TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

Fedora Core, for the unfamiliar, is the community-maintained distribution that uses source code from Redhat and adds lots of new bells and whistles to it. Sometimes these bells and whistles get included in the next enterprise release from Redhat, and sometimes they don't.

It's essentially the testbed for new technologies from which Redhat can pick and choose. Because of its "bleeding-edge" nature, Fedora has been known to break, often right out of the box.

Naturally, this has been a cause of much frustration for me in the past. Let's see if Core 6 can un-break the cycle of broken releases, shall we?

Install:

The Anaconda installer has gone through some cosmetic changes this time around and it looks pretty well polished. I think perhaps Fedora has been reading from the Ubuntu book of user interfaces.

Functionally, it's pretty much identical to previous Cores, with the notable addition of a screen that lets you choose to download "Fedora Extras" after the install if you so desire.

Of course, this is useless to those without broadband, and I also have to wonder what kinds of "extras" they would have that they couldn't fit on a 4.5GB DVD image. But maybe that's just me. Fedora has never been accused of being a lightweight distribution.

Upon first boot I was greeted by the usual Fedora First Boot Wizard. Everything went as expected. After configuration, the wizard told me it needed to reboot.

This was new; in previous releases of Fedora Core I was immediately taken to the desktop upon completion of the First Boot Wizard. After some investigation I realized this was because I had chosen to disable SELinux, a worthless cause of much frustration for me in the past.

I was unable to install the kernel source or any other software from the DVD because the Add/Remove programs menu gave me an error message about not being able to find a repository.

This was likely due to my not having an internet connection on this machine, but this shouldn't happen anyway. Someone who downloads the goddamn DVD image should be able to pull software off the DVD they took the time to download regardless of whether or not they have an internet connection.

I had hoped this bug would be fixed since Fedora Core 5, but my hopes were dashed. Broadband is NOT a given, Fedora Team! Do some better quality control for offline installs.

The version of XSane included worked with my scanner. My USB thumbdrive also mounted and unmounted correctly as a regular user. There was no out-of-the-box camera software for me to test with, and no way for me to install anything off the disc.

MPG and WMV playback did not work. Neither did MP3 playback. I suppose I'm not surprised. Fedora Core has always decided to err on the cautious (dare I say "useless") side and not include any "legally questionable" content in their distribution.

This is a source of much frustration for those without broadband, and yet another reason why I steer clear of Fedora for my primary desktop.

Software Selection:

The usual FOGG components were present (Firefox, OpenOffice, Gaim, Gimp). The GCJ Java stack was installed, which although adequate for most people just doesn't do it for me.

The biggest thing I noticed about the default software selection was that it was almost identical to Ubuntu. Why is this significant? Well, Ubuntu fits on a single CDROM.

I would expect a distribution as large as Fedora to include more things by default to, you know, justify the 4GB download. Even if they didn't want to do that, they should at least give me the ability to install from the DVD without an internet connection.

Most Annoying Feature:

The inability to install things from the DVD was top on my list. The lack of multimedia support is also an annoyance. I'm not a lawyer, and neither are most of the Linux users out there.

If a distribution (particularly one that takes up an entire DVD) doesn't work with MP3 or MPG (the two most common media formats in the world), then it's just broken, that's it. Broken products do not get repeat customers.

Who's it best for?

Fedora hasn't improved in anything other than window dressing since Core 5. This is just shameful for such a well-known project with so many developers.

Core 6 is an unlanced boil on the ass of Linux users everywhere and should be lanced (in other words, chucked) in favor of something else.