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Fedora 14 Released and Reviewed — Advanced, and Not For Wimps
Several readers have sent word that Fedora 14, codenamed Laughlin, has been released. A brief listing of the major changes has been posted, and the download is available at the Fedora project's site. Reader jfruhlinger points out a quick review of the new version, saying, "Remember the days when being a Linux user was like being part of a select priesthood — arcane knowledge needed, but great rewards? Steven Vaughan-Nichols has tested out Fedora 14, and that was how it went. No Ubuntu-style handholding, but some powerful new features."
Remember the days when being a Linux user was like being part of a select priesthood ...
Oh, it still is like that in some respects.
My work here is dung.
I've always used KDE with RedHat/Fedora. He needs more friends that run Fedora.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Reading the comments to that blog shows he reviewed a Beta, not the release. Every single bug he said he ran into had been fixed before the release.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"Remember the days when being a Linux user was like being part of a select priesthood"
Yeah, i do, and that's why linux is having a hard time converting people because most of the community is desperately trying to keep it that way. And before you call me a windows fanboy, I run it all, win7, mac, several flavors of linux.
Handholding and bleeding-edge are mutually exclusive? Just wait until someone creates the Linux distro that stomps on your face at boot and calls you a moron. Imagine how bleeding edge that would be!
ldap.conf/krb5.conf,nscd - sssd.conf - nslcd.conf
I wish they would just stick with an authentication provider.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
A review by the baboon who is Steven Vaughan-Nichols, also going by the name of "Cyber Cynic", is most probably not worth your time. The guy's clueless, much like the incompetent bunch of would-be experts (some writers excluded) over at the new LF-operated linux.com.
He reviewed the Beta version of F14!!! for crying out loud!!! Really thought that Slashdot was more responsible than this.
Really? Today? US Election Day.
What secrets are we going to find in the code that we should have known about sooner? It looks like this is just another thing the politicians were trying to hold back so we didn't know about their shenanigans until it was too late.
he reviewed the Beta and all the problems he listed are fixed. Read the comments at the end of TFA.
not the final release of Fedora 14. Fedora is still an excellent KDE distro, despite the fact that RedHat is a strong Gnome supporter.
--
Regards
The new fedoraproject.org site uses 4 icons (freedom, friends, features, first) in the same colors as the Windows logo that can be pieced together like the Windows icon. Kind of odd.
"Remember the days when being a Linux user was like being part of a select priesthood — arcane knowledge needed, but great rewards? Steven Vaughan-Nichols has tested out Fedora 14, and that was how it went. No Ubuntu-style handholding, but some powerful new features."
Thankfully, I missed those days (in general) until I started playing with LXDE & E17. In fact, the main reason I use a ubuntu derivative now over Fedora is that it worked with a minimum of fuss. As a newbie, I was HAPPY for the handholding.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
AKA not polished, not ready for prime time, and definitely not for your grandma (unless she is a script-granny).
Sure, I remember those days. Now that I use Linux for real work, with live production servers, and not just screwing around in my bedroom I don't have time for that nonsense. I greatly prefer the more common state of things where the mostly automated configuration is probably pretty close to what I need, but I still have the option to make use of that arcane knowledge to tweak things if I need/want to.
Don't get me wrong, that kind of distro still has its place in the world, but it shouldn't be the standard way of things.
Yeah, I read that line and thought at first "well, _I_ use Fedora with KDE". After reflecting for a bit, I realized that in the past KDE users (I got the KDE habit from Slackware) mostly went for a SUSE (also originally Slack-based) install. I always get the Fedora KDE install, but it's never seeded as well as the Fedora proper torrent.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
When I screw around in my bedroom, I don't need Linux to perform. See, that is your problem. I bet you still belong to the Brotherhood of Linux Virgins.
Half the article describes his test laptop and the theme he used. Then he didn't get USB3 to work, and suggested you overwrite your modules file (hint: use 2 > characters, not one). Then he complained about the CD burning program. Who burns CDs anymore?
Nothing about SELinux, nothing about filesystems, nothing about updated packages like SSH, Postfix, Bind, or anything.
a better article summary: "Beta Fedora makes a weak desktop, and I didn't bother to try any of the cool features of Linux"
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
it was archaic and priestly and weeeee liked it that way!
now if you'll excuse me i cant wait to download the latest fedora, install the minimal package set, and curl the rest of the
comments in this article for later fist-shaking critique.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Fedora uses the most up-to-date free software available. But even this is not enough. I have new laptop HP Touchsmart TM2 and just tried Fedora 14. The impression was bad, compared to my old HP Pavilion dv4000. Hybrid graphics (intel/ati) doesn't work at all (only external display works), with two fingers synaptic touchpad goes mad, broadcom 4312 wireless doesn't work (this I already solved). I have linux experience since Redhat 1 and probably solve other issues quite soon. I think, beginner will be in quite helpless situation. For example, latest OpenSuse worked out-of-the-box with radeon and 3D enabled (external display wasn't necessary), the only issue was with synaptic. More than a year old slax had no the touchpad problem.
Can we get over the quality of the review and celebrate the release of Fedora 14, already? I've been running it since the beta release, and I'm very happy with it. Fedora 14 is another great release by a group of people who are dedicated to Free Software!
From TFA:
This 2008-vintage notebook is powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
My server is powered by a Athlon64 3400+ you insensitive clod!
Steven Vaughn-Nichols did his review based on an install in VirtualBox. This is not very useful as most desktop distros need some tweaking before they run well in a virtual environment. I am running Fedora 13 and Ubuntu 10.04 and they both required work to get them working well in VirtualBox. It is also not clear whether he tested the Beta or the Final RC1 release. Of course, then naming scheme is incredibly difficult to follow, so I am not surprised he may have gotten that wrong.
Remember the days when being a Linux user was like being part of a select priesthood — arcane knowledge needed, but great rewards?
Arcane knowledge aint for priests but for mages, just sayin...
From TFA:
This 2008-vintage notebook is powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
My server is powered by a Athlon64 3400+ you insensitive clod!
"2008-Vintage" just means it was made in 2008.
Alternative definitions are fun!
Installed and runs fine on virtualbox for me....
The prototype is what you sell to the first few suckers^Wcustomers to get them hooked^Wexcited, and then the beta is generally the first service pack. See, the first service pack is essentially the second release -- hence "beta" for "second".
Or something. That certainly seems to be the MO for the vendors we deal with for much of our internal processing software here. :-P
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Google has, thankfully, helped us understand that "beta" means "something that is released for public consumption for many years, and never actually reaches a 'release candidate' phase, much less an actual release."
But but...we get it for free!!! Damn right we better, half the time when I'm using Chrome to start a google docs document, the damn browser tells me I'm in an infinite loop and that the site sucks balls. Good thing they don't charge for google apps...oh, wait...
SJVN is proof that if you just keep banging away on the keyboard enough people will eventually listen to you that you'll be able to turn it into a job.
Yeah, that was annoying.
In the latest Ubuntus (10.04 Lucid at least, maybe 9.10 Karmic, too), you can re-enable CtrlAltBackspace by going to:
System: Prefereces: Keyboard: Layouts: Options.
Then in the 8th item (Key sequence to kill the X server), check the checkbox for "Control + Alt + Backspace").
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
...by Pulseaudio. I need to test Fedora 14 to find out if this has been fixed yet (it was still there in a beta from a month ago but that doesn't mean it hasn't been fixed). A workaround (which worked for me on F13) was to set --resample-method=ffmpeg (or any other cheaper mixing). Still, a very frustrating issue if this is what you ran into...
Ubuntu is more aimed at polished experience for the end user in terms of QA prior to the release. Fedora developers however rely on early user reports after the release.
And we know it's a testbed for RedHat commercial releases - that doesn't make it bad though: everything is bleeding edge so it's expected to have regressions,
and they seem to patch it up after few weeks in the open (since RH employs many relevant OSS developers that want some testing), so in the end it turns out to be more advanced than concurrent version Ubuntu (which usually relies on slightly older versions of software).
And I like the model - allows new stuff to be tested and _integrated_ into the ecosystem, instead of staying out of the testing cycle for too long (out of relevant distributions). IMHO Fedora accelerated adoption of some relevant new stuff (PulseAudio, kernel modesetting...).
I'm looking over the pros and cons listed in the article. And it strikes me that if this had been a beta of a windows version, it would have been called a scandal, a bugridden failure and a very good argument for switching over to Linux.
Why on earth is Red Hat giving a major feature of their new release the name SPICE, when that name is already taken by the most important piece of software for electrical engineers?
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