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Fedora 18 Installer: Counterintuitive and Confusing?
An anonymous reader writes "Igor Ljubuncic, former physicist and current IT Systems Programmer and blogger, reviews Fedora 18 with its new installer. In his role as alter ego Dedoimedo, the self proclaimed 'king of everything', Igor's Linux distro and DE reviews are often wry and biting and this review is no exception: 'You enter a world of smartphone-like diarrhea that undermines everything and anything that is sane and safe. In all my life testing Linux and other operating systems, I have never ever seen an installer that is so counter-intuitive, dangerous and useless, all at the same time.'"
The non-linear installer interface does look like kind of confusing, at least from the screenshots posted.
I am also extremely disappointed in this Fedora release. The installer is confusing and exhibits seemingly random behavior. I was so overjoyed I managed to get it to install it the way I wanted just once on a VM that I went and tried to install in a number of other places. No go.
And after you install, a lot of things are kind of buggy and seemingly incomplete.
Of course, since the installer didn't really work at all until you got to release candidate 4 or so, I can't really expect any other part of the system to have been decently tested.
This is a horrible release and should be skipped. If Fedora continues to go in this direction, I will have to abandon it, despite the fact that the only other decent alternative is Ubuntu, and I despise it. I've been an RH/Fedora user since 1999 or so.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I thought wasting your time configuring useless shit was a key element of the Linux experience?
Fedora developers don't give a flying fuck what this guy thinks.
I guess Dedoimedo's page rank just shot through the roof.
Why does the review have more about the reviewer than the software being reviewed?
Do all the cool touch screen wicked BITCHUN shit but do it for the wrong system in the wrong way with the wrong tools and make them happy Magic Kingdom goers GAG on it.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
People still use Fedora?
worked great for me.(It upgraded from Fedora 17 to 18)
I'm a geek, I'm a *contributor* to the anaconda installer suite at various times, and even I think this nonsensical, out-of-order, and improperly labeled attempt to object orient what is actually a straightforward flowchart simply blows goats.
How is Debian non intuitive? You just go through the flow and answer the questions. Even my most junior IT employees don't have trouble with it. With the new Fedora, it's a maze of twisty passages, all alike. There is no flow. There is no wizard. There's just a bunch of nonlinear roundabouts in a hub and spoke model. It's less like the Debian method of driving from point A to point B. It's more like the Roman model where all roads lead to Rome, and you have to return to Rome to get to anywhere else. That's why technical people hated the confused roundabout, illogical mess that the Fedora installer has become.
Quoth the Fedora wiki,
So, it's like the Debian installer, only less powerful and more confusing!
/me runs away
A beta of Fedora 18's installer completely wiped my hard drive. I told it to partition the drive. It partitioned it, installed Linux fine, and ALSO formatted every NTFS partition to a fresh EXT4. Even for a beta, this is a sign there's something seriously wrong. After using SuSE for years, then Ubuntu for years, then a very brief love affair with Fedora 17 KDE (mainly, delta RPM updates), I returned to OpenSuSE after 10 years away and probably will never switch away again. As far as integrated admin tools and the installer, OpenSuSE's have always been exceptional. Also, my reason for switching from DEB to RPM-based distro was it seems Debian's core package management tools haven't seemed to evolve much in years while RPM appears to have improved quite a bit. The delta-compressed updates is a huge deal for me, but also the general speed of the tools. OpenSuSE's zypper tool also gives a bit of freedom in installing 'unmatched' later versions of libs but if things go wrong, it's easy to trace and downgrade. Also, the package management tools integrate with btrfs snapshots and there's a powerful tool called 'snapper' which gives you quick access to rollback or version diffs.
It's not that debian is getting harder (it used to be the easy one!) it's that people are getting dumber.
We know what that means.
The fact is Fedora is even easier than Debian so WTF is this guy talking about when he says saying a disk is full is waaay too advanced. Yes, for my Mom she doesn't know what that means and is too advanced for joe six pack. But for the geek crowd it makes sense.
I have not run Fedora 18 yet but I plan to this weekend. The screenshots look similiar to earlier versions so I assume it is just that. I do not see the big deal with anaconda. It talks about disk space, some packages online, then reboots but goes into another setup after a reboot (just like Windows 7) where it asks for a user account. Then done.
http://saveie6.com/
new Lenovo desktop, keps complailing about 'boot partition' eve thou i clearly spare a 500mb /boot partition.
i gave up finally.
I'm what I would consider a 'normal' Linux user, if that exists. I'm comfortable in Linux and with the terminal. I tend to freak out during partitioning anyway, because most of my systems are dual-boot with ntfs and ext partitions. I do not like the new partition creator. FWIW, after the install I went back to beefy miracle, but for issues more related to legacy hardware than anything else.
You know what? If Igor thinks can do it better, then he should fork that thing and roll his own distro.
Or, instead of forking, contribute a patch or two to improve things.
I thought I could improve RAID in the Linux kernel, so I did. Patch accepted, so now when I download a new version of Linux, it includes my fix and thousand of improvements others have made. I thought I could improve Apache, so I did. Patch accepted. I thought I could improve Moodle in a half a dozen ways. Half a dozen patches accepted. I thought I could improve Linux:LVM. I'm now the maintainer.
Forking is the last resort, when no reasonable patches are accepted. If you don't like the way something works in OSS, contribute a fix.
For those of us fed up where with where distros are going these days, it's looking to me like Linux Mint is probably the place I'm going to end up. I want a system I can understand, manipulate and use. Crap like this installer, the new systemd stuff, I just don't need or want. Sadly it looks like Microsoft has little to fear as we're doing a good job of taking ourselves out of the game and market without them having to do much.
Given that the installer is so dangerous, I cannot recommend F18 to any non-expert. Who knows what it will do to your existing windows or linux installs. Maybe F18 should be considered VM only?
I don't understand what's happening with Linux these days. Buggy installers, crappy UIs in an attempt to change the "GUI paradigm" for whatever reason, unstable software (particularly compared to that in, say, Windows 7), kernel/power regressions, etc. I was interested in Linux because it was (at some point in time) more robust and stable than Windows, that it was technically superior. Now I'm not so sure anymore.
NB. I'm talking about desktop use; I'm sure Linux is superior in many ways for servers and embedded devices - the desktop experience as a whole still seems rather immature still unfortunately.
Kubuntu... (or debian+KDE)
KDE is the only sane feature rich DE, and ubuntu/debian is the best base distro with the widest support.
So.... kubuntu ftw.
I haven't used RH in over a decade--but do remember years ago they had a decent installer that would even pull up a tetris game to occupy you while it copied files. Sad to hear it's gone downhill. (Or am I recalling Caldera's installer?)
rebooting a live distro and hoping it fixes the problems is what i call really stupid.
Granted I was using it when it was in beta, but I didn't find the installer so bad, in fact I thought the UI was pretty good. I appreciated that I was able to do things a bit less linearly than with Anaconda. The only issue I had was with partitioning. I was trying to do some non-standard things there and it was more difficult that with previous versions. As I said, I was using the beta version, so it may be a bit different now, but that is my two cents.
If you're on a laptop using some ati chipsets, beware of F18. The video hardware won't resume after a suspend so you have to hard reboot it when resuming to get control back. I can't believe they last that bug go thorugh.
And don't get me started on the stupidity of /tmp as tmpfs...
Look,
I just finished testing my fully automated installation of Fedora 18 with PXE and kickstart. Was it a pain to get it to work, and are there installer bugs, yes, and yes. I worked on getting a functional network built system, because Fedora 18 provides the best GNOME 3 experience to date. They need to work on the installer, but this was the first cut. Feedback will make it better, and it was a big deal to prolong the release to get a barely functional new anaconda. I Installed the released version manually 4 times before automating the whole process. I did it because it is better, YMMV.
A while ago, everyone tried to copy Apple's "intuitive" interface. The idea was, mostly, to make it confusing for geeks so it has to be intuitive for non-geeks, or at least they have to feel on equal footing, at least it seems that way from the usual results.
Now the source for ideas is Windows 8, the "everything must look like it's for a tablet" experience?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It doesn't look like FUD exactly. That bit about two HD icons with identical model names side by side in no particular order isn't a geek vs. non-geek issue, it's a bad UI decision.
No auto login isn't geek vs. non-geek either, nor is having to root around on the fs to find the installer.
Things like that are just broken for geeks and non-geeks alike. It's a big step backwards from the old installer.
I installed Fedora 18 (KDE Spin, of course) on Friday and "counterintuitive and confusing" was a pretty good description. And the partitioning- yeesh, what a mess- please just give me the option for something nice like gparted. I was very disappointed. 17 was much better. Both were still better than Ubuntu. Neither is as good as Mandriva/Mageia.
There has to be a balance between streamlining vs. asking questions vs. expert mode. There is little balance in Fedora 18. I have a feeling it will be revised quite a bit for 19 (at least I hope it will).
So basically what you're saying is that in order to have any right to complain about open source software you have to have knowledge, experience, and skill in programming? Because when you say "Why don't you submit a patch?", that's what you're implying.
Newsflash: Not every user of FOSS software knows how to program. Nor should they need to know. Unless you want it to turn into some sort of exclusive little club, in which case the worldwide share of Linux would drop by a good 99%.
Users aren't complaining because they want to be whiny or difficult. They're complaining because they see a flaw. If you want your software to be widely accepted, listen. If your software is just coding for self satisfaction, and you don't care about user adoption, then don't listen.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Even when both user and dev are programmers of the same skill level there's a huge gulf in knowledge. A 5 hour patch for the user might be a 5 minute job for a dev since they've already learned the code. So I generally use my dev skills to give a really good description of the problem and test cases. Usually the only times I write a patch are when it's a feature specifically for me, or I've gone into so much detail finding the bug I already found the fix. I consider that to be a good contribution to the community and on projects I've managed in the past I really appreciated users who gave good bug reports.
Tone is also a big factor of course, I find general nagging to be more acceptable for a large project where the individual devs have less personal stake in the project (and are more likely to be paid). Ragging on a one person hobby project is just kinda pointless.
I stole this Sig
As someone who's never contributed to Anaconda, I found it quite easy and intuitive. It only too me a few minutes to step through everything including custom partitioning. I didn't lose any data or other operating system installs. It's not nearly as hard or difficult as everyone is making it out to be. It really isn't.
Nothing is a complete gift. Recently I tried to install Linux on my laptop, having been told how easy that would be and how much better it would be. I spent hours trying to get the thing to install, and hours more after people urged me to try a different distro. All in all I think I spent a complete workday just installing with zero result.
If you put something out there, it includes an unstated promise, namely that it will work and be useful enough to invest the time in.
Also, people's complaints aren't weakened if they don't contribute. The strength of a complaint derives only from the facts brought to the table; who made the complaint is irrelevant and your post is an example of the logical fallacy of poisoning the well.
Agreed. Debian got it right. Installation is a mostly linear process. There may be some steps that can be skipped in some cases, but the order will not really change. You never install the base system before partitioning the drive, etc. I am an expert and I very rarely have any need or desire to go out of order with a Debian installation.
I appreciate that Fedora wants to accommodate those rare cases, but doing away with all concept of a linear order isn't the way to do it. I can't imagine what they're thinking with Fedora.
I thought the installer (while not really much of an improvement) was pretty good. It installed the OS properly and even made creating a LUKS/LVM setup easy. Maybe I just got lucky but all in all it seems like a solid step in the right direction.
Dare I say this is why people use Windows and not Nix? I'm sure you could recompile the mess to your liking though... Just get g'ma to do that.
Why is providing feedback whining to you? I find it to be more helpful than random patches or other contributions.
Thing is, I don't want everyone and their brother submitting patches to a project I work on. I prefer the coding to be done by a core group of people I've vetted and know they are willing to maintain what they submit. I'd much rather get feedback to see if my ideas are headed in the right way my userbase wants it to be headed. Sure, I don't always go in that direction, but it's helpful to see what they want. And it way beats a poorly written patch submitted by someone who doesn't want to maintain it.
> So, it's like the Debian installer, only less powerful and more confusing!
Well, yeah, but it's a lot of new code for this release. I'm hoping in Erwin's Kitty they will have an advanced button that will help out. If nothing else, at least have a way to get more package granularity.
It looks like there's an option to disable SELinux, which I consider a screaming pile of excrement. Previously, installing SELinux couldn't be prevented and disabling it caused the boot process to fail. I'm delighted that there's now an option to turn it off, if that works.
Too bad I rely absolutely on one computer, and can't afford the risk involved in a botched install of F18.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I don't know what I was thinking to enlist in redhats beta program (AKA fedora) .. I never admitted to having a brain.
Starting from Fedora 16.
Put F18 disk in drive and boots new UI. My immediate thought was oh great more ultra modern zombie interface bs.
I was confused do I just click next and continue? Where are all the options/upgrade settings and all of the old raid/enterprise? Will it just be smart enough to work and upgrade my system?
What scares me the most is that I'm 95% sure it would have auto-installed itself had I clicked continue with NO prompting and no scary messages of any kind. I say this cause I later spun up a VM with F18 and when you click continue on the main screen if its not shadowed out thats it.
Then I give up and RTFM check wiki apparently you can't upgrade from anything earlier than 17.
Okie so previous attempts to use the yum repo approach always ended in disaster...burn DVD... upgrade 16->17 from DVD runs flawlessly as ususal.
I'm now running F17. Wiki says I need to install fedup to upgrade to F18... alright do that.
Reboot and the fedup fedora icon keeps blinking on screen as if it is doing something but nothing happens..ever.. I waited an hour and it was not even touching the disks... hit escape to check for any useful hints messages or errors...none...of course.
So much for fedup... fedup with fedup just way too obvious.
Next reboot to F17...hey I know I'll type yum update and ah try again..yea thats it... it downloads tons of patches and I reboot to an instant kernel panic.. apparently a regression..so I spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how to change grub to prefer the old kernel version that still works. The files I found had an annoying nack for being auto generated with comments pointing to stuff only relevant for previous versions of grub. In hindsight uninstalling the bad kernel package would have been a lot easier.
So next I try fedup again after clearing out its data and surprise the same problem.
So much for F18 I'll try again with F19 and hope for better luck.
If linux distro folk are looking something actually broken to improve here are a few ideas:
So once installed the UI's look really nice...lol love KDE's windows 7 gadgets knockoff down to the exact behavior and configuration icons.... but still linux fonts suck, low quality, poor selection, too big, too aliased.
Try replacing a failed disk in a raid1 intel matrix fakeraid setup with a drive of a different (larger) size... WTF.. honestly.. its f'in impossible. or mirroring an existing system without reinstalling. Also impossible. In windows it takes 20 seconds and a few clicks of a mouse.
Replace ping with a version that works with both address families like all of the other operating systems and all of the other network utilities.
Please keep at the least the basic x86 libraries by default on 64-bit systems so we can run the same commercial stuff without going thru unecessary hoops.
Presumably the bad installer has no impact when upgrading in place. Any field reports from those running preupgrade on F17?
Anybody want a peanut?
I don't think I buy that "analysis" (using the term loosely). I mean, ultimately, the point of the gift is to be of use to people. If your gift isn't useful to people, you need to know that -- so you need those complaints.
Which is to say: The complaints are a contribution, and in this case, one desperately needed.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
So in a sense Fedora is for IT pros but not unix hardcore elitists who know what a wifi chipset is or what it means when a disk is full.
WTF? Any "IT Pro" in my org who didn't know what those things were would not be working there long if I had anything to do with it.
Oh... I get it. You're trying to get us to believe that an "IT Pro" is a product manager or some other variety of tie-caddy. And that a "Unix elitist" is what most of us would think of as an "IT Pro".
Which to me demonstrates that you are probably an idiot.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
"Counterintuitive and Confusing" describes Linux to a T.
Fuck all you Linux neckbeards.
His whole review is on KDE. Now granted Fedora might of setup KDE wrong but their main suggested desktop is gnome. I really didn't see anything wrong with the installer. Still better then Windows.
You have to acknowledge some of his points. Showing two identical disk names without any further distinction is retarded, there's just no way around it.
Don't treat users like stupid sheep who'd be confused by /dev/sda or whatever it is. You take away all starting-points for them to even learn something. I didn't learn UNIX because everything was hidden away from me, I learned it because I _saw_ stuff and it made sense.
Dont hide details. Have them make sense.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
If my installer doesn't use code page 437 IBM glyphs and 16-bit EGA colors, then fuck it.
Couldn't get it to boot...unfortunately I'm one of those charlatans that made the fatal mistake of buying a computer with UEFI and no way to turn secure boot off (HP p6-2142), I can't get it to boot anything other than Windows 7, Ubuntu or Fedora. And I was hoping to use FreeBSD...
:-( Secure boot is a nightmare. On top of some UEFI bioses not having the option to disable it, another option is required to enable "legacy boot" mode; where "legacy" in this case means "anything other than Windows 8". Some bioses allow disabling Secure Boot, yet still don't have a "legacy boot" option. :-/
What I'm really dissappointed by is that some manufacturers (Lenovo, for one) don't seem to include anything about UEFI bios settings in their documentation for laptops they sell. I recently had to do an install on a Lenovo P500, and on this box getting into the UEFI bios requires pressing a separate tiny button on the side of the laptop while the laptop is off. See the text on Page 20 and the diagram on Page 5 of the following document (which doesn't ship with the laptop):
http://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles_pub/ideapad_z500p500_ug_v1.0_july_2012_english.pdf
Matthew Garrett has a signed "shim" for Grub which the other distributions which will let them boot even when the "secure boot" option is enabled; so OpenSuSE will have this solved soon. Hopefully Debian soon will as well.
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20522.html
NEXT year will totally be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Did a fresh F18 install on my laptop this past week.
I have to agree with a lot of the criticism of the new installer, and particularly the user interface for disk partitioning. I've been running Linux since the late 90s and I don't think I've ever been confused by a partition editor, from fdisk on up - until now.
I mean, the error message I got was "Not enough disk space to create a mountpoint". WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!? And this while trying to get the thing to recognize my existing /home partition.
It's like someone who has never partitioned a disk before created a really bad abstract model of the process and then based the whole user interface off of their grand concept. In the process of trying to make things easy they made it hard for anyone who knows what they are doing to be specific about what should be done. A liberal sprinkling of incorrectly-used disk partitioning terms makes for a real perfect storm of confusion.
Once I got things installed, I had no problems at all. I hope to never feel that "oh shit, I hope I haven't just blown my /home away" thrill ever again though.
I work for a medium-sized CGI house (~220 computers, about as many employees, and a reasonably specced render farm with about 300 physical x86 nodes in it running Alfred/PRMan and Maxwell).
We run Fedora on about 50 computers- basically all the systems that didn't need Windows (for 3DS Max) or RHEL (for Maya and SoftImage). Why don't we run RHEL on those computers too? Well, we like to occasionally give back to the Linux community. One of the ways we did this was by running a more bleeding edge operating system where applicable, fixing bugs and submitting patches- and failing that, filing bug reports.
When Fedora 18 hit everyone over here kind of looked at each other and said "Are they serious with that name?". Some of the less technical users amongst us found it slightly amusing, some of the higher-ups found it a bit perplexing and slightly perturbing, and one HR person made the comment "That sounds like something I'd call your mom". Nevertheless, everyone has agreed that it kind of crosses a immature/unprofessional line, even if it was intended in good humour.
Later on while I was attempting to install it in a virtual machine, things were so confusing that I landed up grabbing my handset and paging the rest of the Linux guys who maintain our systems alongside myself. All four of us huddled behind my monitor and we started poking the new installer a lot like a boy would poke a washed up jellyfish with a stick. We came to the consensus that: A) it's very easy to crash, B) it's easy to fuck things up in, C) it's full of nonsense, D) the UI design is absolutely horrendous (gradients? really? light-grey with nearly invisible white text on top of that?), and E) none of us had ever seen an OS installer quite as bad as this one.
We did eventually get it installed, but found no other obvious improvements in the operating system that warranted upgrading. Having suffered through the numerous "Beefy Miracle" jokes circulating the office, none of us were really apt on enabling a new round of dirty "Spherical Cow" humour. What really worried us though was that Fedora considers the new installer "production ready". Fedora used to be a fairly reliable project, but now that they're going off on the same kind of tangent that brought us Gnome 3 (which nobody is really very hot on, but they tolerate it) and Unity (which caused one employee to nearly smash his laptop- I installed Fedora 17 for him and oddly enough, he's now singing praises for Gnome 3)- we're already planning our migration away from it on those few computers that are currently running Fedora 17.
So what are we going to do moving forward?
Well, given the immaturity surrounding Fedora 18's name and the questionability of the installer, we'll probably be moving everything to RHEL and keeping the entire office as a split Windows | RHEL setup. It's a shame too, because we've enjoyed using Fedora from the first release (Fedora Core) up to Beefy Miracle (Fedora 17) and contributing to the project wherever possible. It's been a fairly stable OS and the "bleeding edge" aspect over RHEL has generally been worth it, but this time they've simply gone too far and in doing so have managed to severely shake our faith in the project. I have no idea what RedHat has planned for RHEL 7, but at least if they try to spring this kind of shit on us we have someone to scream at through our support contract and the response probably won't be "go fork yourself".
Everyone who likes Unix-like systems won't install any lennartware on his system. Everything I ever installed which was written by Lennart Poettering does not work. Beware... he also has his fingers in the Fedora distribution.
systemd causes extremely weird behavior of the hardware (simple things like the power switch do not work anymore, cannot shutdown the PC anymore, even after pressing the power switch for 5 seconds! wtf??).
The pulseaudio stuff never worked for me... consequently I install my whole system directly on alsa, because I need sound support and no choking applications. Sometimes you cannot even login, because some desktop environments want to play the start sound.
Avahi is pure shit... networking is even less confusing without it. Avoiding it means: less confusing system. And think about it: actually it comes from "zeroconf" which suggest that everything is easier.
xdg-system is simply annoying. I have never seen any software using such a weird kind of logic: try Gnome/KDE/... start facilities, not supported, then open file with $BROWSER (this isn't even a well-known environment variable), if $BROWSER is not set, use Firefox... wtf??!! When I don't have Firefox... this is bad and when I already open the URI in Firefox it is just worse! xdg is actually doing nothing that is useful.
Please Lennart... use brain when developing applications.
The times (plural) I've tried this installer in VMs or on Netbooks I've not been able to see the partition size box on the right of the screen so I had no way of having any form of custom partition sizing. Now given that the default is to split a disk in half for /home and half for / I think it's pretty reasonable that people might want to give 90% of their big fat disk to their data and a perfectly adequate remaining amount to the OS.
While suggesting alternatives, it's good to suggest members of the same 'family' of distros, since the user might have had reasons for picking one. If someone's trying out Fedora, then alternatives would be PCLinuxOS, Mageia, Mandriva, Blag or Scientific Linux. If one is trying out Ubuntu, one might want to go w/ Mint, Hybryde, Zorin, Trisquel or any of the others. If one was w/ Slackware, try out Vector, Slax, Salix or Slackel. If one was w/ Gentoo, try out Sabayon or Calculate Linux. If one was w/ Arch, try out Chakra, Frugalware or Manjaro. In short, suggest something that's more likely to preserve most of the attributes of a distro, while avoiding the rough edges.
Slashdot articles about Fedora don't get a lot of comments. I think the world has moved on, Fedora tries to explain itself as a nice "workstation distro" but what does that even mean?
Opensuse, Debian and Ubuntu both have different features that make them useful to different people. What does Fedora have?
I wonder how many active developers fedora has? Does the linux community give fedora undeserved attention because of its past glory? How much resources does redhat put into it? They've (rightly) said that they think "Desktop Linux" is a dead cause. Is fedora just a testing ground for RHEL, officialy no, but is that true?
I thought it was o.k. except the partitioning part. I got pretty confused there - and all I wanted to do was to blow out the old drive and do a fresh install.
There was never an option to change the computer name - that was unfortunate. Had to google a bit to figure out how after the install was done.
Oh and the time zone thing. Networking is there - go ahead and get me closer to where I actually am. Poking at the little map to get the right city was annoying.
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?
Try it. The LiveCD based installer is really good. I've run it a number of times on different hardware and Virtual Machines and haven't had a problem yet. Also, the desktop doesn't suck like Gnome 3some or KDEsaster.
Ever since they've developed this bovine obsession (beefy miracle (right...), spherical cow), their release have sucked. Seriously, Fedora -- get some better names! Maybe you are uninspiring the community, huh?
Fedora 19 should be called Blackbird, or something -- enough of this bullcrap about cows.
I used Gentoo a while back with a low power VIA system that had a CPU that could seriously benefit from the right compiler flags (it was more than a 386 but less than some 586 systems), but it was a bit rough around the edges with a few configuration changes that seemed to be for no reason other than make it different from any other *nix. I'm using FreeBSD with the ports collection on a few systems now - it looks to me to be a superior implementation of what was intended with Gentoo, but they've had more time to do it so that's no criticism of Gentoo.
Fedora seems to have lost it's way with this release.
The installer wasn't great but alot of other changes changes are in the release that are really poorly thought out.
There is stuff changed that I just can't work out why on earth they would change it.
I would really like to see someone smush android-x86.org on top of a fedora like distribution and go from there.
For intel not to do this is imho basically insane. They are in big big trouble, I guess they haven't realised how big yet.
I just installed Peppermint, and it defaulted to black text on a black background during install. Somewhat challenging...
It doesn't look like FUD exactly. That bit about two HD icons with identical model names side by side in no particular order isn't a geek vs. non-geek issue, it's a bad UI decision.
No auto login isn't geek vs. non-geek either, nor is having to root around on the fs to find the installer.
Things like that are just broken for geeks and non-geeks alike. It's a big step backwards from the old installer.
Red Hat installers have been buggy mess since forever. Even back in the days of Red Hat 4 there were issues like nag screens popping up but your crappy 640x480 display was so much smaller than the RH developer's magnificent 1280x768 display that the OK button ended up off screen. Another one of my favorites was a RH installer where you ended up filling out a form but to fill it out you needed information form the previous screen which was no biggie except.... there was no back button.... **curses** restart install... reach for pen and paper....
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Did you make sure that your computer had power? Was it turned on?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
ITT: Basement dwellers can't figure out how to install linux; blame Red Hat devs.
But, Upgrade from F17 was trivial and easy. No bugs, no issues it just worked well. I recognize this won't be popular but sorry; this was my experience: no problems, no bugs.
It makes sense that they might want to avoid using "/dev/sda" type names, as that is meaningless to a non technical or non *nix person. And Linux assigns those somewhat arbitrarily anyway.
What the UI needs to show is at least the name of the adapter and which device the drive is on the adapter - and in that order. If you are installing an OS, you should at least be familiar enough with your hardware to know that much.
Open Source does not always mean Open *Development*. As soon as a Project get's commercial in any sense (be it as Fedora, where it's the unstable development for RHEL, or Mozilla with Millions in revenuestreams from ad's and endorsements), it's getting political. And the second it get's political, it's getting hard to fix "broken features" that are there to enforce any kind of revenuestream, try to "fix" https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435013, i dare you.
The Fedora 18 installer isn't so linear. It's more like a control panel where before installation there is a hub of icons for things that can be configured. The user doesn't have to click on them at all unless there is an exclamation against the icon. When all the exclamations are cleared the install can proceed.
While installation is in progress, the user can also set the login account info immediately and walk away which means as soon as installation is done the process is complete.
I think metaphor of a hub is quite confusing and tools such as the disk partitioner really feel clunky. I think the hub needs to be done away with something which can be used like a wizard in a linear fashion but also randomly - the obvious solution would be to stick all the tasks into a shelf and put Next / Prev buttons on the display. User can hit next to go through them or explicitly click an icon to jump straight to that page. When all exclamation points are cleared the install button at the end of the shelf lights up and the user can kick it off by clicking that.
I think the account setup which is available during installation is useful. I imagine that its common enough for sysadmins to kick off an install, forget about it, come back hours later and realise it's not done yet because of some extra questions it needs. This way they can fill them out before they leave and it will be complete whenever they return.
Back when GNOME turned into this abomination which targetted tablet computing, I ended up moving to CentOS only to find that it is wrought with limitaitons giving me a whole new perspective on the relationship between kernel and OS as well as between the OS and the application. Recently, Linus blasted a kernel maintainer for breaking application compatibility. Similarly, I blast GNOME for integrating an application library into their UI. (In this case GTK/GTK+) That choice prevents me from effectively running GIMP versions newer than 2.6.x on CentOS. Anyway, that's not what I'm here to comment about.
I tried F18 in a VM. I wanted to see if I could get MATE going. Well, I was quite successful. It didn't take long to learn I needed to use the net installer to make it happen. But there were a few confusing things in the installer. For one, there were these warning road signs on the many buttons. Eventually some of them cleared. But it was impossible to learn what those warning sign icons meant. I may have to run through the process again to see if I can determine exactly what they intended to mean, but it wasn't readily apparent. I tried hovering over them to see if more information appeared, but no. I did note that at least one cleared itself as I tweaked on other things.
I get that the new installer wants to be more of a control panel interface than a "wizard" and I can appreciate the approach. The wizard approach was initially annoying to me and to many others when it first arrived so long ago. Linear and limiting. But then again, it is somewhat appropriate for an installer to behave like this.
Anyway, the new installer did not prevent me from getting what I wanted. But then again, what I wanted was to see MATE installed. I did not do any more than that. Perhaps I need to give it another look, but I am prepared to go to F18 if only to escape the CentOS limits as I find myself exasperated by what I learned of how GNOME breaks user applications and their lack of concern for what it means to do so.
Agreed on the hard disk naming thing but its been doing that for ages and isn't new to this installer.
But there are also users that don't want to learn, but just want to use. On the other hand, there is some knowledge involved in installing a linux system, or windows, for that matter. User tests should be targeted as such, so "the installer is too complex for my granny" isn't valid.
A non-techical person shouldn't be installing a linux system in the first place. My granny just has to be able to use the system, not install it.
12.3 will be released soon.
Well, for those of us who don't like the way distros are going these days, there's always Slackware. Apart from the installation media, the installer process hasn't changed much in 20 years. It's fast, simple and easy. Sure it's text-only, but since the whole process is so quick, who cares?
It doesn't look like FUD exactly. That bit about two HD icons with identical model names side by side in no particular order isn't a geek vs. non-geek issue, it's a bad UI decision.
No auto login isn't geek vs. non-geek either, nor is having to root around on the fs to find the installer.
Things like that are just broken for geeks and non-geeks alike. It's a big step backwards from the old installer.
Red Hat installers have been buggy mess since forever. Even back in the days of Red Hat 4 there were issues like nag screens popping up but your crappy 640x480 display was so much smaller than the RH developer's magnificent 1280x768 display that the OK button ended up off screen. Another one of my favorites was a RH installer where you ended up filling out a form but to fill it out you needed information form the previous screen which was no biggie except.... there was no back button.... **curses** restart install... reach for pen and paper....
Come to think about it I'm not sure that RH even used a GUI installer until RH5 or 6 IIRC, but the thing was and always has been rather buggy.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Who is to say all of this UI silliness in linux isnt funded by some one big like M$, or Apple. Pay off or place a few devs in gnome and ubuntu to bat around some hipstery BS smart phone ideas, push towards them dropping there main actual market for "ooh shiny smart phone! dhuuuuuuu", and linux shoots its self in the foot re the PC. There are enough people screaming that these changes to gnome are bad why wont they listen. Why if they want to make touch screen gnome / nautalus / shell do they have to take the whole desktop environment with it. Its nothing short of a a conspiracy.
Anyone can make a system "easy" by hiding away all the details and anyone can make a system "powerful" by providing config knobs for every minute detail and drowning the user in debug output.
The real genius is designing a system so it's easy to understand and use, i.e. it's cleanly designed and "makes sense" and has well-thought config defaults, yet provides reasonable configurability without "overengineering". That seems exceptionally hard.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
Fedora staff don't under stand how to KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.
My F18 system:
1. v-terminals no longer work despite their supposed fixes.
It works on my GDM system, but not my main KDM system.
Oops. I guess that they never bothered testing that huh?
V-Terminals were one of Linux' key selling points back in the day!
2. Their Grub2 setup is an abomination of complexity.
You can't edit the command line on boot-up either because
there's a bug in the display that puts the cursor in the
wrong location.
3. TVTime is broken on Nouveau drivers. I can't reinstall
the NVidia drivers due to items 1 & 2 above.
4. Oh, did I mention systemd. Yeah, my system boots
faster (the SSD really helped for that). But, now it's
really complicated trying to figure out stuff.
5. NetworkManager sucks. I turned it off, and manually
configured my NICs. On one of my PC's, now my net
won't come up on boot; I have to log in as root and
bring it up manually with "ifup p?p?". Where do I
research YOUR bugs on that one?
Fedora tried to make the DEVELOPERs' lives easier by
making end-users' and admins' lives much worse.
Get a clue Fedora!. I've been using Fedora/Redhat
since switching from Slackware in the early days.
RPM was great. Yum was great. But, lately you're
just stinking up the joint.
You know what? If Igor thinks can do it better, then he should fork that thing and roll his own distro. Lots of people have something to complain about, but very very few pitch in and try to help or change things. http://is.gd/tM5hgy
Another reason why NetworkManager sucks.
The idiots at KDE (and Fedora) decided that you shouldn't be allowed
to change your colour scheme. You're forced to have light gray panels.
When you click on the NetworkManager icon to see network status, the
pop-up also is in light grey, with WHITE text. Let's see if this is a good idea:
white text on light grey background.... it's kinda like what I'm writing on
this next line of text here:
Did you read that line above? No? Why not? I typed it for you.
NetworkManager sucks because it is COMPLETELY UNREADABLE!
GET A FyCKING CLUE PEOPLE.
Why would I use NetworkManager when I cannot even read what the
f$^% it is trying to say to me?!?!?!?
"former physicist and current IT Systems Programmer and blogger"
In the case of usability of a consumer/desktop Linux distribution, I would rather read a review my "Mary, mom and totally newbie".
Usability these days feels more like mental masturbation by everybody in IT than anything else.
none
you put something out there, it includes an unstated promise, namely that it will work and be useful enough to invest the time in.
That's called "warranty of merchantability" - "merchant" as in "buy and sell". It's an implied promise that if you buy something from me, I'll deliver something worth buying. If you're not buying anything from me, the terms aren't implied, they are clearly stated. I put it out there because it's useful to ME, so it might be useful to you, too. I have no obligation to spend my days making something you'll like - you haven't given me anything. Every GPL package includes a clear statement of these terms:
15. THERE IS NO WARRANTY ... PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Again, we write GPL software because it's useful for US, or for our customers. We decide how to spend our time, how to design a system we create. If you want to be part of the "us" that makes decisions, edit the damn wiki or something.
Firefox {15,16,17, and 18} all the same to me, you just have to tame it. /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins and remove all plugins that you dont want, I created a folder called pluginsbackup and did a; mv ./plugins ./pluginsbackup. Then start firefox do a about:config, and do a search for "htt" then delete all http links, exept for maybe the google ones, but definitely all the bing, yahoo, facebook,and mozilla ones. Create a script that copies your preferences from ./home/.mozilla/firefox/*default* to a backup then deletes the mozilla folder, start firefox then copy your preferences back. Example: Enjoy.
first cd to
#!/bin/bash /home/windows7&8Sucks/.adobe/* /home/windows7&8Sucks/.macromedia/* /home/windows7&8Sucks/.mozilla/firefox/*.def*/prefs.js /home/windows7&8Sucks/.FirefoxPrefBackup /home/windows7&8Sucks/.mozilla/firefox/*
rm -r
rm -r
cp
rm -r
firefox &
sleep 4
echo "$(ps aux | grep 'firefox' | awk '{print $2}')"
kill $(ps aux | grep 'firefox' | awk '{print $2}')
cp /home/windows7&8Sucks/.FirefoxPrefBackup/*.js /home/windows7&8Sucks/.mozilla/firefox/*.def*
rm -r /home/windows7&8Sucks/.icedtea/cache/http/* /home/windows7&8Sucks/.icedtea/cache/https/* /home/windows7&8Sucks/.icedtea/cache/security/*
rm -r
rm -r
echo "done"
I'm actually undoing previous moderations just to reply to this, because it is so stupid and uninsightful.
Do you have any idea how many FOSS programs from how many authors/projects I use every day? Let me just name a few: Thunderbird and Firefox (Mozilla), LaTeX (TUG), bash/zsh (a community), gfortran/gcc (GNU), vim (another community), ArchLinux (yet another community), GIMP (GNU), Inkscape (yet another community), and the list goes on.
Do you really think I (or anyone else in the world) have contributed to each and every of these projects? I can honestly say that I have contributed to two of these: ArchLinux (wiki editing) and vim (scripting), but I am a programmer, and "ordinary" people contribute less, I assume. I think you should count yourself very lucky if even 5% of your users contribute to your specific project.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
I had noscript on firefox 18 and (even without noscript) could not get any scripts to run.
Are you saying that following your steps allowed noscript to function properly? And
allowed scripts to work?
It doesn't make sense to me. Didn't have to do anything crazy with firefox 17, everything
just worked - even youtube. But I installed Fedora 18 i686.
I consider that to be a good contribution to the community and on projects I've managed in the past I really appreciated users who gave good bug reports.
I'll second that. A well-considered bug report is often a lot more valuable than any kind of whine, since it will often lead the dev to the exact point where the problem lies, while for another programmer (without the benefit of familiarity) might take some time to find and fix the issue.
Go play with a debian when it mentions all sorts of of archaic things like subnet masks to noobs. My mom still does not know what an IP address is and would freak in comparison.
Which version of IP is used is totally irrelevant to an argument over Linux vs Windows vs BSD
Switch to IPv6, and you won't ever have to deal w/ subnet masks again. Within a single /64 link, you'll have all the addresses you need for everything. Every NFS service can have its own address. Your e-mail server can have an address, each of your virtual web hosts can be a real standalone web host w/ different IPs, each of your kvm virtual machines can have a different public IP address, and so on. I dunno about Debian, Fedora and other Linuxes, but at least FBSD/PC-BSD have the capabilities to handle IPv6 very well - in fact, you can even set it up as IPv6-only.
Yeah, the address will still be longer than your mom will like, but it'll be something that rarely has to be used, and in the event that one has to use it often, one can set up a DHCP6 server to handle it and assign it a simple address that's easier to enter.
Richard Stallman does NOT want your software to be widely used by people who contribute nothing??!? Really?! Is that what he said?
testing out my trending skills
I spent hours trying to get the thing to install, and hours more after people urged me to try a different distro. All in all I think I spent a complete workday just installing with zero result.
As a matter of interest, and bearing in mind that you're posting as AC, what issues did you encounter, and with which distro?
Even back in the '90s when many of us had to struggle with unsupported hardware, we could usually get some sort of usable Linux box up and running. Nowadays, I tend to find that pretty much everything "just works" with kernels supplied out of the box.
The reverse is often also true. As a senior engineer, I'm aware of older tools and subtleties that a developer may not know. Sanitizing inputs, the differences between the tools in the installed operating system, and those within the installer environment itself are excellent examples. For Fedora and Red Hat, most people installing Linux are unaware that you can hit "Ctrl-Alt-F2" to get an active shell in the installation environment, a shell with which one can probe and even reconfigure disks and network devices manually, then hit "Ctrl-Alt-F1" to get back to the installation console or use commands like "Ctrl-Alt-F6" to get back to the X based login, They're also unaware that you can stop just before rebooting and use the same "Ctrl-Alt-Fn" commands to do some manual fine tuning of your configuration before that reboot. But this sort of workaround is counter to the new Fedora installer model, even though it's vital for dealing with attached storage or critical kernel patches.
I applaud many of Fedora's open source and development efforts: partners and colleagues I work with certainly benefit from bleeding edge access to such tools to test, modify, and patch in production and personal use. But my test last weekend of this installer is tha it is burdensome. They've lost track of the idea that the installer is not there to show off technological expertise of the developers. It's there to accomplish distinct, linear tasks that need to be extremely robust and not dependent on complex additional toolkits.
Yes, but if the installation can be modified to work for non-technical people too, why not do it?
I remember seeing a ncurses [or something like that] display with RH 6. It was my first Linux attempt, and it never worked until I became experienced enough to figure out the correct settings for it.
testing out my trending skills
We do NOT want our software to be widely used by people who contribute nothing. What good does that do us? You are not a customer. (Unless of course you are a paying customer). You are the recipient of a gift. Freeloaders using our work, while refusing to donate $10, or edit the wiki, or translate something, or run a proper test suite are NOT beneficial to OSS programmers. Quite the opposite. You're just another oddball configuration I have to support, and another piece of idiot-proofing I have to add to the GUI, with no benefit to me. We don't want it to be widely used, we want a wide base of CONTRIBUTORS.
Funny that you mention contribution: I've contributed with loads of my time to GNOME 2.x, mainly doing translation and docs but also with the occasional bug report and developer feedback, and guess what happened when I, like scores of other people following GNOME development, expressed criticism of the direction Gnome Shell was going? To use an euphemism, we were ignored and/or told to use something else. So much for the "we want CONTRIBUTORS" theory! Needless to say, I'm not a GNOME user anymore, $DEITY forbid that I hinder their vision!
Not that I subscribe to your "we want contributors, don't give **** about other kind of users" theory: if I contributed nothing but express valid criticism, well THAT'S MY CONTRIBUTION and you'd be an idiot to ignore it; vice versa, if I pay you $$$ and my suggestions are utter garbage, you'd be an idiot to accept them. Considering your attitude, perhaps you should limit circulation of your software to your closest pals and relatives, and delight them with your programming skills. The rest of the world will carry on, believe me.
Rehdon
...is the upgrade process! Does the Fedora team sit around for one year thinking of ways to break things? Each release recently is a nightmare.
- can't upgrade two versions back any longer - wow, I wish I had known that when F17 came out! I skipped it to save myself one nightmare
- two different upgraders, "preupgrade" and "fedup" - I had a 24 hour process to upgrade two Fedora 16 machines - this is insane
- Nvidia driver just won't work on F18 - I had to go to nouveau - I simply can't find a way to make this driver work
- KDE dual-monitor settings completely lost
- KDE still can't save dual-monitor settings and I had to hack the config file
- Libre Office deleted all its MRU lists
- Emacs can no longer paste from the old X clipboard - I use x3270, an old-style X app, and often copy from screens - now I have to save to file and load in Emacs - not an improvement
- Emacs breaks Ctrl-X Crl-B buffer list appears off the screen (!)
- Emacs now ignores whatever I did to make the menus readable and uses some default tiny font I can't read at all - still working on this
- I've used the same LaTeX build since 2008-ish for something, and it is horribly broken - I had to install package after package after package to get it to work again
And that's just what I've found so far. Fedora is getting to be such a hassle with things breaking that I would be tempted to try some other distro if I had to build another machine.
Making this worse is Google's utterly broken search - just try searching for "fedora 18" - even with quotes you get so much garbage in the results!
Uhh..ok then, sir. However why is the "do_not_ever_run_me" file there in the first place? Shouldn't it be named "disable_firewall"?
There's a reason why you buy Thinkpads:my six year old Thinkpad W500 {1920x1200, SD-card, Firewire, VGA, DVI, TPM, Trackpoint, ATI-graphics, INTEL-graphics, 3-usb ports, two Card-bus{pcmi??}, Wi-max, Wifi, Intel-flash-ram-bootShit, 9-hour-battary-life, Slim-bay-for-extra-battary-for 13 hour battary life, finger-print-reader, crypto-chip, and easily configurable bios settings} has a bios update on Lenovo web site; release year 11-21-2012. Rock solid hardware and continued support.
Why would I give a hoot what Richard stallman wants? Do you spend your day trying to please Richard Stallman? I sure don't.
Except that you are not even thinking fully. The people who you claim "contribute nothing" actually contribute a lot. They are free testers of your product. It in and of itself is a very valuable asset to have. The people who dont even give valuable feedback should be the target of your ire, not people who do.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I'm an IT pro - pretty much know my way around most things linux.
Fedora 18 got as far as being installed and then I gave up.
Firstly I had to manually configure the network - from the shell no less - which I have to ask why the hell am I having to manually configure networking - why didn't it just enable the NIC and use DHCP at first boot ? Why was eth0 set to onboot="no" ?????
I just find that irritating but how would someone who had no experience of Linux be expected to configure the network after doing a fresh install ? Not exactly a good advert for linux being user friendly.
Secondly - I couldn't browse my Windows network - Centos 5 and 6 browse a windows network without further config from a fresh install, Ubuntu can do the same, so can SL6, it's pretty lame that Fedora 18 cannot. Being busy I have little patience so I didn't bother to figure out why - I shouldn't have to, if other distro's can get it right why cannot Fedora ? smbclient works from shell so no reason why network browsing should not work.
Thirdly why cannot I disable the firewall as part of the install process - I don't need a firewall and if I did I would use netfilter, I'm on a secure network I should be able to just disable the damn firewall and be done with it.
Fourth - I found the new service manager irritating - have you guys never considered consitency, it present a bucket load of information way and above what is necessary and I found it nigh on impossible to track down what I wanted to find - as an example I installed samba 4 and none of the servies showed up in the systemctl --all listing.
I would describe Fedora 18 as having come from the unstable branch...
I think you are making a bad comparison, if the installer is broken many people will not try fedora and if they don't use fedora they will not contribute to fedora.
presumably fedora 17 had a working installer so this is a regression, If the installer isn't fixed you will see less new users and some existing users will migrate to something else. This doesn't equate to someone whining about a gift more a developer who has decided to take a dump over the fedora community. Logically the other developers who worked on other parts of fedora won't even see their contribution used because of the poorly developed installer.
I guess either the developer who made the installer can fix it or someone else will write an alternative because if there are people willing to work on fedora , there will people willing to fix the problems.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
My experience with the Fedora 18 installer was that the partition manager only worked properly after I deleted the existing partition. Trying to use an existing partition fails and drops you into a bug reporter that also fails (so the developers are probably not seeing a lot of bug reports).
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.
Here RMS teaches you how to feed yourself for the rest of your life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
Is the installer different than before? Yes, it is. Does that make it counter-intuitive? No. The only issue I had that could be related to it being counter-intuitive was if you wanted to manually partition your drive, the text on the button to proceed did not change and it looked like you were going to still have the installer create the partitions.
At the local school, we've got 5th and 6th graders who installed it without problem, except for the partitioning confusion mentioned above. My brother, who is definitely not one to be called computer literate installed it, too.
Maybe the problem is that what long term users "think" is intuitive is actually not. Gnome 3 faced similar complaints with gnome-shell and Ubuntu with their Unity interface. In the early days of Linux, it had the reputation of not being user-friendly because the community would shout RTFM every time somebody asked a question. It seems that attitude still persists, it just manifests itself differently. Now, anytime something changes that makes linux more accessible to an average computer user (not necessarily an average linux user), there is an outcry.
It seems it is only counter-intuitive and unusable for those who want to keep linux as something for the elite instead of the masses.
"Or, instead of forking, contribute a patch or two to improve things."
Good advice for non-desktop oriented projects or the random bug or two, but I don't think patches will work in this case.
Igor's pretty much charitable about the rough spots of the new Fedora release. He reserves his venom for the look-and-feel of the Gnome 3.x desktop that's at the heart of the default Fedora install. So how do you patch a GUI that you consider "counterintutive and confusing" unless you fork it?
The people who you claim "contribute nothing" actually contribute a lot. They are free testers of your product. It in and of itself is a very valuable asset to have.
That is not valuable to me at all. It already works for me, on my hardware. You testing it for your use case, on your hardware, benefits YOU. It doesn't benefit me one bit, not if you stop there. There is another step or two you can easily take to make a contribution of it, though. If you stop at using the software, and pretednign that using=testing, it's a giant PITA to be expected to support hardware that I don't even have access to. If you really think that's beneficial, explain to me how I can eat your test on your hardware for lunch, or how your use case keeps me warm. It doesn't.
If you at least submit a careful, specific issue report that will probably be useful to YOU. What's useful to me, what fills my belly, is if you get me a breakfast taco. I write better software when I'm not hungry, so that also benefits you. As far as using/testing, if you take that "using" and go a step further and write documentation based on how you use it, that benefits the community, including me, because that saves me the time of typing out answers to questions. Also, if you take the results of actual careful testing (using != testing) and submit a careful bug report that _might_ be useful to me, if I happen to be affected by the same bug. Having people simply use software I write does no good for me or anyone else, though.
So when you use software that's poorly documented, either a) write up what you figured out about how to use it or b) get honest with yourself and admit you're useless in that context, not useful. It's okay, just be honest with yourself and others. I'm not useful in regards to Gimp - I just use it. I am useful in the context of the kernel, because I help with development, just a little bit.
So how do you patch a GUI that you consider "counterintutive and confusing" unless you fork it?
The installer GUI is python code. You can patch it the same way you'd patch any other code. Except in this case, one complaint is inconsistent fonts, so you don't even have to be a programmer. Just search-replace font names.
Alternatively, the GUI is mainly developed using the Glade"IDE", http://glade.gnome.org/ so you can edit the GUI graphically, right in Glade. Glade generates Python source, from from there run "diff -Nrup" just like any other patch.
Do you have any idea how many FOSS programs from how many authors/projects I use every day? Let me just name a few: Thunderbird and Firefox (Mozilla), LaTeX (TUG), bash/zsh (a community), gfortran/gcc (GNU), vim (another community), ArchLinux (yet another community), GIMP (GNU), Inkscape (yet another community), and the list goes on.
In which case you a productive member of the OSS community. When I contribute to Firefox, I'll have reason to consider your wishes because we're working together - my code and your code need to play nicely together. I won't have any reason to worry about what Apple thinks of my Firefox code, because their Safari code doesn't affect my Firefox code.
From that review, it appears they just barely beat Windows 8 at bad UI design and counter-intuitive functionality. That's hard to do!
I wrote a whole paragraph answering that. Ways non-programmers can contribute:
edit the wiki
answer newbie's questions on the forum
translate the documentation
submit careful, specific bug reports
buy the programmer a breakfast taco
seed the torrent (on purpose, after you're done downloading)
pitch in on the hosting bill
want me to support your specific hardware? Send me one so I can work on it.
With both Redhat/Fedora and Canonical/Ubuntu determined to go the touchy-feely route, it's a wonder these two companies don't just roll out their own-branded/skinned Android fork similar to Amazon's Kindle Fire OS. Android 4.x is at least a bit more pleasant to look at and is not that MUCH harder to use with a mouse and a keyboard than Gnome 3.X/Unity. And you get the familiarity of an already widely dispersed graphical interface.
PS: Cory probably thinks differently than you: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/17/computing-opensource
and the almost jackboot militancy with which one is forced into either Gnome or KDE was my primary impetus for leaving Fedora. Sure, gentoo might require a bit more patience and understanding but linux has always been about knowledge and power. in the words of Tonnerre Lombard:
"if you believe in the principles behind UNIX and Open Source, please don't write software which requires any of the Gnome/KDE and DBus API. Writing X11 programs with xcb and proper RPC APIs like SUNRPC or Thrift should be more than good enough. "
http://blog.ngas.ch/archives/2011/12/13/the_destructive_desktop__mdash_linux_in_trouble/index.htmlhttp://bassdrive.com/v2/streams/BassDrive.pls
Good people go to bed earlier.
I see a lot of complaints in this thread about "if you don't like it, then patch or fork it, and fork you too". And the other side saying, "Well, I should be allowed to complain because I can't fork or patch it, and screw you people for making me feel bad".
Working for a private company, I find this debate to be hilarious. The real problem is the almost total loss of civility.
When was the last time you made a complaint in a non-insulting manner that used logical and thoughtful statements? Being in customer support today I see a lot of sarcasm and bad language designed to make the developer and/or company responsible 'feel bad'. Now in our case, the customer paid for the product, so we have to eat that. But in open source, I think they are right to say "play nice, or we will ignore your request'. It's just not worth it to continually pour your heart and soul into your work, for no compensation, and then just constantly be ridiculed out there in "blogosphere" land. I really really understand the desire to just say f--- you to the whole experience, it makes developers want to quit. Ever notice how work on The Gimp is stagnating? It's because of negative comments everywhere about that project.
I'm not saying you can't say negative comments. But ever try saying something positive? Or for that matter, how about working WITH the development team to fix your problems instead of working AGAINST them? They are not your enemy. Stop putting them in that position.
Now, on the other side, the development team needs to also be civil. Responding with "fork, or patch it yourself, or get lost", is also not civil. What would be a better idea is, "please file a report somewhere and we'll get back to you in a few days", or if we're being strictly honest, "we don't have the bandwidth right now to accommodate your request. We need more people and since you have opinions, we would welcome you to contribute patches to the product, assuming you want to be involved".
Basically I don't know why people have to be dickheads about everything, on all sides.
TL;DR , "Why can't we all just get along?!?"
The installer's crap, I'll give him that. I've just given it a run through to see whether he makes fair points, and I think he actually misses some, but not all his complaints make sense to me.
KDE LiveCD worked just fine for me, logging in automatically. No errors about networks, no warnings about /var being full. No complaints about audio not working. Was he perhaps running with minimal RAM such that the LiveCD couldn't work properly. I couldn't get any similar failings even with dropping RAM down to 512Mbytes, which is a half the 1Gbyte recommended. But given his screenshot and /home being on /tmpfs I don't see how else it could report less than 100Mbytes free. Running with 512Mbytes shows a nominal 220Mbytes available in your home directory. I faintly wonder whether that's actually the source of most of his liveCD issues.
The progress bar showed Installing Software 100% but the bar wasn't all the way across. But that's because the progress bar is showing all install progress, not just installing software. The progress bar seemed sane to me. All in, the installer is less functional than the old installer, and certainly less clear. Having Done and Continue buttons just isn't helpful. After clicking Done, you'll be returned to a page showing out of date information, and you have to wait for it to update. This makes no sense, I'm with him on that. I get what they're trying to present to you, and it's possibly even useful in the way they've done it, but it's definitely less clear.
Some images are oddly low resolution, but I can live with that, it's only aesthetics. It needs fixing, but it's not worth holding up a release.
His complaints with the installed system also seem a little unfair. He installs easylife (not part of fedora), the complains that the repofusion repo hasn't been set up correctly, when that's been done by easylife... His flash/mp3 complaints fit into that same category. That's very much blaming windows for itunes not playing back FLAC files.
So I'd say that the installer sucks and was a mistake to put into F18, but things aren't necessarily quite as portrayed in that review.
jh
I will say that both Ubuntu and Fedora are going along those lines.
Once upon a time the prevaliing community mocked MS for their over-complicated underpinnings with complex inter-component APIs, binary registry, etc etc. We reveled in our straightforward, plain-text configuration that was trivial to examine, if not a tad incovenient for developers to parse and human error could produce confusing errors for the 'uninitiated', but experts had the easiest time writing one-off scripts to do whatever they wanted.
Now, we have things like dbus, network manager, dconf, and systemd effectively mimicking the behavior the community once marked. Now ludicrous 'dbus-send' commands are the only recourse for scripted workflows, the once simple task of writing an init script is now somewhat complicated because they really want a correct dependency graph to speed up boot (a noble goal, but the approach makes administration more difficult). The software stack strongly suggests *not* manipulating resolv.conf at all, instead manipulating some local instance of dnsmasq.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I also use FC18-x64. The example is a shell script "bash". I use flash also, yet i will not let it install as root, so what i do is remove the libflashplayer.so file from the rpm and copy this file to /home/someUserName/.mozilla/plugins. So when i run the bash script it removes all flash-tracking-data, removes-java-tracking-data, removes firefox-tracking-data. icedtea=java, adobe¯omedia=flash. At the beginning of the script it deletes the firefox unique folder similar to this "uik34ijd.default", and towards the middle the command "firefox &" starts a new instance of firefox so it'll recreate another unique folder similar to this "ereiskd32.default", now we move our preference back to this recreated folder cp /home/......./*.js /home/.../*.defaul*
the part about using "about:config" and removing all http link; use your own discretion, yet i remove them all because i dont want to continuously send mozilla data.
I've been a Fedora/Redhat user since 1998 (5.1 Manhattan). With first Gnome 3 and now this, I think the time has come to look somewhere else... :C
My employers just ripped out a 400 node open-sourced based corporate network and replaced it with a Windows Server 2008r2 and Windows server 2012 based system. It cost a lot of money to do so, but it will pay back in less than 2 years.
They did this for three reasons:
One, Microsoft was significantly cheaper. Despite our being loyal Red Hat customers for over ten years (we voluntarily paid RH long before it was legally necessary to do so, and we have never run CentOS or SL) Red Hat would not match Microsoft's pricing. They just refused; and my employers needed the money to pay staff so Microsoft won on price.
Two, Red Hat (and they are not the only distro to do this) has consistently moved further and further away from being a business-oriented system. As the Fedora ivory tower gets taller and taller, Red Hat is less and less useful as a server system... and meanwhile Microsoft has implemented a powerful CLI and scripting language, is permitting GUI-less server installs, has a cheaper and more powerful virtualization system (HyperV), has mainstreamed RFC2307bis in ADS while providing a strong memberOf attribute, has working Kerberos out of the box, the list of meaningful improvements goes on and on. Red Hat's distro is getting less capable on the server because they are Fedora-focused on completely failing to take away Microsoft's desktop business while Microsoft, using a strategy that focuses on actual user needs, is steadily eating away at *nix's superiority as a server OS.
Three, Red Hat used to let regular people create bugzillas, which they then completely ignored, only actually fixing stuff reported by IBM, in-house, or (occasionally) by Dell. These bug reports let end users know about each other and share hacks and work-arounds - I had a Bugzilla that lasted for three releases of RHEL with 65 people watching it (until Red Hat closed it with status NOTABUG and WONTFIX) that told people how to fix the problem by building some code Thorsten Kukuk wrote for SuSe. However, with the introduction of RHEVM, Red Hat has closed their bug reports to the public, and you cannot read them any more; even if you are a paying customer, your own RHEVM bug reports are "Secret" - so that you have to ask a Red Hat support person to read them to you over the phone if you want to know what (if anything) the devs are doing to resolve your bug. This behaviour epitomizes Red Hat's basic problem - which is a refusal to interact profitably with the majority of their paying customers.
In short, Red Hat's "Fedora strategy" was a clever idea that has completely not worked. Fedora does allow RH to get more coders for free, as planned, but the majority of these coders are clever young whippersnappers who are not building anything Red Hat's customers actually want. Because of Fedora's semi-demi-quasi-democratic organization, the distro goes ever further towards optimization as a 20-year-old hacker's experiment in eye candy and unstructured design, while moving ever further away from being a solid, reliable enterprise service platform. As the old dogs go to places where their employers' needs might get addressed, the young folks have less and less contact with reality, and lean more and more to fixing things that aren't broken, generally using far less powerful GUI interfaces that prevent process optimization. Instead of selling lots of cheap good servers that don't have to be entirely replaced every two years, Red Hat is increasing driving towards selling a few flashy desktops with 3D interfaces and creating less capable clones of OpenLDAP and VMware.
If you don't have a product that can survive the marketplace, all your ideals and visions are unlikely to prosper. And that's really sad, since I sh
....aborted attempts at installing from DVD.
I tried to perform an upgrade from F17 via a DVD (burned from iso). After reading the FedoraProject wiki and seeing that preupgrade had been deprecated in favour of FedUp, I figured I'd go with the less fragile method of burning media from an ISO.
To make a long story short, after several failures, I gave FedUp a try, and it worked like a charm
I'm not sure what I would have done had I been performing a new installation, the installer was very flaky, and once even refused to boot. the whole experience has left me worrying about the fate of Fedora.
Come on Fedora team, you have produced much better.
Ljubuncic's experiences with software are usually the opposite of mine. I installed F18 on multiple drives with multiple partitions with none of the issues of problems he discusses. That's not the first time that's happened.
The new Anaconda has taken a lot of flack. Some is justified. Much of it seems based on people who are, first, mad that it isn't the old Anaconda; second, mad that it doesn't work like the old Anaconda and makes them think about how to use it, and, third, think their experience with the old Anaconda means it was "intuitive". It wasn't. Expecting software to be "intuitive" is just falling victim to sales-pitch hokum.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
And thus the once-mighty Red Hat server fails to keep up with competition, or even with its own previous versions. It seems like it's been falling apart ever since Erik Troan left the company, but I wonder if that was cause or effect, you know?
So many poorly executed steps backwards... up2date replaced by yum, openssl replaced by nss, OpenLDAP replaced by FreeIPA, anacron bundled with cron and installed by default, the abominable excrescence that is Network Manager on a wired machine... it seems like Fedora/RHEL is turning into a college student's laptop distribution, where it largely fails to compete with Windows, MacOS or Ubuntu. I mean, come on, how much offline optimization does a server OS need? Anacron, NM, and user credential caching all turned on by default? It's madness. Try to get a recent Fedora or RHEL to work without a GUI or a caching LDAP client, for a quick and easy real good time (not).
With ever increasing dependency chains (anybody still remember mocking Ms-windows DLL hell?) "more stuff to fail" has become the Fedora way.... every version looks more like HP-UX or Windows, with any semblance of elegance or manageable simplicity eroding away like a rich man's taxpayer-insured beachfront.
With the old IDE buses, names like /dev/hda and /dev/hdb depended on the physical connection and were permanent, as long as you didn't move the disks around. Currently, the sda, sdb... names do not depend on the physical hardware and are not guaranteed to stay the same every boot.
Size and manufacturer is the only reasonable way of referring to the drives. Would serial number be better? (Clearly, in this case listing existing partitions would be better.)
Partitioning in fedora/redhat has always been wonky. It just got a metric ton worse though in f18.
1. You cannot specify the size of a volume group.
2. Everything is pretty much trial-by-error. I installed three times to figure out what I did wrong and what was possible. Just a horrible ui experience.
Please tell me what projects are you working with, I don't want to "freeload" your shit. Seriously.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
And don't release it.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
There used to be a city/timezone drop down list as well, besides the little map.
I know Anaconda was in RH6, my first Linux was a RH6 based distro and the screens mentioned anaconda.
Also reviews, negative or positive, are of major value to end users looking for information about which distribution/tool/application/whatever to try.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
I have installed 18 on two machines with no problems- the installer did not seem like much progress from what was before, but it did the job. That angry blogger is probably just fishing for hits on his pages - not much ads there so he may be in need of some cash.
Well, developers just do what managers say them to do. But Fedora sales/management people are just crazy. They intentionally want to be may be more crazy then MS sales people with Win 8 :)
I've been using Linux since ~'98-99 and always struggled to find a distribution I liked. I've always disliked Ubuntu, I've only given it a few tries every now and then to see if it has gotten any better, but it just seems to be getting worse. I did enjoy Linux Mint to some extent for a while, but eventually got fed up with it as well. I have long liked Fedora, but the latest few releases just got increasingly worse.
When looking for a Linux distribution for desktop use that would be better than Ubuntu or Fedora, I bumped into Mageia. Since that day, I've not looked back. The community is great, the repositories are large, it's been easy enough to install software and drivers (e.g. Nvidia's optimized binary driver beta) that is not supported by default. The package manager is fast, Mageia Control Center is great, and there are a lot fewer flaws I've bumped into than with any other distribution I've tried for desktop use.
After reading this, I'm sort of curious to try Fedora on a VM to see how bad it is, but it seems I will be stuck with Mageia for a very long time for serious uses.
This really makes me think that asking for a free OS made for the masses is considered some kind of Capital sin!
Then send me to hell, because is what I want!
True, but when you can submit patches and don't submit even one, it's kind of like complaining that you'reown house is dirty.
Oh, come on, guys... one little bit of ignorance and he's a troll? I don't agree with him, but an unpopular opinion is not a troll, even if he doesn't know that he said "it's kind of like complaining that you are own house is dirty".
I certainly wouldn't trust the guy's code, similar mistakes are surely there! I'll bet he's the guy that fucked up the new kubuntu. But he's not a troll, he's just uneducated.
Free as in GRATIS i mean
(btw i contribute to my pet OS with advocacy and other stuff but is the principle that counts)
I tried to upgrade a virtualbox image, didn't work for me either. I tried a couple times but I was too annoyed to continue.
Not sure what the issue was, but telling me not enough space, not letting me use my existing partitions or even letting me reformat the drive, clearly a broken installer.
No idea who is testing this on the Fedora team, but damn, if this cant pass the drunk admin test you failed.
Fedora is a like a bad TV show
Don't watch it and it will go away
Problem solved
Many FOSS developers put donation links on their websites. Many users donate.
Friendliness and openness towards users leads to donations. Hostility doesn't.
I don't know what software you write, but:
a) Do you even have a donation link?
b) Are you hostile towards users? (I think I know the answer.)
In any case, from the sounds of it in this thread, you don't seem to care if another person on earth uses your software.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Oh, and as for "freeloaders" not being beneficial, consider this:
Firefox was established to end IE6's reign of terror on the web, and bring web standards back into play, benefiting everyone. Would they have accomplished that without the millions of "freeloaders" who eagerly downloaded and installed it, slowly chipping away at IE's numbers?
I realize that doesn't apply to every case, but it certainly does in some.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
You have to acknowledge some of his points. Showing two identical disk names without any further distinction is retarded, there's just no way around it.
Don't treat users like stupid sheep who'd be confused by /dev/sda or whatever it is. You take away all starting-points for them to even learn something. I didn't learn UNIX because everything was hidden away from me, I learned it because I _saw_ stuff and it made sense.
Dont hide details. Have them make sense.
Sorry, but /dev/sdX is retarded. In what order are those devices enumerated? BIOS order? PCI bus order? By SCSI host, bus, target LUN? Fibre channel WWN? Some odd combination of those that is subject to change based on modprobe.conf contents? Check. Funny you mention UNIX, go look at how some real UNIX systems enumerate devices.
If you want to treat users better, for systems with user managed storage devices:
1) Tell them which device the system is currently configured to boot. If their P.O.S. X86 BIOS can't do that, then make a best guess by scanning for preexisting boot loader install, and partition information.
2) Tell them how the device is connected, and a _reasonable_ idea what logical position it's in - PATA, SATA, FC, USB, etc.
3) Tell them something unique they are likely to either know or be able to verify by manual inspection. Make, model, serial number, target WWN & LUN, capacity, etc.
4) Advanced option to inspect partition layout, detailed logical connection info.
Step 1 should remove most of the need for the other steps. If your firmware cannot accomplish that, then you pretty much have the minimum required knowledge from the user in the other steps, confusing as it may be. From what I understand we failed step 1 and then pretended what comes after that is easier than it really is on a generic X86 box.
I'm not a Fedora user and installed this in a VM this morning. The installer Ui was a shock and looks like crap, but it was no big deal to figure out. It was typical of all that RedHat/GNOME minimalist crap.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I totally agree! That's why I post report bugs whenever I can.
This is what us non-devs should be expected to do. If the program ask for bug reports (anonymize and) send it! If it's something important file a bug manually.
It is more likely the programmers would not be amused by a patch that didn't follow the internal culture.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
I am browsing slashdot while waiting for my installation of F18 right this minute. I have to admit that in most areas the installer is not that bad. Simple to use and free from clutter, forsaking the wizard for a central control console is quite appealing, especially given that it unifies all the options in a single place. I will, however, agree that there exists two or three glaring flaws in the installer to my mind, nl. the fact that you cannot easily choose the partitioning method of your selected installation drive, the fact that you are tied to seemingly arbitrary package selections instead of a more dynamic, 'choose which apps you want to install' option and the fact that you can only configure root password during the copy process. Other than these concerns I am finding the installer to be a joy to work with.
And you Linux weenies are still thinking about installers.
At the bottom of this article about how God-awful the interface is, I see an advertisement for Windows 8, the poster child for tablet-wannabe UI badness. "Develop for the Windows Store," it says, in white text against the same retina-searing shade of magenta I used to indicate transparency in all my game sprites because there's no way I could ever conceive of using that color. I thought to myself, how fitting that should appear on an article about top Linux distros following Windows into the abyss.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
On the other hand, sometimes projects use "submit the bug report in the proper format" as a way to filibuster the bug report, giving them an excuse to ignore it "because it's not in the proper format".
And then there are the cases where it's not clear whether something is a bug or poorly documented. I had this happen to me with a font problem on an old version of Openoffice; one setting wasn't affecting one font and I had no idea whether I had missed some obscure setting to change the font in that one place, or if it actually was a bug.
Users aren't complaining because they want to be whiny or difficult. They're complaining because they see a flaw. If you want your software to be widely accepted, listen. If your software is just coding for self satisfaction, and you don't care about user adoption, then don't listen.
The problem here is one person's flaw is another person's need, or want. It can drive a developer/programmer batty trying to satisfy everyone.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Even when both user and dev are programmers of the same skill level there's a huge gulf in knowledge. A 5 hour patch for the user might be a 5 minute job for a dev since they've already learned the code. So I generally use my dev skills to give a really good description of the problem and test cases. Usually the only times I write a patch are when it's a feature specifically for me, or I've gone into so much detail finding the bug I already found the fix.
It may be a specific case but when I hear or read others asking how to get experience programming frequently some replies are to see what bugs have been submitted to FOSS projects, pick one, and submit a patch to the project leaders.
I consider that to be a good contribution to the community and on projects I've managed in the past I really appreciated users who gave good bug reports.
I agree, however is there a documented methodology or procedure that is easy to find and use for those who want to submit bug reports? Of all the tymes I've read how users should submit bug reports I have not yet read how to submit these reports.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Even when both user and dev are programmers of the same skill level there's a huge gulf in knowledge. A 5 hour patch for the user might be a 5 minute job for a dev since they've already learned the code. So I generally use my dev skills to give a really good description of the problem and test cases. Usually the only times I write a patch are when it's a feature specifically for me, or I've gone into so much detail finding the bug I already found the fix.
It may be a specific case but when I hear or read others asking how to get experience programming frequently some replies are to see what bugs have been submitted to FOSS projects, pick one, and submit a patch to the project leaders.
And that's a great idea to gain programming experience, just realize that it's more of a way to learn programming than a way to make a big contribution, you basically need to find a bug that's easy to fix (so you can handle it), and not a lot of people care about (or someone else would have made the easy patch first).
The best bet is to find some little one or two dev project on SF or something (try a niche end user project like a podcast manager), there the code should be
easier to understand, the bugs should be easier to find and fix without side effects, and the work will be more important to the project since it's less likely to be an obscure function no-one uses.
I consider that to be a good contribution to the community and on projects I've managed in the past I really appreciated users who gave good bug reports.
I agree, however is there a documented methodology or procedure that is easy to find and use for those who want to submit bug reports? Of all the tymes I've read how users should submit bug reports I have not yet read how to submit these reports.
Falcon
Not entirely since every bug is different but the basic rule is make it as easy to reproduce as possible (I often try to start from the latest version of the app with a vanilla configuration then find the simplest way to recreate the issue). Including info like logs, versions, steps, configurations is always helpful, don't worry about including too much since the dev will generally know what's important and ignore the rest (or ask for the missing bits).
I stole this Sig
Even when both user and dev are programmers of the same skill level there's a huge gulf in knowledge. A 5 hour patch for the user might be a 5 minute job for a dev since they've already learned the code. So I generally use my dev skills to give a really good description of the problem and test cases. Usually the only times I write a patch are when it's a feature specifically for me, or I've gone into so much detail finding the bug I already found the fix.
It may be a specific case but when I hear or read others asking how to get experience programming frequently some replies are to see what bugs have been submitted to FOSS projects, pick one, and submit a patch to the project leaders.
And that's a great idea to gain programming experience, just realize that it's more of a way to learn programming than a way to make a big contribution, you basically need to find a bug that's easy to fix (so you can handle it), and not a lot of people care about (or someone else would have made the easy patch first).
The best bet is to find some little one or two dev project on SF or something (try a niche end user project like a podcast manager), there the code should be easier to understand, the bugs should be easier to find and fix without side effects, and the work will be more important to the project since it's less likely to be an obscure function no-one uses.
I don't have much experience programming myself but I've been thinking about trying my hand with CinePaint, a fork of GIMP with deep color editing. It used to be included in Ubuntu but when Debian dropped it so did Ubuntu and that's what I use now. I could try something easier but I want to do deep color editing of my photographs, and GIMP does not do that. The only other bit map graphics software that does deep color is Krita but it's lacking as a photo editor.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Why is providing feedback whining to you? I find it to be more helpful than random patches or other contributions.
Thing is, I don't want everyone and their brother submitting patches to a project I work on. I prefer the coding to be done by a core group of people I've vetted and know they are willing to maintain what they submit. I'd much rather get feedback to see if my ideas are headed in the right way my userbase wants it to be headed. Sure, I don't always go in that direction, but it's helpful to see what they want. And it way beats a poorly written patch submitted by someone who doesn't want to maintain it.
Do you want experienced people? How do they get that experience if not by programming? As I've heard or read and repeated myself a good way to get experience is by writing patches for FOSS projects.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
My time is worth $55/hr. Rather than wasting it translating an app into a foreign language that doesn't do what I want it to do anyway, I could just pay a couple of hours worth of my time to get something I want.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
This is exactly what gives Linux a bad name: revisiting something that worked before and really doesn't need to be ''improved", and then slinging in some glitzy pre-beta code and dropping it smack in the middle of a distribution channel for production code. That's something dumb that only hobbyists and amateurs do.
Distros are meant for people who don't want to waste their time tinkering with a ton of software that has already been sorted out. The installer on a Distro should 'just work', and work predictable and reproduceably.
There is some room for improvement on the Debian installer, as you generally have to sit through the whole thing since it asks you questions as it does things, instead of asking all the questions up front then allowing you to wander off while it does its thing unattended. Though it's not a huge deal as I don't have to install my OS that often and the Debian installer is pretty fast (ignoring network speed problems which isn't its fault).
I just got a new PC with Windows 7 and (non-secure) EFI booting. It seems like only Ubuntu-derived distros know how to set up to be booted on such a system. And it's kind of hit-and-miss with a lot of manual intervention required even at that. Apparently there are more hurdles involved with EFI than just 'turn off secure boot' - a lot more. And there is no consistency between firmware implementations, so no place to go to get a straightforward explanation of what to do. If you're struggling with this too, let me recommend rEFInd - not magic, but its author at least tries his darndest to explain why it's all so hard and what you can do about it. And it works (that helps).
I'm typing this on my MacBook which dual-boots, Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 12.04. I use rEFIt as the boot selector. With Snow Leopard already installed I only had one problem installing 64 bit 12.04. For some reason it would not install when I tried. So I tried installing 11.10 and it wouldn't install, then 11.04 didn't work either. Finally I got 10.10 to install. From there I upgraded to first 11.04, then 11.10, and finally to 12.04. But when I got it installed it was 32 bit not 64 bit. Just for the heck of it I inserted the 64 bit 12.04 DVD and tried again. This tyme it installed. So unless I used a different disk the second tyme than I used the first tyme and the first was bad, I don't know why it didn't work at first.
Anyway, I ended up with Mint
I may try Mint, with Cinnamon, MATE, KDE but I'm not sure. I plan on trying Arch Linux though, it includes software Debian based distros don't, CinePaint. As a photographer I want CinePaint, and GIMP does not cut it as a professional print photo editor.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Granted, it would be nice if the questions all came up front.
How has PC-BSD been dealing w/ the UEFI issue? Anything like Canonical or RedHat, or something else?
You have to acknowledge some of his points. Showing two identical disk names without any further distinction is retarded, there's just no way around it.
Not to mention that they were in reverse order, so good luck guessing it if you don't know this :p
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
But there are also users that don't want to learn, but just want to use.
And for such user to start installing a new OS he doesn't know and doesn't want to learn by himself is really, really stupid... You just want to use, no learning -> you hire someone to install it.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Sure, if you can do it without making it blow goats.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Seems to me like Linux has saboteurs in its midst. How else can crap like the F18 installer, systemd and gnome3 be explained? Is everyone a cell phone ADD dingbat? You WinDoze losers that don't know how Unix is supposed to work... GO AWAY. You are not wanted here! If this is the R&D for RedHat Enterprise, all I can say is... SELL YOUR REDHAT STOCK NOW!
Igor's review of Fedora 18 was done with a mindset to finding all the flaws, and blowing up the imporatance.
Fedora 18 anaconda is version 0.9, a brand new design, a design to cover hardware that Igor does not own. Hardware with UEFI, arm, and more.
I will be as polite as I can, but Igor's review is as useful as a tit on a bull.
If he said, My sytem is a 4gig computer, with dual core operating system and xxx gigs of diskspace, and I analyzed both the 32 and 64bit systems using both the DVD and the Live DVD versions, then, for me he has credabilty.
FYI, Fedora has spins, which means versions tailored for specific users.
I use a Russian Spin ( www.rpmfusion.org, paragraph Users, and select the Russian Spin). This spin has all the extra installed software that Igor wrote about, and more. It is a delight. This spin contains all the codecs, dvd player stuff, svn, and much more goodies. I took the gnome version, did the DVD installation for both 32 and 64bit systems where minimum memory available was 3.5gigs, and adequate disk space. In one evaluation I used btfrs, in another Standard. (anaconda disk usage options).
Once installed and following two updates using yum, I redid creating the grub.cfg file. That version of Fedora 18 32bit resides alongside Fedora 17, Ubuntu, Mint14 KDE and Debian KDE/Gnome.
I am not particularly thrilled with Gnome 3.x that comes with Fedora 18, so I installed and I am using Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a delight. As little as one mouse click to start an application or switch windows. With Gnome I used to suffer with Carpal Tunnel problems for the muscle controlling my forefinger always clicking the left mouse button.
Once installed, The Russian version of Fedora 18 is great. If you have an ATI card, there are built-in drivers.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Well if anyone's annoyed enough by linux you could try riscos...
It runs on the raspberry pi and is relatively quick.
Don't expect all the functionality that you get from windows and linux straight away.
They need more users and dev's too, and a nice bunch to boot.
Besides it's fun to try a new OS every once in awhile isn't it? Even if it isn't to your taste!
I'm so glad someone started this thread
I just tried the F18 Live installer the other day.and couldn't believe how bad it was.
The default download is the live desktop, and the graphical installer, provides no choices or control over disk partitioning.
It did fortunately use available space, and didn't seem to harm the existing partitions, but it didn't even tell me what it was going to attempt to do and ask for confirmation.
I just read Pappp's blog post on the future of Linux, http://www.pappp.net/?p=969 It has some valid points. I don't know if I will be using Fedora again.
For some reason the mentality is to make everything more basic and hide options we commonly use, so the new installer is definitely not like it was before. Big blocky icons and very slow, and less intuitive than the old installer because you are forced to click around all over and go in to steps and back to a main screen to look and double check what else needs to be done, in order to continue. The old installer guided the user through the steps in sequence. What also frustrated me is they even stripped out the ability to customize which packages can be installed, such as the graphics suite and other software. LibreOffice was listed, but many other titles were left out. This could be because they are not included on the DVD, I haven't checked. I've used GNU/Linux for almost 16 years and the graphical installers over the years have been changed before, but this one was by far more confusing and took a lot longer to figure out. I can see how it would take a new GNU/Linux user even longer and make them more discouraged and confused.
Thanks very much for at least sympathizing, you'd be surprised how many people don't! I did ask for help getting things running in the #freebsd channel but once I admitted I had made the "mistake" of buying a Windows PC with UEFI the most helpful answer I got was to "buy another computer," but in...less polite terms. I personally wish that I hadn't learned about UEFI in this manner but I'm glad that I know better now at least -- but there are still plenty of us out there who would like to try other options!
There's a "detail" link or something like that on that screen to show the actual device names (e.g. "/dev/sda"). It took a bit of wondering but I found it because I really really wanted to :-)
Thanks very much for at least sympathizing, you'd be surprised how many people don't!
:-( Yeah... it's a lot easier to "explain away" issues than actually try to help with them. From the point of view of the person "helping", it "solves" the problem. I see this kind of thinking a lot on LUG mailing lists -- it's frustrating.
I did ask for help getting things running in the #freebsd channel but once I admitted I had made the "mistake" of buying a Windows PC with UEFI the most helpful answer I got was to "buy another computer," but in...less polite terms.
Most hardware these says comes with UEFI (or soon will), but more to the point you cannot guarantee that you will be able to know whether the hardware comes with UEFI or not. And regardless, you own that hardware now, so telling you to buy new hardware isn't reasonable. I forget if FreeBSD requires a different solution than the Grub2 shim, but hopefully there's a solution for it soon too.
I personally wish that I hadn't learned about UEFI in this manner but I'm glad that I know better now at least -- but there are still plenty of us out there who would like to try other options!
I read about it before running into install trouble because of it, but all that does is remove the surprise factor. ;-)
Most leaders of open source software, like Linus Torvalds and Eric S. Raymond, think RMS is "out there", an extremist. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but always extreme. RMS most certainly does not represent most OSS programmers.
I am not speaking on behalf of ALL programmers, of course, but I think a) I represent a large portion (see ESR smart questions, which says the same things I said) and b) most of what I'm saying is simply fact. I said having a lot of non-contributors use my software does not BENEFIT me. That's true whether or not someone WANTS people to use my software. I could WANT it, but still it provides me no benefit - I can't eat download counts, I can't fill my gas tank with lusers.
Only in a very few extreme cases (perhaps a dozen programmers in the world), software that becomes radically popular might help the author achieve a level of popularity that will help them get a nice job. They still have to work the job to get the benefits of it, though. The popularity is only a help, and only in the rarest of cases, less than 1 programmer per million.
Bingo. You could actually pay for what you want, as I suggested in the line you quoted. We're not supposed to talk about that here, though. On Slashdot, you're supposed to steal software and anything else that can't be nailed down or chained up.
Please tell me what projects are you working with, I don't want to "freeload" your shit. Seriously.
As noted higher in the thread, the Linux kernel, Apache and PowerDNS are a few examples. See also Eric S. Raymond's body of work - he has said pretty much the same thing I'm saying - that's great if you find our work useful. We give it to you so it'll be useful to YOU, though. Having you use it isn't generally helpful to US, so being a user doesn't mean you have a leash on me and can demand that I help you with your problem, on your timetable.