Fedora Core 5 - First Impressions

[Brazen]

I'm primarily a server admin, so that's what I focus on. So far, I have mixed feelings about the new version of the Anaconda installer. First of all it is much more desktop-centric. The Server/Desktop/Laptop/Workstation install selection is gone. Instead it looks like it defaults to a Desktop install, with an easy option towards the end to choose whether or not to install office apps and/or software developer apps with an option for more customization.

Under the the more customization is particularly where I have issues. I've always only downloaed disc 1 and did a minimal install. In previous versions this was easy - scroll to the very bottom of the package customization and check "minimal install" which automatically un-checks everything else. In the new system, I have to manually go through and uncheck everything. BUT, there is one advantage: I can remove more. Previously I would remove several packages after the installation was finished, but now, you can literally install a system that is "practically" unusable. I image you could still mount removable media and rpm install more packages, but I did not try that. I was able to choose not to install Sendmail, Yum, wget, dhclient... tons of stuff even the most basic system would normally need. Of course the advantage of this for me, is that this means I can also choose not to install those packages which my base systems do not need, including install Postfix instead of Sendmail right off the bat.

Ok, well, I've probably typed way more than anybody cares about installing FC, but feel free to leave any of your first impressions with the new FC5.

 

[MBrown]

This was the first 32bit linux I have been able to install on my A64 properly. The whole reason why I wanted 32 instead of the 64 is so I can install flash. And guess what. It wont install. It says its installed but its not working. This is for firefox.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: MBrown
This was the first 32bit linux I have been able to install on my A64 properly. The whole reason why I wanted 32 instead of the 64 is so I can install flash. And guess what. It wont install. It says its installed but its not working. This is for firefox.

FC4 x86 would not install? hmm. You might try looking around fedoraforum.org for info on getting flash to work in firefox. I've heard flash can be problematic, but there is an OSS flash player trying to change that (still alpha or beta, I think).

 

[MBrown]

^I finally got flash working in FC5. But yeah I was never able to get any 32bit linux working. And another strange thing is I couldnt get XP with SP1 to install on my machine. I could only install XP with SP2 No matter what I did it wouldnt work. I had to take it to the shop and the guy said that there was a incompatibilty issue with the nForce4 chipset and SP1. I didn't believe him because I was able to do it before. I ended up getting another MB to see if it was just a bad MB and I still can't install XP with SP1.

Sorry for going WAY off topic. 🙁

 

[SokaMoka]

Originally posted by: MBrown
This was the first 32bit linux I have been able to install on my A64 properly. The whole reason why I wanted 32 instead of the 64 is so I can install flash. And guess what. It wont install. It says its installed but its not working. This is for firefox.

This should fix your flash issue in FC 5 32 :
1- go to terminal
2- su -
3- gedit /etc/yum.repos.d/macromedia.repo
4- Paste the attached code below

click save and exit gedit

After closing gedit you will be back at the terminal, as root issue the following command

yum -y install flash-plugin

 

[MBrown]

^thanks but I was able to get it working already. I guess the problem was firefox was trying to install flash 8. I like it so far. I think its more user friendly than FC4.

 

[doornail]

Brazen,

I agree with you about how they dumbed down the installation options. I know you can customize the packages but it lost some of that "jack of all trades" distro feel. I still need to update my systems but I'm looking forward to Gnome 2.14 and the upgrades to gedit (which I use about seven hours a day).

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: doornail
Brazen,

I agree with you about how they dumbed down the installation options. I know you can customize the packages but it lost some of that "jack of all trades" distro feel. I still need to update my systems but I'm looking forward to Gnome 2.14 and the upgrades to gedit (which I use about seven hours a day).

Yeah, the thing is though, in a sense it is dumbed down for the newbie desktop user, but then, in a sense it's a little more advance because you do have the option for the server admin to remove a lot more packages from the installation - albeit it takes a LOT of clicking to remove all the packages.

My real concern is the in-between user, passed being a newbie and wants to try a streamlined server install, but not quite an advanced user the knows what absolute BASE packages are needed. I guess for them they can uncheck everything but leave the defaults for the BASE package group, but the install doesn't really make that apparent like it used to.

I also agree on the Gnome 2.14. I already posted a little blurb about Gnome in another thread, so I'll try and find it and copy it here instread of trying to repeat myself...

SokaMoka: That's some useful info.

 

[Brazen]

from the Novell Linux Video thread:

Originally posted by: Brazen
Just a note to anybody disappointed this is focusing on gnome instead of kde:

Since I first started dabbling in linux 5 years ago, I've preferred KDE over Gnome. I had occasionally ventured into gnome, but always came back to KDE. Keep in mind however, I pretty much only use linux on servers with CLI only. This past week though, due mostly to the Kororaa livecd and hearing about the new deskbar in Gnome 2.14, I decided to once again venture into Gnome territory and install it on my desktop.

This time, I think I'm hooked. I don't know what it was, it just clicked this time. Everything suddenly seems to be more intuitive and better laid out then KDE, when previously KDE had been easier for me to just pick it up and go. I know there is a ton of customization options that I no longer have, but frankly I don't feel like I need them this time, Gnome is just working the way I want it to now, and I've gotten the desktop to look how I want (albeit, very KDE-ish looking). And there ARE usability improvements, I've always known that, it's just that Gnome has gotten to the point where the trade-offs are worth it (to me).

So anyway, kudos to Gnome, KDE fans should at least consider it (although I know the next version of KDE is supposed to be massively improved also).

 

[foxkm]

I though FC5 is pretty.... Nothing really new besides that.. It defently seems much snapper than FC3 and Cent OS 4.2

FC5 DVD covers - http://586z.wox.org/~foxkm/FC5

 

[Armitage]

Gonna upgrade my FC2 desktop this weekend.
To be honest, I've got plenty of disk space so I just check "install all". Then it's always kind of a treasure hunt finding cool new stuff on you disk 😛

 

[Diz2K2]

Originally posted by: foxkm
I though FC5 is pretty.... Nothing really new besides that.. It defently seems much snapper than FC3 and Cent OS 4.2

FC5 DVD covers - http://586z.wox.org/~foxkm/FC5

Thanks burning the DVD iso now

 

[bunbun]

I have not used FC5 yet but it seems like it will be just a few more buttons that FC4 or FC2 which I use on my comps.
Is this a legitmate assumption? My FC2 box is still my fastest, best computer; I have no intenetion of going to 4 or 5 with it unless
there really is something worth while in five. So the real question is, is it worth going to 5?

Cheers, bunbun

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: bunbun
I have not used FC5 yet but it seems like it will be just a few more buttons that FC4 or FC2 which I use on my comps.
Is this a legitmate assumption? My FC2 box is still my fastest, best computer; I have no intenetion of going to 4 or 5 with it unless
there really is something worth while in five. So the real question is, is it worth going to 5?

Cheers, bunbun

well, the obvious issue that I see, is that FC2 is either out of support or getting close (not sure if Fedora Legacy has kept it up or not). So you won't be getting any security patches through yum, or any new versions of packages (such as Gnome 2.14 with all it's improvements).

Your first sentence: "it seems like it will be just a few more buttons that FC4 or FC2 which I use on my comps" doesn't really make any sense. A few more buttons? You mean buttons to clike during the install? Buttons in the GUI? It's a bit more than just "a few more buttons" whatever that is supposed to mean.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Armitage
Gonna upgrade my FC2 desktop this weekend.
To be honest, I've got plenty of disk space so I just check "install all". Then it's always kind of a treasure hunt finding cool new stuff on you disk 😛

I guess I always considered it more clutter than "treasure." In addition you will have more services running and wasting resources with a full install.

When I want to go on a software "treasure hunt" I head over to Freshmeat.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Armitage
Gonna upgrade my FC2 desktop this weekend.
To be honest, I've got plenty of disk space so I just check "install all". Then it's always kind of a treasure hunt finding cool new stuff on you disk 😛

I guess I always considered it more clutter than "treasure." In addition you will have more services running and wasting resources with a full install.

When I want to go on a software "treasure hunt" I head over to Freshmeat.

Fedora enables everything that is installed?

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Armitage
Gonna upgrade my FC2 desktop this weekend.
To be honest, I've got plenty of disk space so I just check "install all". Then it's always kind of a treasure hunt finding cool new stuff on you disk 😛

I guess I always considered it more clutter than "treasure." In addition you will have more services running and wasting resources with a full install.

When I want to go on a software "treasure hunt" I head over to Freshmeat.

Fedora enables everything that is installed?

No, of course not. Just somebody talking out their ass I guess. Everything is off by default - but it's there if you you want to play with it. I've got the disk space, why not?

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Armitage
Gonna upgrade my FC2 desktop this weekend.
To be honest, I've got plenty of disk space so I just check "install all". Then it's always kind of a treasure hunt finding cool new stuff on you disk 😛

I guess I always considered it more clutter than "treasure." In addition you will have more services running and wasting resources with a full install.

When I want to go on a software "treasure hunt" I head over to Freshmeat.

Fedora enables everything that is installed?

No, not everything. There are just some things such as the x system, which is a huge resource hog and absolutely not necessary on a server, and a few other little things like cups and hp printing support, power management support, bluetooth support, mouse support, anacron, etc that not everybody needs.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Armitage
Gonna upgrade my FC2 desktop this weekend.
To be honest, I've got plenty of disk space so I just check "install all". Then it's always kind of a treasure hunt finding cool new stuff on you disk 😛

I guess I always considered it more clutter than "treasure." In addition you will have more services running and wasting resources with a full install.

When I want to go on a software "treasure hunt" I head over to Freshmeat.

Fedora enables everything that is installed?

No, not everything. There are just some things such as the x system, which is a huge resource hog and absolutely not necessary on a server, and a few other little things like cups and hp printing support, power management support, bluetooth support, mouse support, anacron, etc that not everybody needs.

I haven't found a way to not have X installed, at least on RHES4.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

I haven't found a way to not have X installed, at least on RHES4.

You haven't? At the beginning, it asks you if you want to do a desktop/workstation/laptop/server install (I think those are the options, though I'm not sure since I just click right on server install). Choose a server install and towards the end it will give options for packages to install (I just scroll to the bottom and chose "minimal" which unchecks everything else).

Even under the other install options (laptop or desktop or whatever) it should (or it used to anyway) give the option to choose customized packages towards the end of the install setup and there you can uncheck x server or whatever else.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

I haven't found a way to not have X installed, at least on RHES4.

You haven't? At the beginning, it asks you if you want to do a desktop/workstation/laptop/server install (I think those are the options, though I'm not sure since I just click right on server install). Choose a server install and towards the end it will give options for packages to install (I just scroll to the bottom and chose "minimal" which unchecks everything else).

RHES4 didn't give me any such option. 🙁

Even under the other install options (laptop or desktop or whatever) it should (or it used to anyway) give the option to choose customized packages towards the end of the install setup and there you can uncheck x server or whatever else.

I always unchecked most of the stupid things, like gnome but they always ended up installed anyways. I had to manually remove them after install. Hell, I manually removed over 100 packages that I didn't have the option to ignore during the install.

 

[bunbun]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: bunbun
I have not used FC5 yet but it seems like it will be just a few more buttons that FC4 or FC2 which I use on my comps.
Is this a legitmate assumption? My FC2 box is still my fastest, best computer; I have no intenetion of going to 4 or 5 with it unless
there really is something worth while in five. So the real question is, is it worth going to 5?

Cheers, bunbun

well, the obvious issue that I see, is that FC2 is either out of support or getting close (not sure if Fedora Legacy has kept it up or not). So you won't be getting any security patches through yum, or any new versions of packages (such as Gnome 2.14 with all it's improvements).

Your first sentence: "it seems like it will be just a few more buttons that FC4 or FC2 which I use on my comps" doesn't really make any sense. A few more buttons? You mean buttons to clike during the install? Buttons in the GUI? It's a bit more than just "a few more buttons" whatever that is supposed to mean.

When I put FC4 on one of my computers I did not notice a tremendous amount of difference; so what I am saying is that I dont think that it will be likely that FC5 will have any major leaps in performance over FC4. Especially since I use linux from the terminal for the most part.
You have a point with the out of date issue for FC2; not much can be done about that unfortunately.

Cheers, Bunbun

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

I haven't found a way to not have X installed, at least on RHES4.

You haven't? At the beginning, it asks you if you want to do a desktop/workstation/laptop/server install (I think those are the options, though I'm not sure since I just click right on server install). Choose a server install and towards the end it will give options for packages to install (I just scroll to the bottom and chose "minimal" which unchecks everything else).

RHES4 didn't give me any such option. 🙁

Even under the other install options (laptop or desktop or whatever) it should (or it used to anyway) give the option to choose customized packages towards the end of the install setup and there you can uncheck x server or whatever else.

I always unchecked most of the stupid things, like gnome but they always ended up installed anyways. I had to manually remove them after install. Hell, I manually removed over 100 packages that I didn't have the option to ignore during the install.

Hmm, did you actually purchase RHES4 or get iso's through p2p? If through p2p, maybe you got bad isos or something. Or are you using a repackaged RHES variant such as WhiteBox or CentOS? Personally I use CentOS. I wouldn't trust isos from p2p and I'm not sure just how different CentOS is from RHES-proper.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: bunbun

When I put FC4 on one of my computers I did not notice a tremendous amount of difference; so what I am saying is that I dont think that it will be likely that FC5 will have any major leaps in performance over FC4. Especially since I use linux from the terminal for the most part.
You have a point with the out of date issue for FC2; not much can be done about that unfortunately.

Cheers, Bunbun

That is why I put the important stuff on CentOS (so far just a router, proxy, and webserver) that should keep itself patched for the next 10 years... well, about 8 years now. I do use FC for most of my learning and playing though because is has a huge community around it and most OSS stuff is throughly tested and documented on FC.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

I haven't found a way to not have X installed, at least on RHES4.

You haven't? At the beginning, it asks you if you want to do a desktop/workstation/laptop/server install (I think those are the options, though I'm not sure since I just click right on server install). Choose a server install and towards the end it will give options for packages to install (I just scroll to the bottom and chose "minimal" which unchecks everything else).

RHES4 didn't give me any such option. 🙁

Even under the other install options (laptop or desktop or whatever) it should (or it used to anyway) give the option to choose customized packages towards the end of the install setup and there you can uncheck x server or whatever else.

I always unchecked most of the stupid things, like gnome but they always ended up installed anyways. I had to manually remove them after install. Hell, I manually removed over 100 packages that I didn't have the option to ignore during the install.

Hmm, did you actually purchase RHES4 or get iso's through p2p? If through p2p, maybe you got bad isos or something. Or are you using a repackaged RHES variant such as WhiteBox or CentOS? Personally I use CentOS. I wouldn't trust isos from p2p and I'm not sure just how different CentOS is from RHES-proper.

Downloaded ISOs from redhat. It's 100% on the up and up (work, not personal). 🙂