Fedora 9 a Bit Behind the Curve On Installation

bsk_cw writes "Today, many Linux users are getting blasé about the ease with which they can install Linux. Possibly, they've been spoiled by distributions such as Ubuntu, which is actually easier to install than Windows. Unfortunately, Fedora 9, the latest version of this community edition of Red Hat, was a bit too much of a blast from the past for Computerworld's James Turner." (Except for bits about the installation, the review is actually quite positive.)

Comments

Shoot!

[XanC]

Imagine what Fedora 9 would have done to UbuntuDupe's hard drive!!

Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[croddy]

"actually easier to install than Windows" (!!)

I'm not sure what rock he's been living under, but Linux has been a lot easier to install than windows for ages. Ubiquity, Anaconda, Debian-Installer... sure, the old Debian boot-floppies installer was kind of a pain, but when you want to get your OS installed quickly and easily you don't exactly reach for silvers from Microsoft.

Lately I got a bit tired of Wine's partial support for Steam so I've been trying to get some kind of Windows installed on my system to run some games. It's been a comic horror show of 0000007B this, 80070241 that, swapping out different optical drives and dumbing down BIOS settings to try to get either the XP or Vista installer to not bluescreen or otherwise give up on life trying to copy data from the installation media.

Thankfully, when I need a sane, easy OS to regroup and try to find out what the cryptic hex codes barfed out by Microsoft's fragile-as-glass, no-system-logs-provided installers, I only have to reach for one of my Linux discs to get things up straight away.

And let's face it... if your goal is to quickly get a quality browser, IM client, office suite, and some basic development tools installed, you're going to have an easier time popping in an Ubuntu disc to get there even if Windows is preinstalled on the box!

Re:Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[satoshi1]

I have never had Windows fail to install for any reason.. The only problem I have ever had with Windows is when I install Linux first and then Windows wipes out GRUB. Then I gotta find a GRUB ISO and figure out the GRUB commands to restore the bootloader (floppies? what are those? while I have a floppy drive still, I have a hell of a time finding disks, even at a tech school). So now I always install Windows first so it's all happy and in place and then let Linux have its way. Windows doesn't even have a clue. It's really best this way.

Re:Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[pembo13]

Installing Windows on most IDE/SATA interfaces cards requires a floppy. Grub does not require a floppy to reinstall, at least not for Fedora.

Re:Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[L0rdJedi]

So your big complaint is that a 7 year old OS (SP2 was released in 2004) doesn't install on a device that was released 3 years after it was? And of course, that hardware wasn't widely available until probably a year or two later.

Have you tried installing Red Hat 5 on anything modern recently with much success?

Yes, it's so horrible that an OS from 2001, when floppies were still pretty common, needs a floppy to install a driver that didn't even exist at the time.

Oops, I forgot, this is Slashdot. We're suppose to complain whether it makes sense or not.

Re:Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[Shikaku]

Super Grub Disk is a nice way to semi-automatically reinstall GRUB.

It also teaches you the commands, and tells you what it's doing. Very cool little ISO file.

Re:Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[kryptkpr]

I have never had Windows fail to install for any reason..

While the plural of anecdote is not data, I think I know what the GP is talking about and have experienced it myself.

There are some known AHCI problems with a common ATI southbridge chipset which made installing Vista impossible unless you first disable AHCI (I assume this is what the GP meant by having to dumb-down BIOS settings).

So, lets try XP I thought. Too bad it has no drivers for the sata controller at all, and I have no floppy drive. I ended up having to inject the controller drivers into the XP CD and re-burn it. The XP installer then saw my disk in IDE mode, but not AHCI mode..

I gave up and left the controller in IDE mode.

For reference, Ubuntu 7.10 had no trouble on the same machine.

Re:Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[swillden]

So your big complaint is that a 7 year old OS (SP2 was released in 2004) doesn't install on a device that was released 3 years after it was? And of course, that hardware wasn't widely available until probably a year or two later.

Damned right. If these idiots would just download a more recent release of Windows XP, with all of the updated drivers in place, they'd have no trouble at all.

Re:Of course it's easier to instal than Windows!

[ratboy666]

And your experience is an anecdote. Here's mine.

I am a Solaris/Linux user. Around two years ago, I decided to build a PVR (personal video recorder). I had heard good things about Windows XP, and the mainboard I had chosen had a note in it stating that "USB 2.0 function can only be obtained with Windows XP". And all the hardware (video input devices, video display) came with drivers for Windows XP. So I bought a copy of Windows XP (retail). Assembled the system, and attempted to load Windows XP.

After loading from the DVD drive, XP booted. However, the DVD did not show up. I reinstalled. Same thing. I assumed that the DVD was defective, and replaced it. Same thing. Tried a CD. Same thing. Turns out I need a driver from the CD supplied with the mainboard in order to use the CD/DVD. How do I get it there? XP also doesn't recognize the network adapter (same deal, I need a driver). The drivers are too large to put on a floppy.

I gave up on trying to use XP for this application, and installed Linux. At least it recognized the DVD and network "out of the box" (Fedora). I then put on MythTV (I had wanted to try a Windows PVR program, but, hey... Windows didn't work).

I tried XP on another box. It also didn't work. Turns out to need a "hard disc driver". In fact, the only thing that XP works on (for me) is a VMware session. Hell, even Mac OS works there. And that's where that copy is running today (along with MS Office and some other Microsoft stuff -- development tools, and a laser printer driver).

The only thing I conclude is that you must be a Windows XP expert. Or, that Windows XP came pre-installed. I understand that VISTA supports additional (modern) devices, but I am not going to pay hundreds more to find out it doesn't.

Swap issues

[kernowyon]

I actually had a look at the link! One of the issues was -

Finally hit ctrl-alt-return to restart the window manager and found it had hung trying to mount swap off the fstab. For some reason, the installer didn't like trying to reuse the swap partition left over from the previous install, and it made something go pear-shaped during the initial boot.
This is something which seems to plague some Linux installs - if I recall correctly, Vector Linux (or was it Puppy?) has a similar problem with re-using swap partitions which are also used by other installed distros.
The fact that the author managed to get things going by telling the installer to repartition the drive seems to confirm this. It is a long time since I tested Fedora, so I have no idea if this problem is common with that distro.Luckily, most users will probably not have multiple distros installed and this should not prove an issue to them.
Kudos to the author for reporting the issue as a bug though - that may help to get this sorted for the next release.

Reading the frackin article.....

[phoenixwade]

"(Except for bits about the installation, the review is actually quite positive.)"

I must have read a different article (whupps, sorry, it's slashdot, I know I'm not supposed to RTFA, backsliding again, I suppose)

the first page was complaints about the installer, a paragraph or two that's positive about the performance, and then a complaint that you have to buy the enterprise edition for support, because you can't buy support for Fedora...

Didn't do much for me as a review of the new Fedora, and it certainly didn't seem like the rest was "Positive".

Re:I guess he never installed Slackware 3....

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the old Gentoo installer?

You know, a webpage full of instructions.