My computer died

[Brad Reddekopp]

Watch out for giant apes.



Oh, wait... That's King Kong.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Just downloaded Fedora 9, which is a shiny new release. Don't know if I'll have time to install it before I leave for vacation but it sounds rather good.

I also downloaded the latest Ubuntu but I'm going to try Fedora first.

The Fedora team announced the release thusly:

An ancient text prophesised this day would come, detailing the fate of all who are willing to accept what is offered to them.

And that day has come: the Computer said "I will convert these unbelievers, and now that I have Sulphur it will be easy." At that, the heavens opened and burning Sulphur descended upon all the world, taking on many different forms.

First to hit were the live USB keys. The heathens cried out for mercy, but were powerless to resist. The sticks were damn persistent and non-destructively formatted - non-destructively! They showed up everywhere, casting out demons from computers infected by the dark one of the interwebs and rescuing lost data from the influence of the evil crackers.

Then, when they thought it couldn't get any worse, the whole world was cast into shadow. Lit only by the dim light from their computer screens, they discovered a mysterious message scrolling across: "K K K K K K K 4 4 4 4 4 4". The screens flickered, and the light flooded out so that the shadow was lifted. After their eyes had adjusted they saw something so beautiful, teeming with so much potential that they began to break down. KDE 4 was on their desktops!

The descent gathered pace; next to hit the ground was FreeIPA. At first this puzzled what remained of the heathens, but then they realized...they realized that it was going to make system administrators lives a lot easier! A web interface and command line tools, interacting with Windows domains and Active Directories? It was all getting too much for them. Conversions were happening faster and faster, only aided by mobile broadband, static IP addresses, and much much more in NetworkManager.

Now, only a few doubters remained and what pushed them over the edge? The community, stupid! Tirelessly working to push out great code, great documentation and great artwork, inviting everyone to join where ever they were in the name of freedom.

And the Computer, seeing that his work was accomplished and it was good, decided to rest. Pointing his browser at the Fedora mirrors, he switched off his monitor and waited for his Sulphur to return to him through the internet tubes, ready to enjoy another great release from the Fedora Project.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Well, shit. My Fedora download was corrupted. I'm just going to order the complete set of DVDs.

[Dan Mac]

Did you even try debian or ubuntu?

[Brad Reddekopp]

I tried Debian and it wasn't hard to work with. I've downloaded Ubuntu but haven't installed it yet.

[Dan Mac]

I just noticed you seem to be back to fedora, and I just can't comprehend why.

[Brad Reddekopp]

It was the first one I got to work for me a number of years ago. Perhaps I have a mild emotional attachment to it.

Is there any particular reason you'd avoid it?

[Dan Mac]

Well, I just found Redhat to be a crappy Linux experience, and since fedora is ramped up Redhat I just don't see how it could be any good..Redhat was broken from the ground up.
But on the flip side, that was redhat 6.0 in 1999

Does fedora have a good package manager, or do you still have to wrestle each package and all their associated libraries in by hand?

[Brad Reddekopp]

Does fedora have a good package manager, or do you still have to wrestle each package and all their associated libraries in by hand?

I don't remember about that from my last experience with Fedora. By the time I get home from vacation, my new discs should be waiting for me there.

A quick google got me this, though, in a blog entry titled "5 Reasons Why You'll Love Fedora 9":

PackageKit and Yum

Fedora developer and user Richard Hughes started work on the PackageKit project to provide a common interface to all the package management back-ends that exist in the Linux world, and to try and help ensure end-users get to use a sane interface. Already, PackageKit has a lot of traction with support coming from many other distributions and as a result it can now be used with the following back-ends: yum, yum2, zypp, smart, apt, apt2, conary and many many more. PackgeKit is going to be replacing Pirut and Pup as the default GUI package management solution in Fedora 9.

Yum, which is used as PackageKit’s back-end in Fedora, has also received many more speed improvements; people who claim that it is slow should definitely take another look this release.

from http://jonrob.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/ ... -fedora-9/

I don't have any personal experience with the new stuff yet but it seems encouraging that a blogger highlights the package management as something to like in the new Fedora.

[Dan Mac]

If it works with apt and can draw from apt sources then it's win.

[Brad Reddekopp]

The networking is one of the reasons I'll be giving Fedora 9 a try. I recently purchased a Sierra Aircard 595u and I'm hoping to get it to work in Linux. I've heard of people coaxing Ubuntu into recognizing the card but I want to see if F9 can make it work more easily.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Aw shit. Fedora doesn't know what to do with my monitor. It correctly identifies the video card but the monitor shows a "mode not supported" error box on a blank background when Fedora 9 tries to go graphic.

It does this when I try to do an install in GUI mode. So, I did a text-mode install, which went fine, but when the OS went to GUI mode afterward, I got that ugly little box again.

So, next is Ubuntu to see if I can get it to play nice with my aircard.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Others are having the same problem with Fedora 9. Apparently, it has to do with a pre-release x server that doesn't know what to do with nvidia graphics cards. It identifies the card correctly but can't use it.

[Dead Kangaroo]

Try an older nvidia card, such as the ti4200, works a treat on it.

[Brad Reddekopp]

You mean tell it to use my card as if it was an older card?