( 650776 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @10:36AM (#15596184)
    I'm amazed there's no mention of this yet, with all the fuss about XGL and Compiz recently...
    The FC development repo (so I assume FC6T1 has it as well) includes AIGLX [fedoraproject.org], a different approach to the accelerated desktop thing. The metacity that comes with Core has support for a few effects (like wobbling windows), but if you want to try the cube and othe compiz goodies, Kristian has an RPM of compiz for AIGLX here [redhat.com]. Just install it and voilá: eye candy goodness.

  • No wait! It's too soon!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @10:40AM (#15596195) Homepage
    When I went from FC3 to FC4, I was in an excited rush only to be disappointed by some bugs with sound and stuff. I was already accustomed to tweaking and figuring things out, but over the past couple of years, I have grown weary of it and prefer things to just work. As FC5 grew near, I was really hopeful that they learned lessons from the problems of FC4. But somehow, in my continuous updating of my laptop, ATI had finally gotten around to fixing their proprietary driver to allow for suspend to RAM/Disk. I had all but given up on ever having successful hibernation on my laptop, but when I discovered that it worked, I became very excited by the announcement of FC5test#.

    I downloaded and installed it on another hard drive. Went straight for suspend and it just worked out of the box flawlessly. I think I might have wet my pants... it was some time ago and my memory is hazy on the details, but there was urination at some point immediately surrounding the event... maybe I closed the lid on my laptop, took a piss and came back to find that the laptop was able to resume where it left off. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was it. Anyway, I decided FC5 wasn't coming fast enough for me.

    When FC5 arrived, I was not disappointed in the least. And with only one problem with periodic "yum" updates, FC5 scores an almost perfect record in my opinion.

    Now there's FC6 around the corner? Why? I'm REALLY happy with FC5. I don't need FC6. Of course I will upgrade though. FC5 development will slow down and stop eventually. But I doubt I will scramble for FC6 without something really compelling. The improvements from the summary don't indicate anything compelling to me.

    As for competing distros? Ubuntu is the name being used most. I still haven't tried it. It's not what I'm used to, and that's reason enough for me... for now. Maybe one day I'll bump into an Ubuntu user with the OS on his laptop and I'll get a demo I can appreciate. But where Fedora Core is concerned, I feel very well supported with RPMs available for everything I can think of. Only on rare occasion do I find myself stealing RPMs built for other distros because it's not available for FC5. And that's mostly due to the "I don't want to get sued" mentality coming from RedHat.

    So yeah, that's the only beef I have with Fedora Core -- the "we don't support MP3 because we're scared" thing. Did the patent on GIF run out already? How much time left on MP3?
  • I'm still on FC3. So can one go form FC3 to FC6 directly?
  • Did they put the "Install Everything" button back in yet?
    If not, I'm not interested.
    • The problem with the "Install Everything" button was that users were installing thousands of applications that they didn't ever use and support for thousands of languages that they didn't ever use and it placed a huge strain on the servers. I would personally like to see it back, but considering installing is a one time action over the life of the distro, spending a few minutes to click the groups you want installed shouldn't be a major concern.
      Regards,
      Steve

      • and it placed a huge strain on the servers.

        Installing from CD/DVD does not put any strain on the servers (apart from updating the system afterwards). The real reason why "install Everything" was removed is that this option caused several conflicting packages to be installed, creating more problems than it solved.

        • No, it did put strain on the update servers... because when users updated, they were updating hundreds of megs of stuff that they didn't need. You're right about not affecting the cd/dvd, but as soon as the user started updating, the update servers got bogged down like crazy.
          Regards,
          Steve

  • On behalf of Artie Lange... (Score:5, Funny)

    by talksinmaths ( 199235 ) on Saturday June 24, 2006 @04:11PM (#15597491) Homepage
    ...let me reply to some of the posts here:

    Did they put the "Install Everything" button back in yet? If not, I'm not interested.
    Waaah!

    New KDE, new Gnome, an updater, and CUPS? Yawn...
    Waaaaahh!

    I switched to ${ANOTHER_DISTRO} and never looked back.
    Waaaaaaaaaahhhh!

    If you are a KDE fan, than you're being shortchanged...
    Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhh!

    I'm REALLY happy with FC5. I don't need FC6.
    Waaaah!!! Waaaah!!! Waaaaaaaaaaah!!!

    The main problem I find with it is they seem too willing to update too quickly.
    Waaaah waaaah waaaah waaaah waaaah!!!!!

    Out of the box, Totem can't play *anything*.. completely useless.
    Wah wah wah wah wah, wah wah wah, waaaaaaahhh!

    Why do I have to type something at the command line to get basic multimedia support? Can't they just make a button...
    WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHH HHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    [DISCLAIMER: This post is a joke. This post is only a joke. Had this post been intended to deliver actual derision or condescension it would have been supported by bad analogies, the anecdotal 'evidence' of a single user, and/or numerous mentions of other Linux distributions that are not germane to the current discussion. I apologize preemptively if anyone's fragile psyche was offended by this post. Additionally, I don't really have the authority to speak on Artie Lange's behalf.]

  • Every comment I have read so far is about problems , when something is in this early stage they are not problems , any software designer knows you run beta versions and fix bugs but there not problems I assure you, can anyone tell me about a software program that has had no bugs in it or problems with it?

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