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Stop it. This is a total troll and is 100% FUD. Fedora isn't a "trial" version at all -- it's a bleeding edge distro made for people who don't need commercial-grade support for their distro, but they want a Red Hat based system. Plus, Fedora isn't just "usable," it's awesome. Far from being a collection of bits and pieces, it's a coherent, organized collection of software -- in short, it's everything you expect a distro to be. You should check out: This and this.

I'm a Fedora user, and there's an unofficial Fedora FAQ on http://fedorafaq.org./ I've done some volunteer Chinese translation for that and put it on http://rye.my-place.us/ which is provided by www.my-place.us freely.

And my site has been censored.

Interestingly enough, the host itself http://www.my-place.us/ is not, which means the Wall bans my site somewhat specifically.

Can you feel my feelings? my chinese translation is available globally exception my nation...
I've also put it on blogspot of Google, but blogspot is banned from time to time.

living here is just too embarrassing...

I use Gentoo 2007.0, Ubuntu Edgy and Feisty, and Fedora Core 6 on a daily basis and Fedora Core 6 is rock solid. If you following the instructions at http://www.fedorafaq.org/ you can have MP3/DVD and what ever play back you want in no time. Fedora is just as easy to use as Ubuntu and personally I think the default skins look a hell of a lot sexier then Ubuntu's.

I was impressed by the author's attention to detail and clear specification of the tested systems and the steps involved in using them.

One useful correction would be that programs are just as easy to install on .rpm-based systems as they are on .deb-based systems. The default tool on Fedora Core 6 is called YUM and it does all the dependency resolving necessary. There are even simpler front ends to it such as Pup and Pirut. Package installation, deinstallation, upgrade and update are just as easy as they are with Aptitude.

The problems that the author experiences with 64-bit Flash are unfortunately a result of there being insufficient pressure from GNU/Linux consumers on vendors to supply Free software. A similar problem is experience by many Ubuntu users that rely on the non-Free drivers produced by Nvidia for their graphics cards, or the various non-free binary blobs used for some dodgy wireless hardware. This will continue to be a problem as long as distributions like Ubuntu facilitate the manufacturers of this hardware in evading one of the central principles of Free Software. The manufacturers can't do a good enough job of staying current with the kernel and so GNU/Linux will always be a second class citizen as long as we accept this. Fortunately there are manufacturers, such as Intel that provide Free software for their 3D graphics cards and their wireless chipsets and so it's worth choosing their components when building a new system. (I used to buy ATI stuff because the Free 3d drivers were better than the Free Nvidia ones, but apparently the nouveau project is opening up the list of working Free Nvidia cards. I'll probably be giving Nvidia and ATI both a miss in favour of Intel though).

Unfortunately Mark Shuttleworth is a short-term thinker who is pushing many of the Ubuntu developers into including binary, closed blobs that work until you update your system. This is the tired old "I'm a pragmatist" line which has been releiving the pressure on manufacturers to open their drivers and on users to choose non-closed hardware while purchasing new systems. It's anything but pragmatic and leads to the sort of frustrations seen in the article.

Yes.

I know this is irritating. But most users of fedora install third-party mp3, dvd and such software. This is explained in the unofficial Fedora FAQ.

http://www.fedorafaq.org/

As far as the nVidia drivers go, you should know about Max Kanat-Alexander's http://www.fedorafaq.org/ site. He's supplied a yum.conf file that will, among other things, hook you up with http://rpm.livna.org/, which supplies prebuilt nVidia and ATi kernel drivers. In most cases, livna will have the nVidia driver rpm out there within a day or so of the Fedora kernel update being available. They also supply other things like codecs that you mention. You can also look to http://www.fedoraforum.org/ as a place to look for help. Note that there are some other sites that also supply prebuilt video drivers and codecs for yum; while I'm not in a position to soundly recommend one over another (livna has "just worked" for me), I have seen warnings that you should only enable one such site, as conflicts can arise if both release the video driver simultaneously.

I would also suggest trying XFCE (yum install xfce, IIRC; it's available in extras, and after it's installed you can choose it from the "Session" dropdown on the Fedora login page), and then go to their site at http://www.xfce.org/ and following instructions to build Thunar, their new file manager. Much lighter and more responsive than Nautilus, and it does have decent context-menu support.

Be glad that, as of FC5, yum cleans up its old kernels after new installs, leaving you with current and previous. I had a run of 7 or 8 of the things sitting around when I was on FC4.

Good luck to you!

They've actually answered your question in the FAQ: here. Basically it boils down to patents and licensing fees.

Install XMMS. Its a Winamp clone (in essence) and will accept Shoutcast mp3 streams, and m3u/pls playlists. You'll need to download the unofficial codecs as set out in http://www.fedorafaq.org/

I have to say I prefer the clean interface that RealPlayer for Linux uses - much rather that than the crud that comes with the Windows version.

If you prefer to stay 100% legit (depending on where you are, that is), I believe there is a gstreamer plugin that is licensed for mp3 that you can buy/download. This will make things like Rhythmbox work with mp3s, and Rhythmbox can cope with playlists and the like.

As for your dependency problem, yum does have a force option (I can't remember how it works mind), that will let you force the installation of one dep, to get you out of the cycle. If it's something like kmod-nvidia and xorg-x11-drv-nvidia (which I had trouble with before), the solution was to uninstall them both, and fall back to the Free (nv) driver which requires neither, then install the updated version. IIRC the reason for this was that the update couldn't do its work without overwriting one of the packages that was needed by the existing (and running) nvidia driver - so the existing kmod forbad the upgrade to the newer xorg drv module, while the newer kmod required it. Hopefully that issue is laid to bed now, and a better way of handling the pair has been sorted.

Unlikely...
The problem is Patents, and licensing. If Red Hat wants to license, say, mp3 codec, it needs to pay royalties to Thomson to distribute. Is it likely that Red Hat are not going to pay for licenses for you, since they give you Fedora for free. Downloading the Realplayer RPMs and installing them is no more difficult than installing Realplayer on Windows. In fact, if you double click an RPM in GNOME, GNOME will ask for your root password automatically, and run system-install-packages. Real Networks have licensed the mp3 codec, so they are legally entitled to give them to you (as binaries) in Realplayer. Other codecs, like LAME, or FFMPEG are of questionable legallity (in the US at any rate), so you'll have to get them from unofficial sources. And if you follow http://www.fedorafaq.org/ there are EASY, STEP-BY-STEP instructions as to how to do this. "yum" is not hard to use!

It is also in the Fedora "Constitution" that they will only include software that does not impinge on any licensing or patented tech. This is for a very good reason - The GNU GPL has a clause that says if you include code that you are not legally entitled to (or are later banned from using by a court), then you forfeit the right to distribute the software, either in binaries or as source. Thus if Fedora included mp3 codecs in FC6, Thomson could take them to court, and if they were found in breach of the law, Fedora could no longer distribute FC6 or make any derivatives of it. If Fedora included RealPlayer RPMs in the distribution, they would be breaking their commitment to give you only GPL software, and would be unable to give you the source.

If you want a fully paid-up Linux distro, with licensed mp3 codecs and the rest, buy RHEL or SLED. If you want free($) and Free(OSS) software, then you have to live with the fact there are many people (IP holders in particular), that want to make sure you pay for your license to their technology. They won't be easy on you. Rhythmbox and Totem support things like OGG and FLAC out of the box. These are Free(OSS) technologies. You can use them without infringing any patents. MP3, WMA etc. are patented technologies - you need a license to use them, and no doubt the licenses preclude you from distributing them Free(OSS). Using unofficial, and possibly illegal (depending on your location) software is a choice YOU can take. It is not a choice Fedora can take - Red Hat (US company) would end up in court. Knowingly breaking the law can end Directors in jail, and wipe $millions out of their accounts.

FYI, Konqueror is part of kdebase, but it'd probably be easier to just install all of kde, if you have the space. That also means you get to install and play with amarok (media player), digikam (photo manager) and k3b (cd/dvd burner) that I consider to be best of breed apps on any platform. It's worth pointing out that both fedora and ubuntu are mainly Gnome platforms, though they do support vanilla kde installs.

If you do end up liking KDE more than gnome - which happened to me - your two main choices of other distros are SUSE and mandriva for slightly better KDE integration. I'm a firm believer in sticking to the distro you know and making it work though, rather than jump around too much. If you like fedora - and yum is very nice - stick with it, you won't be missing out as such.

As far as speed goes, if your box is a little light on horsepower, you might have the most joy with xfce or the rox desktop, both sort of 'gnome-lite'. You'll still be able to use all the kde and gnome apps you've got installed, so you can pick the desktop that suits you best.

Also, if you can confirm opengl is working ok, you can give Xgl a go. It's very new and pretty buggy yet, but it's part of the future of 3D accelerated desktops on linux, and very swish. You'll need a fairly beefy nvidia card though.

Ignore those flagging your original post as a troll; linux has zealots who can't stand criticism or basic questions, just like any platform. There's plenty of sane and helpful people who are happy to see people finding the fun that linux can be.

well, the article isn't really about this, but as a fedora user I feel like I should at least counter some of your claims:

YUM works very well in FC5, it has made keeping software up to date really easy, far more than on windows. everything does it pretty much strait away; so for me it's great. They do have a GUI one aswell, but that doesn't seem to be as fast and I like the information... so run it from the command line

You also don't need to look through random websites, you already get 3 repositories with the distro, but it's really easy to add another (I've got livna) in there. These will contain pretty much all the software you could ever want to find

you really should consider trying fedora again. it's such a good little OS. anyway, if you do you should go to http://www.fedorafaq.org/ it contains a load of helpful information about how to get everything going. Also, it's not fedora's fault that some proprietary stuff doesn't work out of the box - it's free speech and wants to stay that way - we really should be praising them for this, not condeming them because it might take a little more effort to get some things working. Anyway, give it a go.

Just today I was on #fedora on irc.freenode.net to get assistance / make sure I was doing things "the right way" to install Java support in RedHat Fedora Core 5. Mind you, Fedora Core is for "developers" or those who want more cutting edge and don't want to pay for RH Enterprise Linux, so it is going to have a bit of a learning curve which you always have to keep up with as things change.

I'd already done some homework in researching at a popular Fedora FAQ website. However, as with many things with Linux, things were out of date, or talking about the wrong version (in this case, that FAQ is still for Fedora Core 4, not FC5).

I checked in at #fedora and asked, "Is the method to install Java at http://www.fedorafaq.org/#java still the best way?" A few folks said yes, another guy (ignacio, who is the classic example of a linux snob with a, "Live free or die" attitude) said, "Not best, use gij" to which someone else fought the battle for me and asked, "Is there plugin support with gij?" and ignacio had to reply, "No." Well, pointless, as the only reason I need Java is for plugin support with my online bank.

So, what I did wrong was that I should have know to ask, "Is this the best way to install Sun's Java?" You already have to almost know the answer to ask the question with some folks. While I can understand trying to do a bit of research and be prepared, it's not that simple. Googling sometimes gives you the answers, but again, there is always that out of date / old version problem that gets in the way. You could spend hours following the "old" method with old versions that don't apply and won't work anymore.

Anyway, I ended up just taking the original FC4 Java install notes and modifying them and put them on my own site for others to hopefully find via my webpage when searching for Fedora Core 5 and Sun's Java: http://jason.roysdon.net/?p=819

Just today I was on #fedora on irc.freenode.net to get assistance / make sure I was doing things "the right way" to install Java support in RedHat Fedora Core 5. Mind you, Fedora Core is for "developers" or those who want more cutting edge and don't want to pay for RH Enterprise Linux, so it is going to have a bit of a learning curve which you always have to keep up with as things change.

I'd already done some homework in researching at a popular Fedora FAQ website. However, as with many things with Linux, things were out of date, or talking about the wrong version (in this case, that FAQ is still for Fedora Core 4, not FC5).

I checked in at #fedora and asked, "Is the method to install Java at http://www.fedorafaq.org/#java still the best way?" A few folks said yes, another guy (ignacio, who is the classic example of a linux snob with a, "Live free or die" attitude) said, "Not best, use gij" to which someone else fought the battle for me and asked, "Is there plugin support with gij?" and ignacio had to reply, "No." Well, pointless, as the only reason I need Java is for plugin support with my online bank.

So, what I did wrong was that I should have know to ask, "Is this the best way to install Sun's Java?" You already have to almost know the answer to ask the question with some folks. While I can understand trying to do a bit of research and be prepared, it's not that simple. Googling sometimes gives you the answers, but again, there is always that out of date / old version problem that gets in the way. You could spend hours following the "old" method with old versions that don't apply and won't work anymore.

Anyway, I ended up just taking the original FC4 Java install notes and modifying them and put them on my own site for others to hopefully find via my webpage when searching for Fedora Core 5 and Sun's Java: http://jason.roysdon.net/?p=819

(1), (2), and (3) are all solved by a simple Google, which leads you to the unofficial Fedora FAQ[1], which has simple instructions that one can easily copy/paste into a terminal (which, by the way, they explain how to start and use somewhat).

(4) is due to the fact that Red Hat is on the forefront of Ext3 development, and will not support ReiserFS due to the fact that, quite frankly, it sucks. It lacks proper SELinux support[2], it fragments easily, it and been unmaintained upstream for a long time.[3]

[1] http://www.fedorafaq.org/
[2] Its Extended Attribute support, required for POSIX ACLs and SELinux contexts markings, is nothing more than a working kludge, using a hidden ".reiserfs_priv" directory entry and subsequent inodes therein for these things.
[3] I can't find the link at the moment, but Hans Reiser has mentioned on the LKML that ReiserFSv3 is "obsolete" and people should use the still-not-production-quality ReiserFSv4.

1. No NTFS support: If dual boot, you will not be able to read your Windows partitions.

Wrong. The NTFS module is readily available through Fedora Extras.

2. No MP3 support (it's been like that for a while.)

Wrong again. You can get binaries to add mp3 support to your favorite packages through Livna and Fedora Extras.

3. No support for propietary drivers: I've been told that this is more of a bug than an intended feature, but I haven't heard any certainty to support either side.

That's clearly wrong, and proof that you are talking out of your ass. You think the NVIDIA and ATI drivers aren't proprietary? Wrong wrong wrong again.

I could go on, but my answer would end up being the same as to all the points you have raised. Fedora Extras and Livna (along with repositories such as DAG, Dries, atrpms, FreshRPMS, NewRPMS, etc.) provide all of the not-in-the-US proprietary or restricted goodness you care to have.

You are obviously trolling. You clearly don't know anything about Fedora Core, or you wouldn't make such ignorant remarks.

For those who actually wish to be informed rather than to take up the distro wars, go to http://www.fedorafaq.org/ and get set up.

For years I have used The Unofficial Fedora Faq located at http://www.fedorafaq.org/ to install all of the software missing from the Fedora Core downloads.

I agree with everything on that page, except for Java support. I develop Java and suggest that anybody who wants to develop serious Java applications use the official Java JDK from Sun. Otherwise, everything else is spot-on to help make Fedora a serious Linux desktop distribution.

The Fedora FAQ page shows how to easily add mp3 functionality to FC4, FC3 etc.

http://www.fedorafaq.org/#mp3

I expect that the same steps will be available once yum packages are ready for Fedora 5

Surely the collaborative way in which the GNU/Linux experience comes about makes it necessary to cooperate upon the how software comes together. Rarely are there software packages which come to you in a cathedral-built lump (one example is Codeweavers' Crossover Office), and the 'peculiarities of each distribution' remains the justification I use for repositories and getting software by yum and aptitude (where appropriate).

Regarding FC3, I use FC3 at home and the chatter on their site tells me that FC3 still has security updates and should still have software support because it has not moved to Fedora Legacy yet. The FC4 install disks will upgrade your computer from 3 to 4 if you should so wish (at reasonably low risk of brokenness), and I found the repositry files from http://www.fedorafaq.org/ (be careful to read the FAQ for FC3 because the root page is for FC4) good for all my software needs, but I must admit that I'm happy to type yum install xine at a console.

I believe there is also an option to up2date to turn off signature checking (--nosig). I don't understand the full implications but this behavior is new in Fedora Core 4, and I thought earlier versions of Fedora Core also had signed packages but an implementation that worked...

http://www.fedorafaq.org/#radeon

I tried advice from fedorafaq for nvidia and it worked and was very simple.
Essentially I just entered one command as root as written on this site and that was it (after configuring yum as they say). Hope it helps.

Thats where you are wrong Mr. Dolt:

http://www.fedorafaq.org/#nvidia

That should fix your problem. Rememeber- package managers are your friend......

Wrong!! Don't spread mis-information. FC 3 is a beta for RHEL 4. See http://www.fedorafaq.org/ RHEL 3 was already out when FC2 was out. RHEL 3 is really based on RH 9. http://fedora.redhat.com/about/history/ So to wrap up. RHEL 2 based on RH 7.2 7.2.9 or 7.3 (dunno) RHEL 3 based on RH9 RHEL 4 based on FC 3 -A and for the OP: whitebox is okay.

I don't want to weigh in and start a flame war about any othe potentially applicable areas: distributions, hardware setups, graphics drivers, X implementations and all that...

To make a meaningful comment about where things go wrong, I would have to know about the hardware you're using and what you expect from it. What are you using, and what do you expect to get it to do?

If Ubuntu and Gentoo have been underperforming with you hardware, it may be possible that your system is too fresh for the support, which happened to me in 2001 when I put together my present system: DDR Ram and an Athlon Thunderbird. Patience let the distributions catch up, although I could have supplied bug reports and worked to get fixes.

My experience has been different from yours, in that it's been positive, with an ATi Xpert 2000 Pro (which uses a Rage Pro Ultra and Rage Theatre chip combination) under Fedora Cores 2 & 3. Using the Mplayer and Xine from the 'yum' profile supplied by http://www.fedorafaq.org/, I have no problems with audio sync for DVD's and MPEG4 video. I'm not kidding myself, though. The card isn't up to hard 3D gaming.

I think that 4 hours of an evening are the most that it has taken to get a working Fedora Core onto my machine. This is just my experience. I wish you luck in having a better experience.

This is a FAQ.

It doesn't matter... the company that is responsible for Fedora's development is in the US and is still held legally liable for holding US copyright law. Do you really think that if I'm based in the US and selling something to Europe, that I can violate US patent law? It works both ways as well iirc, if you sell something to us then you must respect our patents. Fedora is one of the few distros that includes only fully free software, and they stick to their guns on it. Its actually really nice running fedora and knowing that everything on there is patent free... its liberating, if you will. Of course some companies may claim otherwise with the occasional law suit ...*cough* SCO *cough*.

Anyway... I've got two questions for you. Why would you fork Fedora when you can just plop this into /etc/ then do "yum install xmms-mp3". There your problem is solved, its not really worth a new distro to do that. My second question for you is why would you want to support a format that is patented at all( doesn't matter where). The idea is to help people realize that software patents are not acceptable and won't be tolerated. Give OGG a shot, honestly it sounds much better bit for bit (well thats obvious considering it uses more modern algorithms) and takes up less space. I only buy OGG compatible music players and right now I'm really happy with everything. I'm not sure if you use Fedora but, for more info on it FedoraFAQ is a really good resource. Take care
Regards,
Steve

It doesn't matter... the company that is responsible for Fedora's development is in the US and is still held legally liable for holding US copyright law. Do you really think that if I'm based in the US and selling something to Europe, that I can violate US patent law? It works both ways as well iirc, if you sell something to us then you must respect our patents. Fedora is one of the few distros that includes only fully free software, and they stick to their guns on it. Its actually really nice running fedora and knowing that everything on there is patent free... its liberating, if you will. Of course some companies may claim otherwise with the occasional law suit ...*cough* SCO *cough*.

Anyway... I've got two questions for you. Why would you fork Fedora when you can just plop this into /etc/ then do "yum install xmms-mp3". There your problem is solved, its not really worth a new distro to do that. My second question for you is why would you want to support a format that is patented at all( doesn't matter where). The idea is to help people realize that software patents are not acceptable and won't be tolerated. Give OGG a shot, honestly it sounds much better bit for bit (well thats obvious considering it uses more modern algorithms) and takes up less space. I only buy OGG compatible music players and right now I'm really happy with everything. I'm not sure if you use Fedora but, for more info on it FedoraFAQ is a really good resource. Take care
Regards,
Steve

Yea, they are trying to solve the repos problem by preparing "Fedora Extras". For now though, FedoraFAQ is pretty useful if you ever need it. I personally just use the FedoraFAQ yum.conf that they provide, however I do agree the situation could be made easier to handle. Although, debian has the same issue, except imho, way worse. Alot more repositories to point at and its controlled by a lot more people that aren't always in communication. Running testing or unstable tended to break my machines about once a month. Not so bad that the OS needed to be reinstalled or the machine even rebooted, but bad enough that it took up enough of my time to start phasing them all out with fedora. Thats just my persepctive. Take care.
Regards,
Steve

Yea, they are trying to solve the repos problem by preparing "Fedora Extras". For now though, FedoraFAQ is pretty useful if you ever need it. I personally just use the FedoraFAQ yum.conf that they provide, however I do agree the situation could be made easier to handle. Although, debian has the same issue, except imho, way worse. Alot more repositories to point at and its controlled by a lot more people that aren't always in communication. Running testing or unstable tended to break my machines about once a month. Not so bad that the OS needed to be reinstalled or the machine even rebooted, but bad enough that it took up enough of my time to start phasing them all out with fedora. Thats just my persepctive. Take care.
Regards,
Steve

You want a never changing API? Then do what NVIDIA did. Write your OWN never-changing API/ABI, and recompile that for every kernel on the planet at install - now you can keep your proprietary skeletons in the closet and STILL not piss-off linux users....It's hard to install nvidia drivers? Nope. ./nvidia-installer. Whew, that was... ummm... "hard."

Actually, I'm somewhat pissed off at having to go through the rigamarole every time there's a kernel update, and it was not that easy for Fedora Core 3--if you go through the routine that has worked up to now and that the nvidia README tells one to do, you'll find that X fails to run after a reboot. The rigamarole is now longer, unless you know about the special livna.org RPMs, which the nvidia site doesn't point you at.

As for ATI drivers--ATI still points you at the GATOS project if you want to use the TV tuners on their AIW cards (GATOS now has a member with commit privileges on x.org, but I don't know how much things have advanced. I gave up on ATI after never getting everything going right on my AIW Radeon). ATI's Linux drivers are only for sufficiently new cards, and for a while the banner when one joins #gentoo has included "ati-drivers break xorg 6.8".

Keep using yum, or install apt. For security and general updates, stick with up2date, or just use "yum upgrade". There are many many repositories out there with thoushands of applications. Just have to add a line to your yum.conf or apt sources. Here are a few of my favorites:
FreshRPMS
Dag
Livna
Fedora.us

Some repositories play nicer with each other then others, i.e. Livna is maintained to be compatible with the Fedora.us repo. Dag has a huge selection of applications, as does FreshRPMS. You should read each site and see which you think is best for you. Personally, your best and easiest bet is to just use the yum.conf provided by FedoraFAQ.org. You may want to uncomment some additional repositories, but if you leave it how it is, you should be fine. FedoraFAQ.org is also a good site for general Fedora information. If nothing else, go in #fedora on irc, everyone there is usuaully always friendly and willing to help.
Regards,
Steve

The unofficial fedora faq has pointers to rpm respositories where you can get things like the xmms-mp3 package.

-jim

I had the exact opposite experience. Fedora 2 was dog-ass slow for me. I was ready to look for another distro, but then FC3 came out. I did a clean install (my /home is on its own partition), and holy cow. I saw an IMMENSE improvement in speed. Using Gnome 2.8 and SELinux is enabled. I especially like udev. My computer is a laptop (ultralight) so I am constantly plugging and unplugging USB 2 drives. udev makes it a snap.

One thing you may want to try. If you are not on an IPv6 network, you may want to disable IPv6 in /etc/modconf. Fedora tries IPv6 first for everything. I found this issue with FC1 and noticed a speed improvement when I disabled IPv6.

Even though this is still for FC2, this site still has some good information:

Unofficial Fedora FAQ

AWESOME!!!!

There were some new drivers released the other day.

I installed these applied the fedora patch and it runs just fine on a Radeon 9600. Not that fast mind you, but it certainly works.

BTW, if you are attempting to download, try the Bitorrent network, I pulled down the installer in about 30 seconds.

AWESOME!!!!!

There were some new drivers released the other day.

I installed these applied the fedora patch and it runs just fine on a Radeon 9600. Not that fast mind you, but it certainly works.

Berny

It's true mp2 playback doesn't work out of the box, but the instructions on the Fedora FAQ make it really easy.

The basic commands are :

yum update
yum install

The first command update everything, the second install the package you asked.

No need to sync or update the database.

Replace the /etc/yum.conf with the version found on this page : http://www.fedorafaq.org/

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true

http://fedorafaq.org/#nautilus-spatial

Fedora's base install will never include mp3 and ntfs until either U.S. patent law is reformed or patents on Mp3 and NTFS expire. Its really not that hard to get mp3 and ntfs support. Its included in a nice FAQ list.

I agree that it would be nice to get mp3 support built in but Red Hat is just covering their legal ass. And its a great example of how software patents are problematic.

As for installing software via commandline, you can get around that by using Synaptic. After installing APT in Fedora, just apt-get install synaptic. Makes it a little less scary.

Dude, do a quick google search for these things. There's dozens of how-tos out there that walk you right through them.

In a modern distro, such as Mandrake 10, SuSE 9.1 or Fedora Core 2 you will be SHOCKED how easy it is. You will be flamming people for spreading lies about Linux. Its true. The GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.2 GUI's are so easy to use you will wonder how you got on without them!

So, if you haven't tried Linux or are using an old version, get one of these distros right away.

Just avoid distros like Debian or Slackware, they are optimized for the geek sector, and thats why there is a mis-conception, because there are too many people trying the wrong version of Linux!

I am typing this from Fedora Core 2, and my experience with it is incredible. Stable, Fast, Easy, FUN.

Download fedora here
Go here to learn how to install cool stuff such as Flash, Java, MP3, etc

Personally I think FC2 (w/KDE) is very polished, perfect for my workstation/developement use, no problems at all. I'm tired of this ./ trend of "lets find some reactionary review" to talk about.

Debian and Xandros are the distributions. In fact, if you want a really usable and poweful distribution, you should try Fedora Core 2, a recently released distribution. It is simply amazing. GNOME 2.6 literally wipes the floor with OSX and Windows in terms of usabillity (New file dialog and spatial nautilus, as well as the HIG), Looks (Bluecurve and Nuvola are really slick looking) and Speed. I run it on a 1.2Ghz processor and it is comparable to my brother's 3.0Ghz machine running Windows XP!

Visit Fedorafaqs and get all the cool stuff such as Java, Flash, MP3 support and you will be really pleased indeed. It has replaced Mandrake 10 as my primary distribution. Its not just a leap, its a whole mile ahead of other distros. So try it today and see why not all distros are created equal. You can even get Debian's apt-get for Fedora!