Fedora Core 3 Test 1 Released

Gudlyf writes "Notice just went out to the Fedora Announce List about the availability of Fedora Core 3 Test 1. Things expected in FC3 include Linux kernel 2.6.7, GCC 3.4, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, and Evolution 2.0. As always, you can get Fedora Core test releases at redhat.com, specifically here and (for a torrent) here."

Comments

Bittorrent

[StarHeart]

Always have the cd isos and working on the dvd iso with a 10mbit pipe. :)

Suprised to see FC3 Test1 so soon.

WMP54G

[jeffkjo1]

Will this work out of the box with the Linksys WMP54G 802.11G wireless card? Or will I still have to fsck around with ndiswrapper?

Anyone?

Re:WMP54G

[Tobias Luetke]

No, There are no linux drivers for it. You can get it to run using ndiswrapper and the windows drivers though ( i'm posting, connected using one

Re:WMP54G

[manifest37]

No it wont' ever work because broadcom will not release docs for the chipset. deal with it or buy a different card. if you want 54g i suggest the prism gt(www.prism54.org) chipset. there are drivers in the 2.6 kernel since about 2.6.5.

Re:WMP54G

[molarmass192]

Looks like you'll need to keep fscking with the ndiswrapper since Broadcom are still being bitches about releasing the chip specs. I've heard rumors of a native alpha driver but I think they're just that, rumors.

Re:WMP54G

[infernux]

Wait and see... too early to say right now I guess. But keep in mind, even if you read that the WMP54G is supported at some point, make sure that it is YOUR revision of the card that is supported because there are at least two with entirely different chipsets (Prism GT Vs. Atheros).

Anybody else have problems?

[atheken]

No disrespect intended against the Fedora team, but I find that this release schedule is not so hot. There have been A LOT of issues with my installation of FC2 on a standard dell box. Maybe this was just a fluke, but I can't understand the whole idea of a point release every few months. Nonetheless, where's the torrent?

Re:Anybody else have problems?

[Alex Brasetvik]

If you read the release schedule, you'll notice that FC3 isn't due until 18 October.

The link to the torrent can be found in the article text, actually. But since this is Slashdot: http://torrent.linux.duke.edu/FC3-test1-binary-i38 6.torrent.

Re:Anybody else have problems?

[ROOK*CA]

Could just be my take on it, but isn't that the whole point of Fedora ? more a less the "unstable branch" for RHEL ?

One would think that they would want to move the Fedora "branch" as far along as possible (and field test as much as possible) in between RHEL releases in order to incoporate as many stable features & fixes as possible into RHEL.

I'm not a big Red Hat user (prefer Gentoo myself) but that was my take on the Fedora projects goals.

Re:Anybody else have problems?

[kfg]

Maybe this was just a fluke, but I can't understand the whole idea of a point release every few months.

The point is that it's a development version test release, not a point release, in order to find out what all the problems are as quickly as possible so that they can be fixed before the next point release so there can be a next point release someday.

If you aren't interested in testing potentially broken things avoid it.

KFG

Re:Anybody else have problems?

[Spoke]

Let me guess, you've got an older Dell with the Intel 440GX chipset, and maybe even a DAC960 onboard?

There are many open bugs in RedHat's Bugzilla (just search all open bugs for 440GX) which prevent RedHat 9 and newer (FC1, and FC2 included) from being installed.

The last RedHat I have been able to get installed on those machines is RedHat 7.3. So far the only workaround I have found which should work is to rebuild the installation media with a rebuilt kernel which works with that chipset, but I have not yet tried it myself:

http://www.techonthenet.com/linux/fc2_update.htm

Apparently, the bug which affects the 440GX chipset is fixed in 2.6.7, so possibly FC3b1 will work where previous FCs have failed...

Re:Anybody else have problems?

[hawkeyeMI]

From my experiences with Fedora Core 1 and 2, and with RHEL 3.0, I would say the reverse is true -- RHEL is a stripped-down vesrion of FC. FC is the testing ground and they sort of pick one of each thing that works best for 'standarization' purposes, and ship it out with support as RHEL.

We had problems with RHEL (which came with our dells) and replaced it with FC2. Things have been working great, actually.

Note, I'm not sure this is the exact or actual process. It's just from my experience with the products.

Re:That was fast....

[bob670]

Except you don't have to pay $199 for it...

Re:Try Gentoo

[DaHat]

It's true to the idea of free software (everything from the source, man!) and a joy to upgrade

Personally... I can't stand building from source... yes building from source may result in a faster binary which is custom tailored to my system... but building can be a nightmare in terms of time! Recently I built kDevelop 3.0.4 from source and it took 3 hours and 45 min... all because I could not find a suitable RPM for my system.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Orick]

Yes, just install it and select the option to overwrite all existing partitions, assuming you want the "Break XP" option.

--
Kirby Reviews

Upgrading

[Anonymous Coward]

With releases coming out this fast, what's the best solution for upgrading? Does it work like you expect? What about going from Core 1 to Core 3?

Re:Upgrading

[Kainaw]

what's the best solution for upgrading?

I tried the YUM upgrade from FC1 to FC2. It worked the first time on a dirt-old Dell Optiplex, but I had to reinstall the printer, sound, and fiddle around with the X config file to get the optical wheel mouse to work. That X config stuff can easily be blamed on the jump from X11 to Xorg.

I tried it again on a newer Gateway E series. I couldn't get X to work no matter how much I fiddled with it. I eventually gave up, backed up my data files, and installed FC2 from scratch. It came up working just fine. The sound even works. This is the first time I've ever been able to have sound in more than one program at a time. Previously, nothing ever worked as advertised. I'd be listening to xmms and then a term window would want to beep and all sound went to hell.

Because much of the problem of going from FC1 to FC2 was with the X configuration, I expect that using yum to jump from FC2 to FC3 will be easier, but I wouldn't want to try jumping from FC1 to FC3 that way.

What are the chances!

[Goyuix]

I got in on a sweet AMD64 deal last week, the hardware will be arriving Thursday, so deciding to be proactive I go check the torrents at Duke to get FC2 for x86_64, but no - there is FC3 test 1. When I started I was about the only peer, getting about 150K/s (maxed my line) from I guess the torrent host. Very nice.

For once the slashdot effect might actually work in my favor!

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[infernux]

We can only hope... ;)

Announce Text

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already starting to act slow, so I might as well post it as an AC to avoid karma whoring.

Announcing Fedora Core 3 Test 1

* From: Bill Nottingham
* To: fedora-announce-list redhat com
* Subject: Announcing Fedora Core 3 Test 1
* Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 11:38:37 -0400

[ witty or not-so-witty reference ]

Yes, it's time for the [number] test release of Fedora Core [number]. Fedore Core [number] includes various new features, such as
KDE [version], GNOME [version], and the [version] kernel.

[call for testing]

[admonition about production use]

Problems with Fedora Core [number] test [number] should be reported via bugzilla, at:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/

Please report bugs against 'Fedora Core', release 'test1'.

For more information on just what the Fedora Project and Fedora Core is, please see:

http://fedora.redhat.com/

For discussion of Fedora Core test releases, send mail to:

fedora-test-list-request redhat com

with subscribe in the subject line. You can leave the body empty. Or see: https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora -test-list/

As always, you can get Fedora Core test releases at redhat.com, specifically: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux /core/test/2.90/

Or on the following mirrors:

* North America

* USA East

* http://mirror.linux.duke.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core /test/2.90/
* ftp://mirror.linux.duke.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/ test/2.90/
* rsync://mirror.linux.duke.edu/fedora-linux-core/te st/2.90/
* ftp://mirror.cs.princeton.edu/pub/mirrors/fedora/l inux/core/test/2.90/
* ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/te st/2.90/
* http://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/ test/2.90/
* ftp://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/t est/2.90/
* rsync://mirror.hiwaay.net/fedora-linux-core/test/2 .90/
* ftp://ftp.net.usf.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2 .90/
* http://redhat.secsup.org/fedora/core/test/2.90/
* ftp://redhat.secsup.org/pub/linux/redhat/fedora/co re/test/2.90/
* ftp://fedora.mirrors.tds.net/pub/fedora-core/test/ 2.90/
* http://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/fedora/core/test/2.90/
* ftp://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/fedora/core/test/2.90/
* rsync://linux.nssl.noaa.gov/fedora/core/test/2.90/
* http://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/downlo ad.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2. 90/
* ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/downloa d.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2.9 0/
* rsync://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/downl oad.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2 .90/

* USA West

* ftp://mirror.stanford.edu/pub/mirrors/fedora/linux /core/test/2.90/

* Canada

* ftp://less.cogeco.net/pub/fedora/linux/core/test/2 .90/
* ftp://ftp.nrc.ca/pub/systems/linux/redhat/fedora/l inux/core/test/2.90/
* http://gulus.usherbrooke.ca/pub/distro/fedora/linu x/core/test/2.90/
* http://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/fedora/linux /core/test/2.90/
* ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/fedora/linux/ core/test/2.90/

* South America

* Chile

Re:Announce Text

[bfg9000]

It's already starting to act slow, so I might as well post it as an AC to avoid karma whoring.

DUDE!!! Why on earth would you AVOID karma whoring? Don't you know there are children starving for karma in China? Waste not, want not, all that jazz? Karma whoring is the noble backbone of Slashdot civilization! It's one of the four holy pillars of Slashdot, the other three being 'In Soviet Russia', 'Beowulf Cluster', and 'Natalie Portman's Hot Grits'. No wonder you posted AC, the outrage of someone AVOIDING karma whoring would follow you for all eternity. You'd have an angry mob of geeks with torches and pitchforks angrily camped outside your castle shouting "Send out the heretic!"

Gandalf should have chosen YOU to carry the ring, you've obviously got a stronger will than Frodo. My God. You passed up a perfectly good Karma Whore! My mind reels. That's the geek equivalent of purposely puking on Pamela Anderson to make sure she doesn't accidentally have wild meaningless sex with you.

It's. Just. Not. Right.

Please, think seriously about what I've said -- Friends don't let friends pass up a good Karma Whore. Don't let it happen again.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Alex Brasetvik]

It's test1.

If you're afraid of it breaking anything at all, you probably don't want to use it.

If you on the other hand want to help the developers find the bugs at an early stage so they can squeeze the bugs, download it immediately, start testing and report bugs.

At this rate....

[Harbinjer]

They're moving so fast, that I think they pile on more bugs than the rate they fix them at. Its generally pretty good, but still, a slightly slower schedule wouldn't impare them much. There really hasn't been that much new software since FC2 was released. Why not patch FC2, and wait for more stable builds of the next Gnome, like 2.8.2 or something, and KDE 3.3.1. It doesn't seems like Gnome 2.8 is that far along, and will be shipping as RC instead of finalized and tested. And if they do finalize 2.8, will is just be a bug-fix with like 1 new feature?

Re:At this rate....

[Scyber]

If you look at the roadmap, FC3 isn't supposed to be out till the 18th of October, a full month after Gnome 2.8 is supposed to be released.

Re:At this rate....

[nine-times]

Well... this is a 'test', after all. I mean, shouldn't they constantly be testing? If they were releasing FC3 final today, I'd say, 'er, yeah, isn't that a little quick?' But I don't really expect a 'test' to have all stable builds. I expect and hope that they're testing the newest tech they have, and figuring out what's "stable" in time for the final version.

And aren't there updates to FC2? I don't use it, but can't you use yum or something to get patches and bug-fixes? I thought Fedora used yum. So aren't there plenty of updates.

I guess I'm confused.

Re:At this rate....

[JanneM]

Firewire access was fixed about a month ago with a kernel update. But yes, in general you are right - this is not the distro for people that want something stable and unchanging. It is bleeding edge, and as always, that means you do cut yourself from time to time.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[thenextpresident]

Aren't Windows XP installs broken by default?

=)

Missing links.

[phaetonic]

I would have expected to see a ChangeLog in the article posted, as well as saying if the big bugs in FC2 have been fixed! (Windows mbr breakage and Orinoco wireless PCMCIA support breakage).

Fun stats on the BT tracker

[ScytheBlade1]

Fun stats on the BT tracker --> http://torrent.linux.duke.edu:6969/

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Jahf]

You should have expected at least 1 response like that.

A) This is /. ...

B) It is a -test1 release ... it breaks EVERYTHING ...

C) This is /. ... if it had been the other way around (will XP SP2 break my Fedora install?) you'd still have had an equally brattish response.

Don't let it disappoint you ... just move on and read the better comments.

My personal feeling ... if you are at all worried about breaking something, you should wait until it is final, not in any form of test release. Otherwise, you're just asking for problems.

OSS Development too fast?

[rally_redhat]

Sometimes, just sometimes, I get the feeling that Linux distributions are being released too fast for ordinary users to keep up. I mean, FC2 was released about a month back (roughly), and here we are, talking about about FC3 Test 1 already! I guess FC3's slated to be released sometime in October.

The problem with this is that often, packages (rpms) for older distros are discontinued, thus forcing users to upgrade. I know stuff like Yum solves a lot of these issues, but the fundamental problem still remains.

For instance, I was running FC1 with KDE 3.2 Beta 2, which released sometime in December 2003, and wanted to upgrade to KDE 3.2.3 - but I couldn't find any rpms for FC1 at all, only FC2. Since upgrading was on the card anyways, I did download and install FC2, and all's well that ends well, but it did leave me thinking about whether Open Source software products are being released a tad too fast.

I wrote an essay about technology overload [rahulgaitonde.org] on my website. This news post on /. made me instantly think back to that essay.

Re:OSS Development too fast?

[IamTheRealMike]

That's more to do with the way people build RPMS than anything specific to Linux - it's perfectly feasable to build RPMs for Fedora Core 1 and have them install into FC2 (or indeed, build packages that can be installed into distros going back several years). Doing so is something of a black art though currently so nobody does it.

Let's make a bet...

[rulethirty]

Before I was able to fix everying in RedHat 9, Fedora Core 1 came out, and before I could fix everything in Fedora Core 1, Fedora Core 2 came out. I will bet that by the time I fix everything in Fedora Core 2 they will release Fedora Core 3 no later than 2 days afterwards. Any takers?

Re:Screenshots

[Random Web Developer]

sure, bombard someone's dyndns url with 1400*1200 screenshots from slashdot and whatch him get kicked by his ISP :)

Re:4 CD's

[Shoeler]

Are you kidding or just ignorantly looking for karma?

It's got four CDs, einstein, because it's got so damned many apps bundled with it.

Try bundling MS office, MS SQL (two versions of it), exchange, and a few other M$ bloatware apps with XP and THEN come tell me about bloated installs.

You have obviously never installed fedora and if you did you did it to put it on your resume that you are a Redhat expert and have administered it for years.

Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

Re:Try Gentoo

[no reason to be here]

I believe there was a typo in your post:

you mispelled "masterbate to pictures of techTV chicks" as "screw my girlfriend" and "constantly" as "6 hours".

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Pros_n_Cons]

Mandrake had that bug.
And SuSe also had that bug.
If you mind not spreading fud and educating yourself have a look at This Page Which tells you how to not only recover the problem, but avoid it all together.
This crap is really getting old, stop trying to place blame only on Fedora dev's when every distro with 2.6 kernel has this problem okay?

Re:MYSQL 4

[LuckyStarr]

Take the RPMs from mysql.com. They are really stable and work as expected.

Please Fix FC2 instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't do this. Please fix what's wrong with FC2 before you make us all erase and install FC3.

Reminds me of Microsoft, when there was a fault in Win95, and the "fix" was "upgrade to Win98".

"[foo] is broken in FC2" "Fixed in FC3"

Re:Please Fix FC2 instead

[johnnyb]

Why do you think RedHat switched to the Fedora model? Fedora is not meant to be a stable, production distribution. Even the non-test releases are still test releases. That's the whole point. They have "bleeding-edge", Fedora, and "enterprise stable", RHEL. They decided that maintaining a middle category that wasn't providing them with funds was a bad idea. With Fedora, they give a free bleeding-edge OS and get free testing. With RHEL, they have you pay for a solid OS and you get technical support.

It's actually a pretty good model, but not one my company can afford, so we are in the process of switching to Mandrake.

Re:SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!

[Alex Brasetvik]

I can't believe that you got moderated "Informative" for such rant.

First of all, it's not about "every X weeks". FC1 was released 5 November 2003, FC2 was released 18 May 2004. FC3 is due 18 October 2004.

Secondly, nobody forces you to upgrade. These people are doing their best to improve free (as in libre) software, while you scoff at them. Give me a break.

Rename it

[chris_mahan]

They should have nicknamed it XPsp2

On the off chance...

Fedora Core 3 Schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted at http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/schedule/ is a preliminary draft of a schedule for Fedora Core 3, reproduced below.

- GCC 3.4 - those that have looked at rawhide will have noticed this
- GNOME 2.8
- KDE 3.3
- SELinux, yet again. This includes a new 'targeted' policy that monitors specifc daemons with less intrusion than the strict policy in use before.
https://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-selinux -list/2004-May/msg00096.html
- IIIMF - continued evolution of the new input framework
- Indic language support
- Various desktop-related features, including, but not limited to:
- Pango support for Mozilla
- Remote desktops using VNC
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list /2004-June/msg00007.html
- Printing improvements
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/ 2004-June/msg00370.html
- Evolution 2.0

New stuff

[Sunspire]

Things that interest me:

- I see the Freedesktop.org HAL code is being included in test1. That will be interesting to see if and how integrated it will be in the final release. We'll probably also see some sort of real udev support this time.

- The timetable for the next official X.org release is planned to sync with Fedora Core 3. I'm a bit skeptical they can make it in time, but it would be really cool if they did. This will be the first X.org to include the new desktop composition extension from Keith Packards kdrive test.

Too Fast For Me -- Moved To Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to upgrade a few RedHat 9.0 internal development servers. I thought the Fedora release cycle was too rapid and Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was too expensive for internal development servers. I plan to use RHEL for the production machines. But for internal use I decided to use Debian instead for the following reasons:

* slow stable release cycle
* easier upgrades
* server management and configuration tools

One drawback of the slow release cycle of Debian is that software versions are somewhat old. If you need a newer version of a particular package Debian Backports can help with using newer software with stable Debian releases.

Re:Too Fast For Me -- Moved To Debian

[khelek]

Why not take a look at CentOS [caosity.org] It's good for those looking for the stability and longevity of RHEL but not the official support from Red Hat.

Re:Too Fast For Me -- Moved To Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I hate to say it but upgrading between stable releases in debian isnt that painless.

It happens so rarely people start to think it is. I used to think so to until I had to do last release.

There was a list of various things that had bugs and needed to be fixed by hand. The excuse of course was, but this is debian you only have to do this once in a while, no biggy. Well, maybe so but it certainly blows up the myth that debian upgrades are painless. When was the last time you did one between stable releases? Have you forgotten all the stuff that was screwed up? It's impossible to avoid since with 2 yeras or more between releases the software changes so damn drastically its impossible not to break something.

I mean debian isn't bad but I feel I have to be honest and say the upgrade really isn't "painless". It may not be torture but there is some pain there for sure.

Re:SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!

[brettlbecker]

/feeding the troll, but this same kind of thought is appearing too regularly when discussing Fedora

Dude, chill.

As has been mentioned many, many times, and is explicitly stated on fedora's homepage, fedora is not in any way an enterprise-ready distribution. It's not meant to be. It's meant to be a testing ground for RedHat Enterprise Linux.

This comes with all appropriate caveats. No one is forcing you to continually install the most bleeding edge software, and if you are doing so in anything other than a troubleshooting/hobbiest/dick-in-the-wind environment, you are asking for a lot of trouble.

Don't blame Red Hat for your obsession with having the absolute latest software installed all the time. /feed

B.

4 CDs is excessive

[nurb432]

While i totally agree that you are getting much more then just an OS and windowing system, it doesnt take 4 cds to put out an OS+desktop+sql+office suite+devlopment ide.. etc

If you doubt this, look at mepis, or FBSD....

While some choice is good, Fedora is piling on TOO many duplicated items.. Unfortunately this is a common problem with linux distros in general.. Just because its free and you can, doesnt mean you should... Bulk doesnt always mean better..

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[0rbit4l]

This is an important question and a serious problem - it needs to be addressed *now*. For the previous respondents: you can't just blow this problem off as a "beta" bug and blame the user for using test software - this bug was RELEASED in Fedora Core 2 (along with many others, including a buggy version of gcc that dies on large functions unless you throw it -O0).

Also, all the links describe how to recover from & avoid this bug by manually entering hard drive geometry information for import into the partition table - uh, isn't it obvious then that there's a bug in the code that generates the partition table? A person is not a troll nor are they spouting "FUD" when there is a genuine issue that needs to be resolved. This needs to be resolved so that your average Linux newbie (who presumably is half-following the manuals correctly) or even a CAREFUL Linux newbie doesn't hose their system and give up.

Finally, the take that I've seen on the mailing lists that this isn't really a bug is really quite pathetic - quit shifting the blame. I don't care if "it's really Microsoft's fault" or not. If you know there is a compatibility issue and you can work around it, then you should. Step back for a second - Did Redhat9 have this problem? No. Did previous distributions with different tool versions have this problem? No. The problem exists *now* - ergo, this is a bug, and quite clearly (by virtue of functionality of previous versions), it is possible to release software that does not exhibit this behavior. Fix it and quit arguing.

Re:Discussion Board

[luguvalium2]

The discussion lists you want are listed here.

Now that they have a test release, I would recommend the fedora-test list to track what is going on with FC3 or the fedora-devel list.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be cynical, because I really like FC2, but most of the major bugs that plague FC2 were found a long time before release and duly reported. The developers did nothing about them, releasing anyway. So don't really expect them to fix any bugs you find.

In other news...

[Chuck Bucket]

One of the Fedora developers sneezed! Quickly slashdot his blog now!

(j/k, it just seems like a new test release doesn't warrant a mention, perhaps on OSNews)

CB

i dont believe this

[mattyrobinson69]

im just finishing off a 4.1gb download of fedora core 2, on a 150k connection.

The real BUG problem

[megajini]

It's fairly hard for a "normal" User on the slim line between an fairly actual system and a productive system. Anyway, new stuff always attracts me a lot (another load of hours lost :-)...

But the problem on Linux and especially with distributions a la Fedora is interoperability. Every version demands it's own RPM archive, there isn't just this thing like "xine-0.99xx.rpm" and GO. It's just like DLL Hell on Windows with the difference that it's more complicated to have different versions coexisting (M$ did some tweaks in that area); i know, it's cleaner but under M$ "IT JUST WORKS".

What really needs to get done is a wider adoption of sort of freedesktop.org "standards" like DBUS and a defined versioning System for all those *.so libraries on the system. Apple does some fairly cool tricks in that area with so called "frameworks" which exist as isolated directories and can contain multiple versions of a framework. Combined with late binding, it's just possible to trust a certain frozen API version.

I know it was already a huge step forward that most libraries now feature those xxx-config scripts so that the "user" doesn't have to supply all those directories and stuff for easier building. But let's get serious on that: A "real" user doesn't compile his stuff. And without tackling that matter we won't get serious (and working) package dependencies. And till that doesn't work every distribution is in fact a big bloated testing team trying to figure out the dependencies and building propietary packages that only work with this specific version of the distrib...

BTW I think that's part of the reason why gentoo is so successful...

What's Up With This?

[wbav]

I mean it's on the development schedule that test1 would be released today. This release shouldn't be a suprise for those complaining about installing this new one so soon.

As you can see, the core 3 will be done about October for those using core 2.

Fear not bugs w/ easy fixes!

[like.narly]

Don't let that stupid (KERNEL - not FC) bug scare you. The solution link has been posted. Here's the summary in a few easy steps:

1)Find the drive geometry of your disk (see below).

2)Boot the machine on the install CD.

3)Invoke the installer by typing: linux hda=c,h,s where c,h,s is the number of cylinders, heads and sectors of the disk, respectively.

To find your drive geometry:

1)Boot into linux w/ root (a liveCD is ok).

2)Type: fdisk -l /dev/hda

3)Write down the number of cylinders, heads and sectors. Now just complete the steps above.

Hope this helps...

Re:MYSQL 4

[Donny Smith]

Strange reasoning.
It's easier to install mySQL 4 on Fedora than reinstall OS.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[verbatim_verbose]

Not every distro with a 2.6 kernel has this problem. I dual boot with gentoo and have installed every 2.6 kernel version, and it's never had trouble like this.

Egad!

[pr0vidence]

Slow DOWN guys!
You just released FC2 a few months ago. To be honest, it was lackluster. Bugs and problems are rampant. Really guys, fix up FC2, release FC2.1,2.2,etc first. Then move on to FC3. You guys cannot stay bleeding edge, and noone is expecting you to. That kind of thing is better left to the likes of Gentoo. You just worry about staying a version or two behind bleeding edge, and release a really solid OS that people can move into from Windows and have realatively few problems. Remember, the less problematic a first timer's (n00b, whatever) experience is with Linux, the more likely they will be to sticking around and finding out what this "open source" thing is really all about.

Re:Egad!

[bankman]

Slow DOWN guys! You just released FC2 a few months ago. To be honest, it was lackluster. Bugs and problems are rampant. Really guys, fix up FC2, release FC2.1,2.2,etc first. Then move on to FC3.

That's the main problem I have with Fedora.

You guys cannot stay bleeding edge, and noone is expecting you to. [...] Remember, the less problematic a first timer's (n00b, whatever) experience is with Linux, the more likely they will be to sticking around and finding out what this "open source" thing is really all about.

Fedora is advertised as being a bleeding edge distro for techno junkies. I used to be one of them and nowadays find that Fedora just isn't for me anymore. SuSE 9.1 is new enough, while maintaining a very usable system that just works out of the box more or less (for me Debian Stale is too old, Debian Unstable and Testing too unsupported and I really don't understand why one would want to compile a whole system like Gentoo).

I am getting the feeling that the Fedora (RedHat) developers are not interested in providing a decent distro for free (as in beer) to the masses, which is ok, but who is going to do the testing if no one can actually use Fedora Core in a semi-productive environment?

Please, don't misinterpret this as an attempted flame (I still can't get to grips with YaST, but have to say that I dislike the FC/RH config-tools almost as much). I used to love RH6.1-7.3 (apart from the x.0 versions and the braindead idea of supplying different gcc versions with one distro, but I think most agree with me here).

Guys, what was wrong with the old RedHat release cycle? Rawhide installs were often more stable than FC2.

Aaah well, maybe I have just become one of those "Back-In-The -Good-Old-Days"-kinda guys....

Re:Egad!

[Plug]

There are two ways of fixing bugs:

• Finding the exact code fixes for bugs and applying those fixes back to the old packages, and then worrying about maintaining that 'backported' package (what Debian does with security updates, and nothing else
• Pushing out a new package, which has the problem fixed, and more features, and is "better".

While we all know it's not necessarily the case, surely software should tend towards having no bugs (it works with TeX!), and programmers should tend towards being better. This means distros like Fedora are right; they give us the new version of the software, which fixes the bugs in the old one. We all do it with kernels, don't we?

I'd like to try it....

[CoolVibe]

But they'd have to fix the mp3 support... I know, it's easily fixable, but it's so terribly _annoying_

Re:I'd like to try it....

[kidgenius]

They'll fix mp3 support when the MP3 codec is free software. There is an RPM out there that adds MP3 support back into XMMS. Hell, it's at XMMS' site, go figure.

Re:Time Travel

[Gudlyf]

Actually 2.6 is what's included. 2.8 is planned for final release.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Mold]

It's not a universal bug. I've got four FC2 systems up right now, and none of them were effected.

I don't know a whole lot about it (since it didn't effect me, it mostly just passed by me), but just because your gentoo system wasn't effected, doesn't mean someone elses wasn't.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Cyberdork]

Funny how I installed SuSE 9.1 to dual boot with WinXP without any hitch whatsoever (except not being able to remember my passwords as I don't boot into it too often :P)

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[pseudochaotic]

So maybe, just maybe, he was asking if Fedora's devs have fixed it in this release? After all, looking at the GP, it could just as easily have been meant for linux distros in general.

Good Fedora release?

[anakog]

I for one welcome our new Fedora 3 overlords.

Seriously, though, I think that Fedora 3 stands a chance of being reasonably good for the "average Linux user." By that, I mostly mean going back to the pre-Fedora levels of troubleshooting while improving on the user-friendliness.

I just had a painful weekend trying to upgrade my machines at home. I managed to install FC2 on my desktop without a glitch but the first thing I did (and anyone else would do) after booting up --- trying to update the system --- failed because of two bugs (one of which is in rpm and is supposedly fixed but a new package is not released yet).

My server refused to take any of the newer stuff from Red Hat. It is an VIA mini-ITX box running RH9. I was hoping to update to FC2 but due to a bug in the 2.6.6 and earlier kernels which affects the C3 CPU, the installer can not even start. (Heh! I just found out that there is decent workaround posted for this one. Who says that posting to Slashdot does not pay out?)

I also tried to install RHEL Academic Edition (which looked like closely derived from RH9) only to discover that it does not support this particular machine (too bad --- I was going to gladly pay the $50 for updates).

From the news in the past couple of months, it looks like most of the latest offerings (not only by Redhat) have had too many issues to be considered decent. It looks like the reason for that is that most problems are bugs in the kernel (firewire, VIA C3 support) or are related to the kernel (Windows dual-boot issue).

With the exception of firewire support, however (which I don't know if it has been fixed in 2.6.7), the issues that concern me have been resolved. Also the publicity around some of the issues gives me hope that the Fedora folks will be a little more careful with the next release. This makes me think that Fedora 3 may finally live up to the expectations.

Fedora Can Go As Fast As They Want IIF

[EXTomar]

The Fedora Crew can go as fast and agressive as they want if and only if they provide smooth upgrade paths by yum/up2date/"insert your favorite updating method here".

My FC2 install is only 1.5 months old. It took me that long to decide to upgrade since the old software was working great. When I did finally buckle down to do it I had to do a CD install. I would rather do a "yum upgrade-distribution" or something else entirely.

Between Debian's slowness of "it will be done when its done" and the neckbreaking speed of Fedora I keep hoping to find some sort of middle ground. I like software to be as progressive as anyone but upgrading is a major pain. If they solve that problem, then the world will beat a path to their door.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[verbatim_verbose]

I've yet to hear one person complain that it was, so I think it's quite likely that it just didn't happen on Gentoo. (I spend quite a lot of time reading the forums and bug database.)

Don't be so sure

[oliverthered]

well. I'm running Gentoo, not Redhat.. but I have a hell of a lot of hot and beta packages witout any critical or even anoying problems..(Unless I try to view SVG's in konquror!)
Linux on the desktop is a lot more stable thease days.

I'm a little worries about GCC 2.4, Gentoo hasn't moved to it yet because it's buggy, even though it could make a lot of gentooers compile times much shorter. (new parse, Precompiled headers).

Re:gcc3.4

[oracleofbargth]

If you check the package lists, you'll see:

gcc-3.4.1-2.i386.rpm

So... problem solved?

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[mikefe]

Did the gentoo installer run on a 2.6 kernel?

If not, then they avoided the problem that way, not by fixing it.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[nine-times]

I thought it had something to do with installing the boot-loader, and what kernel you were running at the time. So, basically, it's not even about what distro you're running. It's about the kernel your liveCD (that you installed from) was running.

If you had a machine where the disk geometry was right (meaning, if you installed Fedora it would cause Windows XP to stop booting), and you installed Gentoo using a liveCD from any distro using the 2.6 kernel, and you installed GRUB (was it GRUB or LILO or both? I don't know) using that live CD, then you'd have a problem. I'm not sure that's right, but that's what I've been given to understand.

So the reason problem has been really rare for Gentoo users is probably just that this would be a rare combination to run in to. On the other hand, Fedora installs from only one install CD, which has the 2.6 kernel, whereas you can install Gentoo from any liveCD, and so you could be using any number of kernels. Plus, Fedora users are a little more likely to install from scratch, which will overwrite the boot record. If you're a Gentoo user, you'd just use portage and recomile the kernel, and alter grub.conf. Anyone who reinstalls Gentoo from scratch because they want to update is an idiot (it takes too friggen long). Whiping your old install of Fedora Core1 and installing Core 2 isn't that insane. And even if you met all of those requirements, you'd still need to happen to have the bad disk geometry, which wasn't that common to begin with.

So, I guess I'm saying that I don't think Gentoo avoided this problem some inherent 'better'-ness. It just so happened that a number of factors made it an extremely rare bug to encounter.

Re:Will this break Windows XP installs too?

[Jesus_666]

Yes, but there are various types of brokenness, various... flavors. Your typical fresh XP installation has the "Who is the deranged half-monkey responsible for this so-called UI?!" flavor, while older ones mature and develop unique flavors like "Where the hell did the clipboard functionality go?" or "No free space on target drive? I have twenty goddamn gigabytes of free space on that drive!"

Windows users appreciate the unique flavors their operating system offers them... No, actually they hate every single one, but they do prefer them over "Grub has been loading for half an hour and I doubt it's ever going to finish."