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Fedora Core 2 Test 2 Released

Kalak writes "Fedora Core 2 Test 2, part of the project's goal to 'work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software', has just been released - this test release 'is specifically designed for SELinux testing, as well as testing the 2.6 kernel, GNOME 2.5, and KDE 3.2.1.' Get a copy from one of the mirrors or grab a copy via BitTorrent. You probably want the binary only Torrent."

65 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Careful - lots of experimental stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not for production use. SELinux should create some fun errors.

    1. Re:Careful - lots of experimental stuff by b12arr0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think that's why they call it 'Fedora Core 2 TEST 2'.

  2. Yipee by altaic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now we can use the lk 2.6 without having to add homebrew packages (yeah, I know there's some guy who provides a yum-able package tree). Anyway, this release should be an excellent updgrade. I'd be very interested to hear of the pre-release stability. Anyone care to comment?

    1. Re:Yipee by justi9 · · Score: 2, Informative

      And a 2.6 kernel has been yum and apt-get installable on FC1 for some time as well. Y'all are silly.

    2. Re:Yipee by div_2n · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've been using FC2 T1 since it came out. Here are some points on the past test. Haven't checked out the latest:

      -Sound hasn't worked ever. It used to not even detect my soundcard but now does (still no sound).

      -X refused to start on kernel upgrades until I modified some settings to configuration files. That was just plain rediculous to have to do that.

      -Double-clicking on PDF's has never worked. I have discovered that Gnome PDF Viewer doesn't work period. XPDF works great though.

      -Occasionally Update has just plain refused to work. Could be issues with mirror sites.

      -Occasionally GToaster locks the system up.

      -Mozilla (1.6) occasionally flakes out for no apparent reason.

      -By default, there are lots of CLI commands that just aren't there (such as ip). This is beyond annoying.

      -My scroll weel on my PS/2 mouse does very strange and inexplicable things.

      -Weather Report applet (2.5.6) no longer retrieves weather forecasts

      -The clock occasionally reverts back to military time even though it is set not to

      -To date, Linux has never correctly configured my HP PSC 750xi scanner (the printer part works great though by default). Installing HP's driver makes it work

      -NTP time syncing has never worked

      -CD drives behave strange in inexplicable ways occasionally

      Overall? Usable but lots of issues. Not for faint of heart. Test 2 may be better. YMMV based on your hadware/software configuration.

  3. Bueno by WTFmonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'd heard great things, but then I wasted one hard drive trying to make kernel 2.6 work with Fedora 1. I mean, it worked, but only by stretching definitions.

    I'm not horribly ign'nt, but I'm obviously no genious either. Somewhere along the line /dev got all dicked up and stuff stopped working. So to stop the bitching, it's great to see a faster-than-average turnaround by the Fedora guys. Will be installing this (and checking config files to see where I went wrong-- LEARN from your mistakes, people) tonight.

    1. Re:Bueno by Spoing · · Score: 2, Informative
      My custom 2.6.x kernels work well with Fedora test 1. The only thing I really did was;

      1. Update all the user space packages as decribed in the kernel README.
      2. Grab the .config file for one of the Fedora binary 2.6.x kernels (in /boot if it is installed, the RPM if not).
      3. Copy it to the 2.6.x kernel source directory -- where ever you put it -- and run "make oldconfig".

      Tweak and modify the kernel as you see fit. Otherwise, compile as-is.

      That said, there are customized parts of the official Fedora Linux kernels, so some of the .config options will be tossed out during "make oldconfig". Look for error messages to see what you'll be missing.

      --
      A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
  4. ACPI and kernel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope their gonna switch to 2.6.4 cuz last time I checked, they were using 2.6.1 and acpi for that is still broken. For some reason, the acpi people don't even support 2.6.3 any more...

    1. Re:ACPI and kernel by prockcore · · Score: 4, Informative

      I hope their gonna switch to 2.6.4 cuz last time I checked, they were using 2.6.1 and acpi for that is still broken. For some reason, the acpi people don't even support 2.6.3 any more...

      When was the last time you checked? FCtest has been using 2.6.4 for a few months now.

    2. Re:ACPI and kernel by ajs · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is still pre-release so your comments aren't too unreasonable, but just so that people understand that this isn't always the right way to look at the problem:

      The way version numbering works in Red Hat (and by extension, Fedora), is that the package version number is the version of the software that the package STARTED from, but it may have little to do with the state of the software as installed.

      For example, you might have openssh version 3.1 on a box, but if you look at the SRPM for that package, you will find security bug-fixes applied from all of the openssh versions between 3.1 and the current day.

      The SRPM is essentially three things: A tar-ball(s) of the original source as shipped by the developers; a set of patches or add-ons that the vendor has decided to include and a Makefile-like thing that RPM knows how to read called a spec file.

      Thus, FC2 might ship with Linux 2.6.4, but that doesn't mean it lacks a feature or bug-fix from 2.6.5... you have to check the patch-set in the SRPM to know that.

      Every time the contents of that SRPM are updated, the RPM version changes, so you'll see something like "foo-1.2-2", where 1.2 is the version of foo that the SRPM was based on, and this is the second build from Fedora.

    3. Re:ACPI and kernel by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Backports are evil for exactly the reason you describe. Luckily Fedora has a policy of avoiding backports wherever possible.

  5. Re:Not the first project to do this? by aeoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You mean "UnitedLinux" started by Caldera?

    Is UnitedLinux still alive in a more than a symbolic way?

  6. Re:Not the first project to do this? by Coneasfast · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pardon me, but isn't that what UnitedLinux was supposed to do?

    look at the united linux page. looks very 'commercial' to me, you can't even find a download link easily, or can you even download it?

    while the fedora page has a nice and simple download link.

    --
    Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
  7. Re:Not the first project to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Except one of their members wants $699 per seat.

  8. Re:Not the first project to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think the correct question is what happened to United Linux... and I think we all know what happened there.

    *SCO!* *cough* *cough* *SCO!*

  9. So the previous distributions weren't.... by millahtime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So are you saying the previous distributions of linux weren't general purpose operating systems or that they weren't completely from open source software. Was say redhat 9 not general purpose??? Isn't FreeBSD general purpose and all open source??

    What defines general purpose???

    1. Re:So the previous distributions weren't.... by Crispy+Critters · · Score: 2, Informative
      "So are you saying the previous distributions of linux weren't general purpose operating systems or that they weren't completely from open source software.

      Many Linux distros include non open source software. SuSE's installer was not open source. I have an old Red Hat distro that includes a proprietary X server (and xfree86 as well, I believe). My memory and rpmfind sugest that Netscape 4 was included in some distros, and it certainly isn't open source.

  10. Re:Not the first project to do this? by SquadBoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Debian you were thinking of Debian

    --

    Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
  11. Exciting stuff going on at Fedora by capz+loc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I installed Fedora Core 1 when it first came out and I was very impressed. It included some stuff that wasn't in RH9, including a very pretty graphical boot. If Fedora continues on the path that it is on now, it could become a worthy competitor with SuSE and Mandrake on the home user front.

    The community projects like Fedora and Debian tend to innovate more than distros that are managed by companies because they can get away with the "if it breaks, you keep both pieces" warantee. Distros used in enterprise scenarios (generally) offer a more stable product, at the cost of innovation.

    1. Re:Exciting stuff going on at Fedora by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The community projects like Fedora and Debian tend to innovate more than distros that are managed by companies because they can get away with the "if it breaks, you keep both pieces" warantee. Distros used in enterprise scenarios (generally) offer a more stable product, at the cost of innovation.

      Please show me a company managed Linux distro that is more stable than Debian Stable. I'll promise to try it.

    2. Re:Exciting stuff going on at Fedora by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Please show me a company managed Linux distro that is more stable than Debian Stable. I'll promise to try it

      Or more up to date than Debian Sid. Or a better compromise of the two than debian testing.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  12. Re:Not the first project to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    yup. from their faq:

    What is UnitedLinux?

    UnitedLinux is a standards-based, worldwide Linux solution targeted at the business user and developed by Conectiva, The SCO Group, SuSE, and Turbolinux.

    and since Suse was bought by Novell, and United Linux was really 99% Suse...can we say "poof" UL is no more.

  13. MP3 support? by IO+ERROR · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is Fedora Core 2 going to re-enable MP3 support now that it's no longer a "commercial" product?

    --
    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
    1. Re:MP3 support? by rgmoore · · Score: 5, Informative

      No. Fedora is trying very hard to avoid IP issues, so they've deliberately refrained from including things like mp3 decoders and DVD decoders that might get them into legal trouble. Fortunately, Fedora does have apt and yum available, so it's easy to add external repositories, like FreshRPMS or Livna, both of which do include mp3 players and DVD decoders. It's very convenient, and avoids a lot of legal headaches for RedHat.

      --

      There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

    2. Re:MP3 support? by Kalak · · Score: 5, Informative

      The commercial / non-commercial isn't the reason - it's that mp3 is a proprietary format, and Fedora is still backed by RedHat. Royalty issues for mp3 have been talked about before on slashdot, and I don't see RedHat giving the nod to distributing mp3 decoders in Fedora any more than in the RedHat Enterprise distributions. It's the same as distributing the NTFS modules. New Fedora releases shouldn't effect this decision.

      Just grab XMMS RPMS for Fedora from their home page and let RedHat worry about what they distribute. NTFS module RPMS are available as well.

      --
      I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by .hack)
  14. Fedora News by hey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe this is obvious -- I donno.
    If you are interested Fedora, check out:
    Fedora News
    (unofficial site).
    Lots of good stuff there.

    1. Re:Fedora News by prisen · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fedora Forum is also a good resource, which the "unofficial" fedora.artoo.net FAQ/Forum recently merged into.

    2. Re:Fedora News by geirt · · Score: 4, Informative
      --

      RFC1925
  15. Goddamnit. by el-spectre · · Score: 4, Funny

    As I type, one of my machines at home is downloading FC2 test 1. Guess I'd better check the timeline next time...

    --
    "Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
  16. Gnome 2.5 by nycsubway · · Score: 2, Informative

    I notice they're still using gnome 2.5, not 2.6. I hope they get gnome 2.6 in by the test3 release.

    1. Re:Gnome 2.5 by daemonc · · Score: 5, Funny

      This not surprising, considering Gnome 2.6 will not be released for another 2 days. Unless you have some method for pulling tarballs from the future that you'd like to let us know about.

      But yes, this is just a test release, and the final will include Gnome 2.6 and hopefully will not require time travel.

      --
      All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
    2. Re:Gnome 2.5 by Skeezix · · Score: 4, Informative

      They'll ship Fedora Core 2 final with GNOME 2.6, but GNOME 2.6 isn't due to be released until March 31st...

    3. Re:Gnome 2.5 by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Funny
      This not surprising, considering Gnome 2.6 will not be released for another 2 days. Unless you have some method for pulling tarballs from the future that you'd like to let us know about.

      It's called a subscription and it let's you see into "The Mysterious Future" where you should be able to get ahold of whatever tarballs you need.

      (Sorry, that was probably lame, but I couldn't resist)

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  17. No by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 4, Informative

    They can't include MP3 support precisely because Fedora is non-commercial. (Who would pay the per-copy license fees?)

    1. Re:No by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 2, Insightful

      FAR more importantly, I don't recommend that anyone attempt to "keep up" with other platforms that violate patents.

      That's an unrealistic viewpoint. There are just TOO MANY software patents out there for a developer to worry about avoiding them until the patent-holder initiates action. ("Willful ignorance" is the official policy of the Linux Kernel developers, who've had some formal legal advice on the matter)

      For example, both Debian and Red Hat are violating patents by shipping GNOME, so should they stop that too on the off-chance of an enforcement?

  18. UL still alive and widely used by bigirondawg · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, UnitedLinux was formed by Caldera, Connectiva,TurboLinux, and SuSE. SCO is obviously not an active contributor anymore, but Suse, TurboLinux, and Connectiva continue to distribute UL. UL is actually more of a brand that stands for packaging uniformity, since you download (or purchase) the UL version you want based on the vendor you choose. (i.e. You can get UL based on the SuSE, Turbo, or Connectiva dist. of Linux.)

    Basically, the UL framework allows the companies to still market their product to corporations while still standardizing the Linux product and giving a (semi) unified front to the Linux world.

    --
    - Proofs of Sturgeon's Law Delivered Daily -
  19. YMMV by captain_craptacular · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I got 2.6 working with Fedora 1 in about 45 minutes a couple weeks after it (lk 2.6) came out. I had no problems whatsoever, so I'm not sure what your problem was... I ran it that way for about 3 weeks with no hiccups and then switched back to the regular 2.4.x kernel so I could get hassle free updates...

    --
    They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
    1. Re:YMMV by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 4, Funny
      and then switched back to the regular 2.4.x kernel so I could get hassle free updates...

      Might have answered, in part, at least, your own question there, boyo.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    2. Re:YMMV by reaper20 · · Score: 2, Informative

      This guide to moving FC1 to 2.6 covers all the bases.

      I think many people just grab Arjanv's RPMs or whatever, install them, and then wonder why the system blows up in their face, there is no easy answer to moving a 2.4-based box to 2.6 without a few modifications, regardless of distro.

    3. Re:YMMV by IceAgeComing · · Score: 2, Interesting


      Maybe this step from the previous reply's link is important: ...(after several rpm -ivh statements) ...

      "Now you have installed the kernel, you have to remove /etc/sysconfig/hwconf so kudzu will configure modprobe.conf next boot."

  20. The email announcement by afd8856 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anybody else thought their email announcement is extremly hilarious? :)

    One bug, two bugs, tar bugs, su bugs,
    grep bugs, mew bugs, old bugs, new bugs.

    This bug has a little hack,
    This bug has a broken stack.
    Say! What a lot of bugs to track.

    Yes, some are in tar, and some in su.
    Some are old. And some are new.

    Some in sed, and some in jed.
    And some are even in parted.
    Why are they in parted, jed and sed?
    I do not know. Bugs should be dead!

    Some in jpeg, and some in TIFF
    This TIFF one has an attached diff.

    >From there to here, from here to there
    Test release bugs are everywhere.

    Fedora Core test 2 is available for
    x86 and x86-64
    It should not be installed where production is hot;
    use it only for test, as we say quite a lot.

    If you install with the default
    SELinux will be the result
    SELinux is a form of MAC
    For more answers, check the FAQ [*]
    By explicitly stating what apps can use
    Unwanted accesses it will refuse

    [*] http://people.redhat.com/kwade/fedora-docs/selinux -faq-en/

    So please test test2 in this mode;
    and please test it with your code.
    Plus it comes with a new GNOME;
    can you test that in your home?
    Also X.org is new,
    replacing XFree, test it too.
    And 3.2.1 of KDE
    We need to test, test, test, you see!
    So we will test it on our box.
    And we will even test out sox.
    And we will test it in our house.
    And we will test it with our mouse.
    And we will test it here and there.
    Say! We will test it ANYWHERE!

    --
    I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
    1. Re:The email announcement by Fisher99 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wow the team seem to of mistaken their sugar for their coffee for some other white power substance.

    2. Re:The email announcement by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 4, Funny

      >If you install with the default
      SELinux will be the result

      Shouldn't that be SeusSELINUX?
      --
      Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
  21. Re:Great by MrIrwin · · Score: 3, Informative
    I think it is more a case of RHAT branching into 2 distros, one for hacking and one for data centers (RHAT enterprise).

    It would appear to fill a void that IMHO exists between Debian and Slakware.

    --

    And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)

  22. "You probably want the binary only Torrent." by syntap · · Score: 5, Funny

    You insensitive clod.

  23. Re:Great by prockcore · · Score: 5, Informative

    But do we really need Yet Another Linux Distro?

    As far as I can see, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware and probably others are already


    Two of those distros are younger than RedHat (fedora).

    Plus none of those offer SELinux out of the box (which FCTest2 does), none of those offer xorg instead of XFree86 (which FCTest2 does).

  24. Re:Not the first project to do this? by bigirondawg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seeing as Suse hasn't ceased to exist since Novell bought them, I don't think you can say UL doesn't exist.

    TurboLinux is one of the most popular distros in Asia, and Suse is the most popular distro in Europe, in addition to being the #1 Linux distro on the mainframe platform.

    I think if Red Hat really had the best interests of the Linux community in mind, they would have joined the UL project at the beginning, anyway, instead of trying to "go it alone" with their own marketing and distro environment. Then they start the Fedora project as yet another offshoot in a community that has lots of them already... when is it too much?

    I mean, nerds like us /. readers can keep all these distros separate, but the business users out there (which really keep Linux alive) like to be able to see a strategy... some sign that your company is willing to work with other companies for the good of your customers.

    --
    - Proofs of Sturgeon's Law Delivered Daily -
  25. Just finished installing on my desktop by bdigit · · Score: 4, Informative

    I had alot of problems, the graphic installer would not work for me, it would just lock my mouse up out of no where and I had to reboot. Once I got it installed I could not change my clock out of 24 hour format , the clock applet kept crashing. I tried to open hwbrowser to take a look into setting up my printer, that never loaded. The new nautilus is just garbage imho. I then tried to run yum but that failed as it couldnt reach any servers so I installed apt-get but I could not install any packages due to gpg issues. Sigh... core 1 runs fine on my laptop though.

    1. Re:Just finished installing on my desktop by samrichards · · Score: 2, Interesting

      don't worry about it - i installed the test 2 of fedora core 1 and it didn't even come close to being functional. pretty much everything i did resulted in my machine going slightly crazy. i was quite alarmed that fedora was gonna suck and never be much good, but by the time the final release of fedora core 1 came out, it installed perfectly and ran wonderfully on my laptop. so, hey, submit your bugs (or, if you're a better person than myself, fixes) and then wait for the final to come out and blow you away! :o)

  26. Re:Anyone have any experience with Gnome in Fedora by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How exactly is it crippled?

  27. I hope its better than Test 1 by MajorDick · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was horribly disapointed with test 1, WOW , I mean I install it on release day and there are already like 500 megs of updates ?!?! , Not to mention all the menu issues and other buggies, I know its a "test" but wow RH betas were never in such disarray in my experience. On the other hand I was Thrilled with FC1 for my laptop, everything just Worked like it was supposed to I hope FC2 release is as good.

  28. Re:Huh? by Black+Perl · · Score: 2, Informative

    'work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software'

    Wait a minute! Isn't Fedora directly derived from Redhat? And wasn't it Redhat who smugly proclaimed their superiority over certain other distros because they didn't use ANY proprietary software? Was Redhat lying to us?


    No. I think it may make more sense to you if you put the emphasis in a different place:

    'work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software'

    In other words, it'll be just like Red Hat except they'll be working with the Linux community more.

    --
    bp
  29. Re:I tried fedora, had a terrible time with it by jaylee7877 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most rpms built for RedHat 7.3 - 9 should work without a problem in FC1 and FC2. With Linux, you can easily build binarys that will only work on one version of one distro, it takes a little more work to make it generic.

  30. How to get my favorite package in Fedora? by ajiva · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How do I get my favorite package to be in the Fedora install? Personally I'd love to see better wireless support, maybe WLAN or HostAP.

    1. Re:How to get my favorite package in Fedora? by AFairlyNormalPerson · · Score: 2, Informative

      The answer depends on if you want it included in the Fedora Extras repository or on the distribution disks. You might want to visit http://fedora.us and http://fedora.redhat.com (under participate).

      Here is an extended discussion from the devel mailing list. The link is to the question; just follow the links within to read the discussion. http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2 004-March/msg00539.html

      -Norm

  31. re: NTFS by bani · · Score: 4, Interesting

    and what exactly is preventing redhat from distributing NTFS like everyone else, commercial or not?

    i've asked redhat repeatedly to explain, and they have refused to give a straight answer. first they claimed it was "stability issues", claiming NTFS would "corrupt memory", but wouldnt give any examples and clammed up when i asked for clarifications. then they suddenly changed their story to "legal issues", but again clammed up when asked to explain. patents? copyrights? trade secrets? no answer.

    it ain't legal issues -- unless you can point to NTFS patents. and it ain't copyright issues either -- because the code was written from scratch. the codebase for NTFS was developed much the same way as the codebase for SAMBA -- from publically available documentation and reverse engineering. if redhat has a legal problem with NTFS then they shouldnt be distributing SAMBA either.

    it also strikes me very odd that they would include FAT filesystems which DO have patent issues, but exclude NTFS which does NOT.

  32. How about giving Fedora its own topic/icon ? by phoxix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because Redhat != Fedora.

    Sunny Dubey

    1. Re:How about giving Fedora its own topic/icon ? by dwave · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, there's no real icon for Fedora (yet). And in fc1's Gnome (haven't checked KDE) there's still that peculiar little red hat visible on the panel. It's an fedora[1] hat in fact.

      [1] Taken from a glossary about hats:

      FEDORA ( fe doe ra ) Men's soft felt hat with brim and lengthwise crease in crown , adopted by women. The name Fedora was after the heroine of Victorian Sardou's drama presented in Paris in 1882. Also TYROLEAN HAT, ALPINE HAT, HOMBURG.

      So as long as there isn't a new logo within the distro, the red hat fedora icon should be ok.

  33. Live support URLs by jroysdon · · Score: 4, Informative

    fedoraforum.org has a wealth of info in the FAQs and Forums.

    For the newest issues, jump on IRC: irc.freenode.net #fedora

  34. Configure Fedora up2date to use a mirror by Copperhead · · Score: 4, Informative
    I was upset that the system pointed to download.redhat.com for updates, which is constantly being hammered. I would get 9k/sec if I was lucky, and the download was constantly freezing.

    However, in looking through the messages, I found that there is a document on how to use mirror servers as a source for updates. I'm surprised that Fedora doesn't have a system for balancing clients to different mirror servers, a la Gentoo, but now that I've picked a few mirrors, things have been a lot smoother.

    --
    Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
  35. Re:fedora update by RichiP · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is a test of the distribution. This way, they get to test the ISOs, as well. You CAN apt-get upgrade or yum update your older release installation if you want to. Not everyone has an older installation and for those people, they'd rather download the new distribution rather than an old one and the upgrades.

    Would've been logical if you thought it through.

  36. 2.6 is almost here! by ChiralSoftware · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's in this new Fedora release, it's also in the Mandrake 10 "community" release (I just got my DVD last week) and it's in the upcoming Mandrake 9.1 release, which you can pre-order from Amazon even though you can't actually find it by searching in Amazon. Too many choices! Oh and OpenBSD 3.5 is coming, too.

  37. Re: NTFS by ChrisJones · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Maybe they just don't want to pay to do all the due diligance required to make sure they are legally covered from Microsoft turning round and sueing.

    The stability problems related mostly to write support, you could read NTFS partitions ok, but the writing code was unusable for a long time. This isn't some secret conspiracy nobody will tell you about, it's just bloody complicated filesystem code, it's not easy at the best of times, and when you're reverse engineering something it's a whole bunch harder. Cut them some slack.

    If you want to know why it's not suitable for shipping, maybe ask the people who make it, they will most likely be highly intimate with a) the quality and stability of the codebase, b) the legal implications of their work.

    IANAL, so I pass on the FAT question, I had wondered that myself when the licensing was announced. I didn't read into it enough to see what was in/excluded though. Research is left as an exercise for the reader ;)

    --
    Chris "Ng" Jones
    cmsj@tenshu.net
    www.tenshu.net
  38. Re: NTFS by Burdell · · Score: 5, Informative
    There apparently are patent issues with NTFS, and people from Red Hat have said that multiple times (here for example).

    As for FAT, from what I've read the patent (patents?) doesn't cover the way Linux uses a FAT filesystem.

  39. Re:Not the first project to do this? by Pros_n_Cons · · Score: 4, Informative

    Damn my modpoints ran out just as i was reading the article =)

    "think if Red Hat really had the best interests of the Linux community in mind, they would have joined the UL project at the beginning, anyway, instead of trying to "go it alone" with their own marketing and distro environment."

    Do you think this has anything to do with it? A clip from a ZDnet Germany interview with Red Hat:

    Were you asked to be part of the UnitedLinux team? Were there any negotiations?
    We were asked to be a part of UnitedLinux team hours before their public announcement.

    If Red Hat got together with mandrake, developed a standard that is 99% red hat, Calls SuSe the day before its released and says. Hurry up and be a standard, you have 9 hours! Think SuSe would do that?

    --

    -- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller