Nov
9
2007
Fedora 8 – Review
Posted by luna6 54 Comments
Fedora 8 is the latest release from the Fedora project and it is just packed with a slew of exciting new features. Some of the more notable features are Pulse Audio (new Linux Sound System), Codec Buddy, Online-Desktop, Compiz and Gnome 2.20. Fedora 8 also offers a new theme (unique to Fedora) and more visual treats for the desktop user. After using Fedora 8 from the various Release Candidates to the final Fedora 8 release, I came away impressed with the overall release, but wished a few quirks and bugs were ironed out before the final release.
The most disappointing aspect about the release would be its finicky installer. Sure if you have certain hardware, you may never go through the troubles I encountered, but my setup is hardly what you would call esoteric. Yet, I did have to jump through hurdles just to get the system up and running. Both of my test computers, Big Bertha (AMD 64 +3000, Nvidia 6600, 2 GB RAM, 19” Samsung 192n monitor and Soundblaster Audigy) and Mount Doona (AMD X2 +4400, 2 GB RAM, 24” Samsung 244T), were unable to install via the normal installation mode and had to use the text installation mode. Furthermore, once the main text installation was completed, the final stage (where normal users are added) were not available for me.
Instead, after the main installation, I was dropped to a plain shell without X. Previous Fedora installations gave me similar problems but I hoped this time around, they would have worked out the kinks. Unfortunately the kinks were still there, so I had to fix things myself.
In order to get the system working correctly I first had change the runlevel from 3 to 5 (nano -w /etc/inittab) and then change the opensource “NV” drivers to the generic “VESA” drivers (nano -w /etc/X11/xorg.conf). After that was done, I was able to boot into the Fedora 8 desktop. Since the installation aborted before user accounts were made, I could only log in as the root user. Using the graphical app “User Accounts,” did allow me to quickly setup a normal account. After that, I was able to login as a regular user.
The desktop itself looks very nice, with its unique new theme “Nodoka” and its default wallpaper that changes colors depending on the time of day. The wallpaper doesn’t use any fancy 3d desktop effects to change colors, but implements a simple slideshow of three varying wallpapers depending on the time of day. I did like the setup a lot more than Fedora 7 (no more hot air balloons!).
Fedora, for philosophical reasons, does not include proprietary drivers with their distribution, thus I was left to install the proprietary Nvidia drivers myself. I would have liked an option similar to Ubuntu’s “Restricted Drivers Manager” for this function, but installing Nvidia drivers required just a simple two step procedure. First, I downloaded the Livna RPM (to enable access to Livna’s repository via Yum) and then used Pirut (Add/Remove Software) to install Nvidia-Kmod. A reboot and my test systems was FINALLY good to go. A nice bonus from Livna, would be the included Livna Display Configuration that comes with the Nvidia installation. That application gives you an easy way to pick between AIGLX/XGL or advanced compositing options.
One of the best things about Fedora 8 would be the Pulse Audio system. Fedora 8 is the first distribution to implement Pulse Audio and after using it extensively, I believe other distributions will shortly adopt it as their default sound system. Pulse Audio alleviates the headaches of various sound systems fighting for access to the sound device (finally!!!) and implements many exciting new features to bring the Linux sound system out of the stone age. Some of the more gee-whiz features of Pulse Audio would be the ability to have different volumes for each running application, interrupting music playback for a VOIP call, and “hot” switching of playback streams between devices on USB headsets. Just having proprer mixing with the sound server running stable throughout was highly appreciated.
Codec Buddy is another new feature of Fedora 8, to ease the pain of installing various codecs. The way Codec Buddy works is when you click a file that requires proprietary codecs, a pop-up window will appear giving you the option to install the appropriate codec. I found the actual execution of Codec Buddy to be less impressive than similar applications in other Linux distros. Before Codec Buddy launches, the default application opens and then a pop-up window appears. Problems arose when I clicked an mp3 file and Amarok automatically launched and showed an error message saying that Xine could not play the intended file. This would have worked better if Codec Buddy worked directly with the file type rather than relying on the application, as that can cause confusion (It seems Codec Buddy works with gstreamer codecs but doesn’t provide extra xine codecs).
Compiz is installed by default but not enabled. To actually enable Compiz requires a simple click within the Desktop Effects application. Once activated, Compiz works well, but offers a limited amount of features. The only settings you get with Desktop Effects is Desktop Cubes and Wobbly Windows. There’s also a more advanced Gnome Compiz Manager available via Pirut, but even that gives only a limited amount of choices when compared with Compiz Fusion. With that said, Fedora has Compiz Fusion available in their repositories and, as of today, just added ccsm (compizconfig settings manager) in their updates -testing repository. Because ccsm is still being tested, you can expect some bugs in the program until it is moved into the regular updates repo. In order to get ccsm working I did have to do my own workaround. Fedora’s gnome-wm script would launch compiz with the gconf plugin rather than ccp, which prevented compiz fusion from running normally. A basic edit of gnome-wmf did the trick (gedit /usr/bin/gnome-wm & replace the line that has “gconf” with “ccp”). Once that was done Compiz Fusion was ready to go and made Fedora 8 even better.
Online Desktop is a new Gnome application to integrate popular online applications into the Gnome desktop. The program is still in the early rough stages and I was unable to get it to work.. The program installed fine via Pirut, but after logging into a Online Desktop session, a fatal error was shown, which said “The panel encountered a problem while loading “OAFIID:GNOME…”. This also affected my regular gnome session, so I had to revert back to normal Gnome desktop via
gconftool-2 -s /apps/panel/general/toplevel_id_list –type=list –list-type=string ‘[top_panel,bottom_panel]‘
Some excellent utilities included in Fedora 8 would be the Firewall Configuration application and Disk Usage Analyzer. “Firewall Configuration” has a simple layout of available services that should or should not be allowed access to the outside world. Another nice touch with the application would be the available Wizard, which guides users through an basic set-up or advanced set-up. Disk Usage Analyzer is nifty utility that I have never used before. The application gives a readout of the available space on your hardrive via folders and directories. The actual scan of the local hard drive runs very fast and I found it to be a very useful (especially for log files that keep growing without my knowledge). I was surprised that Fedora did not include a meta search application with their default installation. Both Beagle and Tracker are available in the Fedora repositories and I chose to install Tracker. Once that application was installed, Tracker worked well but didn’t have the tight system integration as in other Linux installations (ex. Tracker was not integrated within Nautilus).
Fedora 8 is a mixture of cutting edge features, polished desktop and a handful of annoying of bugs. I did find Pulse Audio to be the star of Fedora 8 show. Having multiple applications playing sound without having sound server lockups was greatly appreciated. The new look and feel of Fedora 8 was also done just right. The layout should work just as well for home users or business oriented users. The weakest aspect about Fedora 8 would be its troublesome installer. If you have a similar setup as mine, be prepared to do a lot of quick fixes on your own. Even with the problems I had with Fedora 8’s installer, I still came away impressed by the release. If they could iron out some of the bugs in Fedora 9 while continuing the improvements found in Fedora 8, than that release could be the best Linux release yet. In the meantime, you can enjoy one of the better current Linux releases with Fedora 8.
Pros:
The new look and feel of Fedora 8 balances polish with a professional feel.
Pulse Audio is an awesome new sound system that blows others away.
Yum runs noticeably faster.
The desktop runs fast and seems very responsive.
Very good selection of bundled utilities.
Fedora still has the best Service Configuration applet around.
Cons:
Codec Buddy didn’t work as well as expected.
A graphical installer for restricted drivers is needed.
Installer did not work well with my hardware.
Installer doesn’t pick up other Linux installations in a dual boot configuration.
Default installation lacks a meta search application.
Users Rating: 8.38 
(125 votes)
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Comments
54 Comments so far
i have a question that is i installed linux in seperate partion the same hard drive where i have installed xp. but the thing is that i dont get any dual option when i boot my pc.please help me out
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Fedora 8, for my part, was a smooth install.
Pros:
Good looking desktop. I agree – the balloons were ugly.
Runs pretty fast.
Pretty inclusive software bundle.
Cons:
Installing NVidia driver from the Nvidia site is about impossible. I keep getting ‘unable to compile driver’ errors.
I am SO SICK and TIRED of using the software updater, picking out a big pile of updates and installs, and receiving ‘dependency error’ messages after waiting for what feels like HOURS to pull down updates and stuff. I don’t know why this happens, but trying to update Fedora has always been a ‘hit the button and grit your teeth’ experience that just shouldn’t be.
Fonts are kinda ugly in some cases, like Firefox.
I have always used Red Hat/Fedora. I started with Red Hat 9 and have periodically upgraded since then. Recently, I was having troubles on my desktop computer with Fedora 4 and then the upgraded 8. Fedora 4’s Thunderbird was crashing and, after the upgrade to 8, kernel panics and bootup and shutdown failures were routine. At first, I thought the problem was a software/hardware incompability since Fedora 8 was running perfectly well on my laptop and has been for several months. Over the next few days, I tried Ubuntu 7.10, Debian Etch, and SimplyMepis 7.10. All were to me demonstrably inferior to Fedora 8. Ubuntu’s brown background is far less pleasing to my eye than Fedora’s cool blue look. Debian’s lack of support for Thunderbird – easily my favorite email application – and the bizarre IceWeasel took it out of the running. Otherwise, I did like Debian pretty well especially it’s ease of installation and it’s look. SimplyMepis also installed easily but I could not get Java Runtime Environment to work on it. Also, I definitely prefer Gnome and Mepis relies on KDE. Finally, Mepis’s strange thick panel which takes up most but not all of the bottom of the screen put me off. No other distros appealed to me. I thought about buying a new computer. I tried living with Windows 2000 which was on my desktop as well. One day, I thought, maybe it’s the memory. Maybe, 1 gig isn’t enough. I put in another 500 mbs and reinstalled Fedora 8. Everything was perfect. Everything installs perfectly. I put in another 500 mbs of ram. With 2 gigs, it’s even better. I love Fedora 8. In the past, I’ve tried lots of other distros. Xandros, SuSE, Mandrake (but not Mandriva). None come close to Fedora as far as I’m concerned.
Any chance you can post (or email to me) a working xorg.conf for your setup? I’m running a GeForce 7800 GT and the Samsung 244T and I can’t get the thing to work.
Thanks!
Good to hear other people are having fun too! I gave Fedora 8’s 64-bit release a spin on my system that typically ran xp 32-bit. (My G4 died, R.I.P.)
Gotta say it’s been a lot of fun so far. Especially with having vmware server to bail me out when I need those Adobe apps for the times I am far from the office.
So far so good!
Ameya, sorry it doesn’t come with KDE4 as standard, but it should be included in the Alpha builds, released from 24th January 2008 onwards.
Does Fedora 8 ship with KDE 4?
Funny how every distro but Ubuntu has so many bugs that need to be ironed out, and yet when Ubuntu itself has plenty (7.10) there’s a blind eye to be had…
hey nice review man…!
i jus wanted to know whether i could install on
my laptop lenovo 3000 n100 intel core duo 1.66 & 945 chipset. F7 graphical interface dint work wen i instaled
it.
Hi,
Thanks for your tips. Apparently editing gnome-wmf is the missing step.
I’ve choosen Shift Switcher, but I notice unstability here. After working for a while by pressing Shift+Super+S, then I reboot and it stops working.
I think I’ll give Beryl a shot, have you tried it ?
BTW, I’ve solved the VMWare problem. It turns out that I have to set SELinux’s Enforcing Mode to be ‘Permissive’.
Regards,
Setya
Setya : I added certain ones like Rotate Cube, Desktop Cube, Widget Layer, Cube Reflections, Window Previews and Shift Switcher. You should play around with those and see which ones you like.
If none of the changes takes effect try this (though I would think Fedora fixed the bug by now) :
In order to get ccsm working I did have to do my own workaround. Fedora’s gnome-wm script would launch compiz with the gconf plugin rather than ccp, which prevented compiz fusion from running normally. A basic edit of gnome-wmf did the trick (gedit /usr/bin/gnome-wm & replace the line that has “gconf” with “ccp”). Once that was done Compiz Fusion was ready to go and made Fedora 8 even better.
Hi,
I’ve downloaded compizconfig. Did you change anything on the setting after installing it ?
Setya
Setya …
Couldn’t help you with the VMware problem you’re having. 2.) to get those extra effects you need to install “compiz fusion” and the accompanying ccsm (compizconfig settings manager) gui app to enable those specific effects. search in pirut for compiz-fusion and ccsm or compizconfig.
Hi,
Firstly, thanks for the review on F8.
Questions:
1. I upgrade from F7 to F8 through yum upgrade, but since then I have problem with my VMWare. Each time after I reboot F8 I have to run vmware-config.pl first, otherwise I see nothing but black screen in my VMWare console although I’m sure that the WinXP guest is already started. How to fix this ?
2. I already activated Compiz through System->Preferences->Look and Feel->Desktop Effects and I can see the effects when I drag windows & changing workspaces, but how can I achieve effects as shown in desktop-effects4.jpg,ccsm-1.jpg,ccsm-3.jpg,ccsm-6.jpg,
ccsm-7.jpg,ccsm-8.jpg,ccsm-9.jpg ?
Regards,
Setya
Interesting points you bring up Wolf Sihart. I’m with you on the “user friendly” aspect and would like to point out another view as well. To me “user friendly” means an operating system that is easy to use from day 1 (installation) up to the current day. Unfortunately, whenever I use a friend’s Window’s computer, its always bogged down by so many viruses and spyware that the system crawls and they ask me for help. That’s definitely not “user friendly.” With Fedora (and most of your Linux distro’s of choice), it works as well from day 1 up to the current day. That’s user friendly to me.
About the eye candy, sure some of it is mindless fun. But I find the window management part of Compiz/Fusion to be indispensable. Visually, this might be peculiar to my own setup or hardware, but when Compiz Fusion is enabled, the image quality of my lcd screen becomes noticeably brighter and more clear. Also with modern graphics cards, there shouldn’t be a slowdown as it is using hardware acceleration. There are still plenty of bugs in the software, but the 3d desktop gets better and better with each release.
I think Ron and stolennomenclature are judging linux from the wrong viewpoint here. It seems that they’re expecting the Average Joe user to be a multimedia whiz cracking DRM and ripping DVDs or constantly reinstalling their OS…
First, the average user needs internet access, a word processor and a media player. In most major linux distros this is met by Firefox (which is superior to IE), OpenOffice (arguable pros and cons against MSOffice) and, at least here, Pulse, or elsewhere, VM Player.
Second, I think you need to define for yourself what “user-friendly” actually means. If it means having a system that mandates you add bloated updates to an already inefficient and resource-heavy OS, then yes Windows wins. If it means intuitive file hierarchies and programs that accept (pretty much) everything without forcing you to convert to a proprietary format, then perhaps Linux is the winner. And you can’t use Win 2000 as the comparison anymore as it’s not only seven years old but not was never released as a “Home Edition” (read Average Joe OS) and is meant for enterprise use. You’d have to compare it to RedHat Enterprise or a similar OS and would find the toe-to-toe to be enlightening.
Thirdly, eye candy is eye candy and gets stale. How many people are going back to XP (http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/59484.html)? Lots of crazy swooshing and shine simply eats more resources. The user would rather have their YouTube or MySpace or Match.com run quickly between pages rather than have their OS use imposing lay-overs and the like. The OS should melt away, not slap you in the face constantly, and there Linux excels and what the Average user likes.
Just wanted to rant.
-Wolf
With all the talk about Windows so far beyond Linux is not taking into account Vista, the true work of art !. I have Ubuntu and some of the others too, they offer a cute gui and wizes that do neat stuff, so if you are looking for a Leap-Frog(R) distro you can find one. Fact is not everyone is in need of all the neat-o stuff, they do know how to build and install from sources, and do not need gizmos to hole their hand. If you know little about LInux then a distro as Fedora is not for you, stay with the lazy kid stuff.
I got some problems installing VMware server on fedora 8. The vmnet services didn’t start and vmware kept on complainging about running vmware-config.pl. In addition to the procedure Greebo described I had to do the follwing:
1. Set SELinux to permissive or disable.
2. Do the installation as described by Greebo.
3. Run: “restorecon /dev/vmnet*”
4. Set SELinux back to enforcing.
5. Restart vmware: “service vmware restart”.
Some views on fedora 8.
1)You didn’t need to use the text install at all-when you reach the install screen (link below) just press tab and add vesa as an option. The clue is on the screen itself; it says “press tab to edit options”.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tours/Fedora8/001_Install_Boot
2)Fedora 8 is certainly the best fedora release to date. I’m using it as my only os and I love it. It’s very up to date and is probably the most ergonomically and aesthetically elegant implementation of the gnome desktop. The improvements to selinux mean that the average user doesn’t need to intervene to get a first class secure environment and there’s a good range of games to boot! Pirut is still a bit of a pain, but it is still usable for a noob.
3) I don’t see why the a new fedora 8 user needs to use the command line at all-everything that the average user needs is configured automatically on installation, or by gui. If I’m missing something here, I’d like to know!
4)I don’t really understand the griping though on the media stuff. The fedora project has a crystal clear policy on non-free software, so only a moron would expect to install it and be able to use proprietry software without adding a 3rd party repo. It also takes about 20 seconds add the livna repo is you want to, and there is a yum repo for flash on the adobe website-incidentally, this is on the same website that you would have to visit if you wanted to install the flash plugin for windows. I should add that all of this can be done without even thinking about using the command line.
Im with Ron on this one. Some aspects of Linux either make no progress at all or go round in circles. Thats the problem with large open source projects – the entire complex bundle depends on individuals being motivated to write all the pieces. Most geeks dont like GUI’s so the GUI aspect of Linux languishes. I cant remember how many times ive Googled for how to create DVD’s under Linux, only to be confronted with instructions on how to invoke a succession of command line utilities each with complex parameters. Really it would almost be quicker to film the movie yourself than to create a DVD of an existing movie. Google the same thing for Windows and instead you get a list of GUI programs (Such as Gordian Knot – which even has a GUI front end called AutoGK to make it even easier). Once Linux has a set of command line utilities to do something, the idea of a GUI hardly even comes up.
Lets face it, Linux is a geeky command line system produced by geeky command line people, and will always remain that way, at least in many areas. Which is of course a shame for all the people who want to use a computer, rather than have fun taking it apart.
Fedora 8 is the best Linux distro bar none.
To me, I have been on Linux on and off since 1999 and I’ve got to say… for all that time to go by and find that Linux is still so far behind the band-wagon, it just simply amazes me. Windows 2000 is still far ahead of Linux in many ways. I am also amazed at these programmers not getting things right after they are made aware of issues that have gone on release after release. And Fedora with installation problems??? COME ON!!! Installation should be over and done with!!! A thing of the past!!! It should simply JUST WORK.
Linux needs to be user-friendly and not just for GEEKS. If the geeks want to mess around with the OS, fine. But I feel it needs to be easy enough for a beginner to get on and do the things they need to do without MAJOR work just to get simple things to work.
I could ramble on and on about this… but I have come to the conclusion that Linux will NEVER catch up with WinBlows and not even to mention the Mac. HAH! I guarantee it will NEVER catch up to Apple.
I Quit.
thanks for the brilliant review and install guide
a very nice and considerate OS review here. fedora 8 has jumped a long way this time around compared to their last OS release, which was a little premature in terms of development and bed-tested.
all in all, fedora still rocks.
fedora, i stay.
fedora judged poorly by including codecbuddy in this version. it is disappointing to be directed to a site where one have to pay as much as 16 dollars to have codecpack that is freely avaliable installed. why the hell didn’t they leave that part unchanged so that users could install and use whatever codecs they see fit.
outside this little changes i think it is still a great distro it has been since it’s first day. unfortunately i cannot use it for a long time because i need a multimedia rich operating system
Does Fedora 8 has x3100 drivers for gma965 graphics card? I am sure Fedora 7 did not have that.
Thanks for the tip Greebo! I’ve been wracking my brain trying to get VMware server running.
Greg I’ve got VMWare Server installed in Fedora 8. Took me a little while but i got there in the end.
1. I yum installed kernel.2.6.23.1-42.fc8 and kernel-headers.2.6.23.1-42.fc8 and kernel-devel-2.6.23.1-42.fc8. I also yummed down gcc++ xinetd compat-libstdc++-33 compat-libstdc++-296 gcc.
2. I then downloaded VMware-server-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz from the VMWare site. Unpacked it and ran ./vmware-install.pl. Which failed.
3. I then downloaded and unpacked vmware-any-any-update114.tar.gz (can’t remember the site i got this from i’m afraid… do a quick google search). In that folder i ran runme.pl.
4. The VMWare installer was still erroring and asking me where kernel was so i entered /usr/src/kernels/2.6.23.1-42.fc8-i686/include
the installer was then happy and completed the install successfully :)!
Hope that Helps!
If you are after a metasearch program, Pinot is available in the repository. It also does desktop search.
it’s better to use freshrpms.net repo for nvidia drivers as they use dkms to install them, so everytime new kernel comes out, you don’t need to wait for a nvidia module for your newer kelner – dkms will do everything for you on the first boot with a newer kernel :)
Thanks for the Livna tip. That allowed me to finally get the nVidia working right with my big screen. I also thank you from being straight about the install problems. I hate it when Linux reviewers lie about how great something is when the install doesn’t even work.
nice review. pity that the installer is still a problem with some systems.
great review, but trick which makes compis-fusion work, kills my windows decorations… so actually I can’t use compiz-fusion :(
Anybody got VMware server installed in Fedora 8? If so, I would love to know what it takes.
I too am very impressed with Fedora 8. I have tried all of the major linux distros and many of the minor ones and I have always found Ubuntu to be the easiest to use and configure until they released the ‘bugsy gibbon’! I have been unable to get Gutsy working with my ATI graphics cards and this left me with three realistic options stick with Feisty, or switch to fedora or sabayon. Sabayon comes with a great selection of software but it uses KDE as its default window manager and uses the Gentoo based portage package system which is slow! I prefer Gnome to KDE so I opted for Fedora 8. It has some killer features on offer: Live and install CD options (with some custom editions for development and games), a simple install to USB pen script and a nice GUI to remaster the CD’s called Revisor. It will take me a few weeks to get to grips with the differences between it and Ubuntu but I expect to be able to do everything I could in Ubuntu. And – fedora is all non-propriatory software! The only downside seems to be less packages available in the fedora repository!
drbongo
Unfortunately my experience with F8 was very short as installer even failed to start. It hangs somewhere at very beginning and that’s all.
Thanks for the well written review.
Fedora has been a distro that I keep on my PC. If other reviewers have similar reports to yours, then soon I will try Fedora 8.
Although versions of Fedora have been installed on my PCs for years, Fedora has never been #1 for me. #1 is a distro that just works.
But Fedora and the Fedora community offer options that are not easily available with a “just-works” distro. And when I make mistakes there has always been enough help available to keep it running, even though my technical ability is limited.
It makes sense to keep one of the major distros on your hard drive just to keep in touch with the variety of software out there, even if you don’t use it every day.
F8 looks great!!! However i’m having a strange problem with it on my HP laptop. Whenever i reduce the brightness of my screen using the hotkeys on my keyboard, after a few seconds the brightness gets maximum on its own. I never faced this problem in F7. I wish someone can help me out to solve this problem. I have Intel 945GM express chipset.
On the installer command line, boot with this and you should be able to install graphically next time if needed.
xdriver=vesa
For me Fedora8 install was’nt so great.
after install (with one bug in allowing open ports though firewall popup):
1) no boot. it seems, that you can ask for your reiserfs partitions to be mounted, but it will fail to mount them and throw an error. That, or using names of partitions in fstab. Either way, fstab was broken.
2) after clean install (just plugged my /home from F7)
and installing synaptic, it told me there are broken packages verify on rpm db tell that also. (i think it was java-related)
3) horrible, horrible update applications.
yum – did no update, broken deps in repo (and no skip-broken plugin), but could install stuff
synaptic – blocked by broken packages (could only remove half of system)
smart – only one working, able to clean up this mess
..and ugly root default theme (eq: all admin tools look bad)
uff.
Your installation did not abort before you were prompted to add non-root users. I have used Fedora’s text-mode installation on laptops for FC5, FC6, and F7. In none of them does the RH installer give you the option to add a non-root user.
Thanks for the through review, I want to mention that wireless networking did not with the PPC Live CD! Otherwise, a fairly solid distribution with the best Linux desktop. They just need to iron out the bugs for F 9 before RHEL 6 is ready for businesses. I hope RHEL 6 will be F 9 and RHEL 5.1 combined with new features that rival anything SUSE or Ubuntu or even the MAC can offer!
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Well, the amount of bugs I’ve found in one day so far in Fedora is 1. The amount of bugs I found in the same amount of time in Gutsy was around 40 or so…
What you consider cons, I consider pros. I don’t need useless wobbly windows or 3d spinning cubes that don’t do anything productive to hog my system resources and add to instability. I also don’t need yet another resource hog in a tracker, that almost no one uses, as Linux by default is very organized as to what goes where. I like that if those useless utilities ARE wanted, they are simple to install, but not shoved down my throat ;-)
As a long time linux user and more recently a long term ubuntu user, im very impressed with fedora8 i tried every fedora release up till 6, never tried 7 coz the previous ones were dissapointing
with the release of gutsy, ubuntus taken a turn for the worse imo its the buggiest release of ubuntu ive used, (used since hoary)
i may well be moving to fedora 8 at least till hardy ubuntu comes out, there are still a few grips,
like why the hell is pirut and yum still so slow and buggy?
(also why is ubuntu STILL the only distro that totally fails to detect widescreen resolutions)
Fedora 8 gets major props for being the first distro out there to detect all my hardware, install without any problems, and be generally friendly – every other distro I’ve tried has had problems with X, my hard drive controller, or my network card, all of which makes the machine non-functional for my purposes. This includes SUSE 10.3, PCLinuxOS 2007, Sabayon, Dreamlinux, Zenwalk linux, and of course Ubuntu (which failed to even boot!)
I’ve been looking for a distro that “Just Works” with my latest machine – it has a new Biostar mobo that came out in June, and I’ve had nothing but headaches. I purchased it planning on not even using Windows, but that hasn’t been a remote possibility until now.
A++ on ease of use, look and feel, and everything else. I was stoked to see all the hardware work. It even got the multimedia keys on my keyboard right!
Way to go to the Fedora team. I look forward to finally being able to use my computer without having to wrangle XP into submission.
Beautiful screenshots!! I switched from Fedora to Ubuntu nearly two years ago… this almost makes me want to switch back. I still keep my eye on Fedora developments and they continue to do great things. I’ll have to take look and install F8 on one of my project machines.
I’d given up on Fedore a few years back. Ubuntu and Debian are great and until SUSE put on Redmond’s underwear, I loved it too.
I installed Fedora 8 on my MacBook Pro via VMware Fusion. The install went about as good as I could think of. Not a hitch. I can’t get the Compiz effects via VMware but, can live without them anyway. So, for now I have Gutsy and Fedora 8 along with OSX on my MBP and use them all. I have to commend Fedora here. That they didn’t let Ballmer and Gates bully them is reason enough for me to give them a go again. I feel almost obligated to do this with any Linux distro that has done the same.
I do have a question though. I have NEVER been able to get 5.1 sound out of any Distro. Does Pulse Audio do anything with regards to this? I am building a box out of older parts that I want to run Linux on and have some older Klipsch’s I’d love to utilize for 5.1. This inability has always annoyed me with Linux and seems to get little attention. Maybe this is a start? I don’t know.
Still, hats off (no pun intended) to Fedora. Glad to see they are “back”. To me, just that they are obviously trying harder is great news for all us LinuxHeads. I started with Mandrake 7.1 years ago and have run just about every distro since then. I’ve learned so much and Linux gives me great enjoyment just turning others on to it. Especially the elderly. I’ve installed Linux on their malware/virus/trojan laden Windows machines and they feel it’s a breath of fresh air. I tell you, the elderly, in my experience, are a group we shouldn’t ignore. They relish getting a bargain (free Linux and apps)and are not only willing, but quite capable of using Linux daily. I couldn’t have said this 3 years ago. Now I can. Get ahold of your parents or grandparents’ computers and install Linux on it. Give them a printed sheet with simple commands and common fix-arounds, etc;. They’ll love you for it. Sorry to get so long-winded, the espresso is killer today. :)
Fedora 8 is da bomb! Just installed it and love it! Go Fedora!
“I would rather do productive work on my system rather than bug hunt. That’s why I stick with Ubuntu.” – J.J.
That is complete nonsense. Your telling us that OpenOffice wont work in Fedora?.. Or are you saying that since Desktop Effects and illegal codecs arent included, you cant do any work?..
Ubuntu has its share of VERY annoying bugs in Gutsy with the Xserver/Xorg crap they introduced. The Desktop Search agent they included is also full of bugs as well, and basicly non functional because of it. The new Printer stuff is also extremely buggy, so lets not compare distro’s ok? Besides that, Fedora=Red Hat (.rpm) and Ubuntu=Debian (.deb). Apples and Oranges.
Personally, im excited to get started on this new release as I have never really given a .rpm distro a fair chance… Ive done every other distro type except the grand daddies (Red Hat, Debian, Slackware). I hope that ill discover that ive been seriously missing out!
KDE apps seem to have problems running in Gnome. I’m constantly getting “Cannot talk to Klauncher” errors.
In my view and based on my experience with Fedora (also compared to Ubuntu, which some here refer to), Fedora is one of the best work-horse distributions available. Arch is my personal choice, but as a generally well working distribution I definitely chose Fedora, and has so done from the 5th release and onwards.
When I see the list in the review of pros and cons, my reaction to it is: the cons listed are somewhat irrelevant. If those cons become a guidance for someone to avoid Fedora, yes then I suppose that that person isn’t so very interested in the whole package of an operating system anyway, and probably doesn’t depend on it for serious work. But hey, that’s the great think about Linux, you can freely chose what suits you best.
However, the community as a whole should show Fedora and Red Hat come well deserved appreciation. All distributions do gain a lot by having such a big player testing and improving new software technology. From me a big thumb up for the Fedora team!
I’ve always thought Ubuntu’s releases were good, while Fedora’s releases were more like alpha versions for Red Hat releases.I would rather do productive work on my system rather than bug hunt. That’s why I stick with Ubuntu.
Good review, and must agreed with you about the little support for the easy install of all the codecs that is needed now a days. It’ll be very hard for me to leave Ubuntu 7.10 for Fedora 8 full time. But I did get the 3 D cube stuff to work