Rock-solid Fedora 10 brings salvation to Ubuntu weary
Fedora might not be getting a complete makeover or flashy new features in version 10, out today, but some welcome enhancements under-the-hood make this a worthwhile upgrade. If you've never given Fedora a try, now is a great time. The tenth revision slick and stable and it has a rock solid feel to it that, for our money, trumps …
so what you're saying is that if i install a modern RPM based distro, i can then install enlightenment in a manner as easy as debian provides? the real problem was that an rpm of a dependency just didn't exist. a problem i never faced with debian. if a package was listed in apt it would install. and the most important thing was apt had everything you could ever want and then some more.
Neoc - I have a feeling the author means that if the file does not have an assoiciated reader/player installed on the system - PackageKit can find the correct one in it's list of known types and install an applicable app.
He doesn't say you can't find and install one yourself :)
so ....
"The absence of a flicker between when the boot screen exists and X loads is the result of Fedora's decision to move X from virtual terminal seven to virtual terminal one. It sounds like a small, unimportant change, but the results are worth it our opinion."
Well, that's sold it to me .. been keeping me awake at night that has. I reboot the laptop once every month or so (when I manage to let the battery go so flat it won't wake again) and that little jump in the display as it boots, ooh, so annoying, Certainly one of he key features Ive been looking for ...
I thought this was going to be a serious article until you got to the bit about the wonders of RPMs ... that kinda gave it away.
I'll stick with Debian, thanks.
"Speaking of proprietary things like Flash files, Fedora 10 includes the latest stable version of X.Org, which means no more support for proprietary nVidia drivers. The free driver will work for those systems, but you'll lose 3-D support, which is a shame."
That strikes me as a cut-and-paste from a Fedora 9 review, where it was briefly true, because Fedora shipped what was technically an "pre-release" version of X.org - The API in this was not supported by the NVidia driver.
But the good old folks at rpmfusion.org quickly packaged an NVidia beta driver, and continued through to a stable driver for Fedora 10, which definitely works because I am using it.
There is no issue with installing the NVidia driver on Fedora 10
Some things are very sticky, like RPM hell.
I belive the "hell" stuff started with something Windows even if I cannot remember what.
An other thing that become very sticky is this thing about Mandriva beeing good for "beginners".
I think that was very unfair towards Mandrake and Mandriva.
I am a programmer since 1968 but I want my installation to work out of the box.
Screen, connection, printers, sound etc.
Does that make me a beginner.
I find it good that I can tweek and fuck around with things if I like so.
I am a very old Mandriva user, and I like the product.
And like many others, I like the Control Center and the formatting tool.
I got the payed for Powerpack 2008 about a year ago.
I newer got the sound working with a USB headset (needed only for Skype).
Also updating from 9.something to 10.0 on a laptop I lost the sound.
Then I tried Sabayon and the sound came out of the box, although I cannot change from speakers to the headset without rebooting.
I wonder Adam cound I approach you through some e-mail address to try to work out this
sound problem on P2008.
You seem to be dedicated to your job, and It is always fine when compleatly wrong statements are rebuffed bye people who know better.
Regards
There, I said it. I like Windows XP. You know what?? It worked when I installed it, it has drivers for everything and software installs as if by magick. And I have 3-D support and I play MP3 on it...
I always say that you get waht you pay for. You're paying naff-all and you're getting a work in progress. At least I know how broken my Windows are.
How well does the nVidia from RPMFusion work with Wine? I've had a #D app (game) that I recently tried with rpmfusion under Wine that'd moan about lack of a display. The native nVidia driver worked a treat. Hopefully they've fixed this in the past week or two. I look forward to giving F10 a run around the park sometime this weekend.
"So if you try and use the 'rpm' command as you would use the apt tools, congratulations, you just failed."
And that attitude is partly why Joe Public will continue to use mainstream stuff like XP and Macs, for the simple reason they work straight out of the box, and you don't have people who still live with mummy talking down to you if you have a problem.
Linux still isn't there yet, which is a shame.
I've said it before, and no doubt, I'll say it again: Linux needs a single package management tool across all distributions.
Most of the comments above are along the lines of "RPM sux", "No, you suck, you don't understand RMP", "You should try apt", "APT sux, you should use yum"... etc. This tedious in fighting doesn't really help anyone adopt Linux.
The live CD gave me a bar at the bottom of the screen for ten minutes, then garbage on the screen, then a black screen with a mouse pointer (which did actually move around as I moved my mouse). This procedure took half an hour, after which I pulled the power. Now Windows is borked. I'm currently on a borrowed workstation. Oh, joy.
RPM is the MAIN reason that I stopped using red-hat systems. I have wasted far to many days of my life with the dependency nightmare that comes along with it.
When I moved to ubuntu and found apt-get I knew that I was converted...never had a problem installing anything on an ubuntu system.
I have heard that yum is very good in fedora, I tried fedora 9 and yum and ran into a dependency nightmare almost straight away. I think i'll miss fedora 10.
All the gui and stuff is great, and lets face it, comes from communities outside both fedora and ubuntu - so you can get this with any distro - if you can install it!!
This is 2008 and our OSs are still lurking around ~1967. Look at us arguing over our favorite brand of brain damage.
By now I would have expected a transparent versioned filesystem (TOPS-20, ~1976) with clearcase like dynamic views on top, based on MVC so I could view and sort and arrange meta/data how I liked (all versioned) with full rollback, history, split, join, unlimited do/undo. intelligent indexing (not scan my whole disk inna the background, Duhh) - choose cmd line, text or graphics GUI or not, and apps that you can break into and hack at runtime (lisp, ~1974) modify and rollback if things go horribly wrong (as per data), distribute and configure per user or whatever. Lots of other things as well, soon as I daydream them up.
We are still stuck with stone knives and bearskins, and when we try, we end up with stuff that is complicated because its a reflection of whoever did it and went the easy way out. Read "design of everyday things" you cop-out lazy %*#&-tards. Tools to make tools, written by tools.
</rant> In case you weren't paying attention.
'Dribblers club' in memory of Pete the Bastard, who might be alive, or not.
Sorry to hear that, check the FedoraForum.org to see if anyone else has experienced that with the livecd, you may have an easy answer there.
This review is not too bad as reviews go, but remember, it is just that -- a review, an opinion.
There is some misinformation about nvidia drivers. After which commenced some whining and bashing even after some comments posted with the correct information. So the whiners and bashers kept posting without reading through all the comments.
After reading the flames about rpm vs apt. I was a little surprised not to see more distro vs distro crap, or the inevitable Gnome vs KDE...
But let's get to the point. If you read and base your decision on only 1 review, I'm sorry, your a complete moron... and actually, i don't think that anyone only reads only 1 review, even the above commenters.
If you blindly click "update", does not matter if it is Linux or Windows, and it breaks your "lifeline to self and humanity", you may be excused as inexperienced the first time only, otherwise, you are an idiot.
So, what are we left with? A bunch of flames targeting RPM ( indirectly targeting Fedora? ) and an author who may only redeem himself from the label "complete jackass" by posting a correction to the nvidia driver nonsense.
Here is the nvidia driver solution that took me less than a minute to find.
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=204752&highlight=f10+nvidia
Mario: Again, you're confusing things. Whether the distro you choose happens to have a package for something you want to install has nothing to do with the package management system it chooses to use. To answer your initial question - on Mandriva, 'urpmi task-e17' installs e17, and 'urpmi enlightenment' installs e16.
Lars: Sure - awilliamson AT mandriva DOT com. Send the details there and I'll try and help.
Sam: Actually, a brand new Linux user who didn't listen to the crap spewed by old Debian users would never have to worry about this, because they'd read the instructions - like http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software - and never know that the terrible, inferior RPM-based system they were using was causing them so much trouble. Because it, um, wouldn't be. Heck, they'd probably never touch the 'rpm' command at all. It's only people who last tried an RPM-based distro in 2002 and are apparently under the impression that nothing ever changes who perpetuate this stupid 'apt is better than rpm' crap. And I write this way on the Reg because it's traditional. If I was actually nice to people they'd make me give up my subscription. ;)
And no, I don't live with Mummy. Thanks for caring, though.
Fraser: "I've said it before, and no doubt, I'll say it again: Linux needs a single package management tool across all distributions."
Why? What would that achieve?
You still can't install packages from one distribution on another, or at least not safely. That has nothing to do with the package manager they use, it's simply because everyone has different versions of various libraries available, and everyone has different conventions about package splitting and naming policies and so on. That's why you can't install a Debian package on Fedora, it's not because one uses .deb and one uses .rpm.
Having different package management systems on different distros doesn't cause any major practical problems, and using one single package management system on all distros wouldn't really solve any.
At least one person is trying to compare apt to rpm. That doesn't make sense -- you can compare apt and yum or dpkg and rpm, but you can't compare apt and rpm as they do different jobs.
"rpm hell" has been consigned to the dustbin of history for ages. I first remember up2date which did half the job waaay back at the beginning of the century (if not before) and then we had yum and now we have PackageKit ...
That only seems to happen on my washing machine's spin cycle and NASA urine dispensing machines
I'm a happy Fedora user, in fact I'm so happy with Fedora 6 I have'nt bothered upgrading since installing it on the uber box(this pc) and ye olde semi retired box(the 2001 pc sitting next to me)
I've installed things with yum, used the package manager GUI thingy (heracy! command line only the linux geeks yell) to swap packages and programs in and out like there's no tomorrow( and if those CLI geeks catch me, there may not be) and I've yet to hit 'RPM hell', I did have one program that protested that its dependencies where missing, but that was due to me un installing something without thinking about it.
The only real downside I can find is that Java does'nt like beryl so I have to switch off the desktop effects while using the latest netbeans
As for mp3 support... I tried a Fedora 9 live cd 2 months ago..... and it installed it when I asked it to.
Bill G..... because .dll hell is a real place thats far worse than rpm hell
I've never had RPM hell but I've frequently had DEB hell. The worst/most stupid case was on X/K/ubuntu 7.something. I uninstalled a minor package using synaptic (some IM crap - not Gaim), and it removed all of GNOME as well. No, it wasn't part of the default install and yes it was an official X/K/Ubuntu package.
Ok, to clarify: Linux needs common packages and common package management across all distributions.
This will achieve:
The same commands to do the same things on different flavours of linux, it may not be a biggie for you, or most experienced linux users, but it puts off new users. Above anything though, what is the point of having an OS that has different commands to a slightly different version of the same OS, surely that isn't the same OS?
The other major achievement this will cause is halting the 'my package is better than your package' arguments, see above comments. This appears childish and unprofessional, why would someone choose to use linux when the most vocal advocates of it behave in this manner?
Fascinating thread, especially Adam Williamson's valiant (if not entirely successful) efforts at breaking centuries of Linux tradition by trying to initiate civil and reasoned discussion. I'm still not going to try Fedora though. Or Ubuntu, the distro that treats KDE like some sort of inbred cousin-child, to be neglected and shunned. I'm guessing all the Ubuntu worshippers have seldom if ever suffered the misery that is Kubuntu. Only 3 weeks until OpenSuse 11.1 goes gold, and hopefully a stable KDE4.x at last.
A live CD can't break an existing OS. Sounds like that machine was screwed to start with.
"Ok, to clarify: Linux needs common packages and common package management across all distributions."
...but then you wouldn't have distributions any more. 99% of the difference between distros is, well, the packages. And I don't think it's a very good idea, anyway. There's different distros for different purposes. What suits a Fedora user doesn't necessarily suit a Debian user. You can't force a one-size-fits-all set of packages on all Linux users. They don't want it.
Stuart: you accuse me of "civil and reasoned discussion"? On the REGISTER?! How dare you, sir! *glove slap*
My understanding of the NVIDIA + XOrg issue is that *newer* NVIDIA cards are supported but older ones are not. This is coming from the comment on Ubuntu's 8.10 release notes.
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810
"Users with the nVidia TNT, TNT2, TNT Ultra, GeForce, GeForce2, GeForce3, and GeForce4 chipsets are affected and will be transitioned on upgrade to the free nv driver instead."
I imagine that this is similar for Fedora 10.
i get your point on apt v/s rpm. i also admit it's been a while since i've worked with a linux box. corporate policy means i'm forced to use crap-xp.
i guess it boils down to which distro has a better selection of packages. apt has all the packages known about and then some more. i've played with refhat and mandrake. and back in those days, debian and derivatives simply mopped the floor with these 2 based on the above. to the enduser, that made apt a lot more easier to use.
another feature that i liked about debian was that the repositories were central. so it made no difference if my base install was debian vanilla or knoppix. and i suspect the same holds true for ubuntu. i'm not really sure that mandrake and hedhat both rpm based systems allowed this. ya sure sometimes it did work. but it still was not the same. for example an rpm of icarus verilog initially worked with mandrake, but later on i had to get me a tarball and compile it as later rpms would complain.
FWIW, i appreciate your replies on this forum. it's comforting to know that a linux developer walks among us.
Who are you kidding? RPM is a great package management format? Have you actually used both RPM and DEB?
I started with Mandrake and used it for two years. I have lived in RPM hell. I switched to Debian based systems and I will never go back to RPM. I still occasionally install an RPM distro to see if it has improved and it hasn't. I can break OpenSUSE within an hour without trying. Mandriva will at least work for awhile but it is just a question of how long it works before the package manager is useless. Fedora lies between the two from my experience.
Here is why I say this. I install lots. I install every possible desktop and bit of eye candy. I install all possible multimedia. I do this intentionally. I count how long it takes to run into a dependency problem.
With Debian based systems Synaptic usually does not run into problems. However if it does encounter a problem, it prevents me from installing in the first place or the broken dependency filter in Synaptic usually works. If not it works from the commandline. In short it is easy to fix. In Ubuntu I can even install from outside the repositories. I can install across versions and even use many packages from the Debian repositories. Try using a Mandrake RPM in Fedora or even a Fedora 9 package in Fedora 10 and you will see why DEB is superior.
In RPM based distros if you try this it breaks the system and in many cases it makes the package manager unusable and destabilizes the system. SUSE is absolutely the worst and it presents you with all kinds of troubleshooting scenarios which only make things worse in most cases. When an RPM based package manager breaks it is very hard to resolve the issues. You are stuck in dependency hell and it is often easier to re-install than to troubleshoot the problem.
If you have used both there is no comparison. Deb packages are just better built and they are more flexible as you can use them across many Debian based distros. On top of this there are far more packages for Debian based systems.
RPM works if you are prepared to stick with limited repositories and if you don't install lots. If you want to use lots of applications and want to go outside of the repositories, then RPM is useless, in my experience.
Other than this outrageous statement, I had no problem with the review. In fact I have downloaded Fedora 10 and will put it through its paces. I don't expect good things, but I am willing to be surprised. I hated the last couple of releases and wonder why a Fedora user would put up with such a weak effort when there are better alternatives. They just keep making excuses in the vague hope that things will improve. One good release (Fedora 6) does not make a good platform, IMO. Fedora needs a winner and I hope for their sake and the users that Fedora 10 is it.
Ubuntu uses its own repos, not Debian's. You can install Debian packages on Ubuntu, and often it'll work, but it's not supported, not guaranteed to work, and sometimes doesn't.
The "patents" which -- until they expired last year -- governed MP3 encoding and decoding are null and void in any jurisdiction where you can't patent a mathematical operation. Furthermore, thanks to the beauty of fair use exemptions, even in such places an MP3 encoder or decoder compiled from source would have been non-infringing unless any reward was sought for the act of compiling.
Since every Linux includes the GNU toolchain, it ought to be easy enough to create a package which has the Source Code for a media player with MP3 support, and compiles it during the post-install script. Most people probably would not even notice that happening.
First off, if you had been correct, then you should have also stated that you'd just be losing support for the nvidia LEGACY driver that powers kit over 4 years old (roughly).
Second, as of 10/29, Nvidia released a 32 and 64 bit version of the legacy driver that's compatible with X.org -> http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=1826678
Fedora 10 is a big improvement to the buggy Fedora 9, but that seems to be the case with all of there releases, every other one fixes the bugs. Package Kit is very nice and its easy to install thing like mp3 support on just when you are trying to use the file, saves a good deal of time. And the rpm system seems to have very little bugs now. As a user off both Red Hat based and Debian based Linux, I can defiantly recommend this version over ubuntu.
