TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

Fedora Core has had a spotted past with me. I was quite impressed with Core 1 since it was pretty much just a newer version of Redhat Linux 9, which I found to be very stable. Core 2 gave me headaches at first but evened out after a few bug fixes.

Core 3 sucked like a Dyson. (No, not like a Hoover. They *lose* suction, remember?) Core 4 was perhaps the best of the lot, since it gave me the least to complain about, but I still saw much room for improvement. Sadly, this release hasn't restored any of my faith in the Fedora Project.

Install:

The Anaconda installer got a much-needed facelift this time around. Everything looks nice and smooth. I can't say I really care for the new Fedora logo however. It reminds me too much of Ubuntu, and anything that reminds me of Ubuntu is bad. I went through the usual installation screens and got to the "Hit next to install."

I did. And waited. And waited some more. And went to get a drink. And waited some more. There was no disk activity, no CPU light, nothing. This was beginning to remind me of the "installer that couldn't" aka Gentoo 2006. Not good. Reboot, try again in TEXT mode just to be sure.

One thing I didn't mention about the installer before is that the available "sets" of software have shrunk down to "Office and Productivity", "Software Development" and "Web Server". I checked the first two.

There was a "customize" at the bottom but after the install tanked on me once I was just looking to get the thing installed. The second time around I actually got to the "Formatting / file system" screen, which is one screen further than the GUI installer.

Whilst waiting for the installer to get chugging, I mused about some things. What's with the blue bubble theme this release? I mean, Bordeaux is a *wine* right? Not champagne, not beer. Wine isn't supposed to be carbonated, is it? Perhaps I'm just overthinking this whole thing.

This time the installer actually did what it was supposed to do. I was pretty disappointed that for whatever reason the blue bubbly GUI didn't like my box. Farewell, Blue Bubbly. We hardly knew thee. And what do you know? About 15 minutes later, the install finished. Time to reboot.

Perhaps the bumpy beginning would smooth out once the actual OS started running. And perhaps musical, tap-dancing ferrets would hurtle out of my nasal cavity and sing "Zoot Suit Riot" in Basque. *shrug* Anything's possible I guess.

After the usual service startups I was taken to a new screen: the Setup Agent. It had configuration options for Network and System Services (I turned most of them off). Then I was dumped to a console login.

This wasn't surprising since the non-GUI installer for Fedora hadn't asked me anything about my X Settings. My usual favorite utility, xorgconfig, was absent, so I used "system-config-display" instead. It worked as advertised, and detected my monitor and video card correctly.

After manually adding my regular user (something I *hope* is handled by the GUI installer when it works) I logged in and started X Windows. The blue bubbly color scheme was cute and refreshing at first, but it got old quick, kind of like dating an airhead. I immediately tried to install some extra software from the DVD and was greeted with a "Software information could not be retrieved" error. Once again, denied.

I noticed (to my chagrin) that Gnome still has the default window behavior set to "open up a new window every time I click". When will they learn that most people simply don't like spatial browsing? Probably when Sony realizes the old "Us versus them, Betamax versus VHS" business strategy doesn't work. But I digress.

The default Application menu is *very* sparse. I was unable to add anything on because the Add/Remove Software program gave me the afforementioned error, and even command-line yum gave me a "Cannot find valid baseurl for repo: core" and tanked. We are not amused.

I tried throwing caution to the wind and actually attempted to install the non-GPL commercial 3D Nvidia driver despite warnings that a bug (surprise surprise) wouldn't let me do it.

Alas, the installer couldn't even find the kernel sources and I couldn't install them due to a broken package manager. Attempts to install specially-made "nvidia-helper" RPMs that someone suggested were also fruitless.

Apparently something I did caused X to get screwed up (my bet is on those homebrew Nvidia RPMs), so out of sheer laziness I just reinstalled.

This time I chose to try the GUI and the "customize" option since you know, what the hell. I've already resigned to practice my "death frisbee" skills with the DVD after all this so why not? The floodgates opened... somewhat.

You can choose a lot more "groups" of applications in the "customize" screen, but you can't choose any actual individual programs. Wonderful. Color me thrilled to little mint balls.

I think the distro sensed its impending death this time because miraculously the graphical installer actually did something more than sit there with its proverbial digits en colon and twirling.

The installer took a lot longer also since I picked a lot more stuff to add (including KDE). I figured since I wasn't going to be able to ever change my selections I might as well install the whole nine yards.

This time upon reboot I was greeted with the usual graphical "firstboot" utility that set up my X configuration, sound, and regular user as well as letting me turn SELinux OFF. I breathed a guarded sigh of relief.

Perhaps the first install was just an aberration. And perhaps I'll name the dancing ferrets Pablo and Ingrid.

Add/Remove Software still didn't work. I decided to seek refuge in my native KDE. It became immediately clear to which desktop-environment idol the Fedora developers pray. KDE looked... well.. plain.

There was no special polish to anything, much like Gnome looks in older versions of SuSE. It's a little gripe, but it's not like I've ever been one to let one slide.

My USB flash drive worked and let me mount/unmount as a regular user, but my scanner wasn't detected at all. No go as well for my digital camera.

Software Selection:

Sparse by default, unchangeable after install. Not surprisingly, there is no MP3 support out of the box and all my MPG movies whirled and whirled the little notification cursor but never actually played.

I was curious to try the native GCJ version of Eclipse that Fedora had toyed with in their last release. There weren't any obvious bugs (like the menu option that didn't show up correctly in Core 4), and unlike the previous version I was actually able to compile and run Legend of the Teal Dragon.

Take heed: this is the only prop I'm giving to Fedora for this release. Native Eclipse works, finally. This earns an extra .5 penguins.

Most Annoying Feature:

Bugs. Fedora has become synonymous with "buggy" in my mind. There's never been a single release of this distro after Core 1 that didn't have some catastrophic error in it, and this one was even delayed.

You'd think with the extra time they had they could have fixed the glaring error that kept 3D drivers from working or made the graphical installer actually, you know, INSTALL on the first try.

My hopes are not high for Fedora Core 6 since if they haven't got it right in 5 tries, they really need to just take a hit and walk to first base. Lord knows it's probably the only base these developers will get to any time soon.

Who's it best for?

No one. Again. Man I get tired of saying that. This is *yet yet another* disappointingly bad distribution release to add to this year's oily man-boob distro lineup. My only hope left is SuSE 10.1.

By this time a lot of you might be getting the mistaken impression that I only write negative reviews. Not so. I simply refuse to recommend crap, and boy has 2006 been the Year of Distro Excrement.

Just remember: when I do finally offer praise for a distro, take notice. I do not offer it lightly. The final word on Fedora Core 5? Sun-dried and rehydrated leper pus. Graphic enough? Good. *Now* will you stay away from it?