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graysonf
MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

graysonf

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Alan Cox Calls Fedora 18 "The Worst Red Hat Distro"

See the article for what he really thinks.

»www.phoronix.com/scan.ph ··· =MTI4MjI

Ryan
Premium Member
join:2001-03-03
Boston, MA

Ryan

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Re: Alan Cox Calls Fedora 18 "The Worst Red Hat Distro"

Yea, I went through one of the worst upgrade experiences I think I have ever had, or at least have had in a long time. With that said after my work desktop was made unbootable I did a fresh install and even then just starting fedora took forever. Enough was enough and switched over to kubuntu + kde backports. I am pretty happy for now anyway.

rexbinary
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rexbinary to graysonf

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to graysonf
I am installing it in a VM right now first to see how it installs and runs. This is the first time I have not just cleaned installed on my main Fedora machines the latest version with no looking back. I can say so far I am in the crowd that doesn't like the new installer at all. It's possible I may skip this release for 19, we'll see how it goes though.

graysonf
MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

graysonf

MVM

Smart move on the VM.

koitsu
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join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

1 recommendation

koitsu to graysonf

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to graysonf
I found irony in the fact that the same man who's bitching about Red Hat distros worked there for 10 years (until 2009); ouroboros, if you will.

No, I'm not saying he's just sore at his old employer. I'm saying there's a fairly good chance he probably had some say in thing X or thing Y while there, especially given how long he's been involved in the Linux kernel. And yeah, a distro consists of a lot more than just a kernel, but if the kernel developers don't like a distro, they're the ones who are most likely to put pressure on the underlying devs to do something about whatever is broken or badly designed.

nwrickert
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join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL

nwrickert to graysonf

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to graysonf
I installed Fedora 18 yesterday.

The new installer sucks.

That might be the last time I ever do a test install of Fedora.

For example, I downloaded that big DVD image to use in the install. Then I installed Fedora KDE. I'm pretty sure that firefox is somewhere on that install DVD, but there was no way to select it for installing.

I gave my computer a hostname during the install. But it isn't that hostname. It is using a somewhat random hostname provided by my router over DHCP. I haven't been able to find where to change it.

Biggest problem of all - I have opensuse on the same computer. After installing Fedora 18, my opensuse was inaccessible. Sure, I knew how to get it back, but the installer shouldn't do that to me.

I'm tempted to call the "the ubuntufication of Fedora."

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
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join:2002-11-04
Tallahassee, FL

Maxo

Premium Member

said by nwrickert:

I'm pretty sure that firefox is somewhere on that install DVD, but there was no way to select it for installing.
...
I gave my computer a hostname during the install. But it isn't that hostname.
...
Biggest problem of all - I have opensuse on the same computer. After installing Fedora 18, my opensuse was inaccessible.
...
I'm tempted to call the "the ubuntufication of Fedora."

Huh? None of those problems exist in an Ubuntu install. Firefox is installed by default, the hostname you select is used, and all other installed OSes are detected and immediately bootable into after the installation is finished.

graysonf
MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

graysonf

MVM

Well, it didn't stop with AC bitching out Fedora:

»linux.slashdot.org/story ··· elopment

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
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Maxo to graysonf

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to graysonf
I couldn't get it to install on VirtualBox 4.2.6. It tried to start and then said "Oh No! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please contact a system administrator."

nwrickert
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join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL

nwrickert

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said by Maxo:

I couldn't get it to install on VirtualBox 4.2.6. It tried to start and then said "Oh No! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please contact a system administrator."

I had something similar when installing to a real machine.

An early screen listed two network interfaces, and said that I needed one for updates. So I selected the wifi interface. Then it presented a screen for me to enter the SSID and key. While I was typing in the SSID it crashed with a message similar to what you describe.

I plugged in an ethernet cable, and restarted the install. I didn't even get that screen. Presumably, it was happy with the ethernet connection.

chrisretusn
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join:2007-08-13
Philippines

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chrisretusn to nwrickert

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to nwrickert
I just installed the KDE version, Firefox is not part of the install. You have to install it via Software Management. My install on an Sony Vaio laptop went OK though it was painfully slow particularly after the install and installing the 300+ updates.

I also installed the standard GNOME 3 version on the same laptop, that install went OK too.

Both installs use the whole laptop, no other OS install, gave Fedora the whole enchilada.

So far I wouldn't call it the worst but it definitely is not the best. I am probably not going to stay with it on that laptop.

Edit: Forgot to mention these were 64-bit versions of Fedora.
chrisretusn

chrisretusn to Maxo

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to Maxo
I got both the KDE and GNOME 3 Fedora 18's to install on VirtualBox with no problems. I did up the memory from the default 768 to 2048 and made the hard drive 16G instead of 8GB. With the GNOME install I kept the default NAT, with KDE I went with Bridged.

Edit: Forgot to mention these were 64-bit versions of Fedora.

nwrickert
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nwrickert to chrisretusn

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to chrisretusn
said by chrisretusn:

I just installed the KDE version, Firefox is not part of the install. You have to install it via Software Management.

Yes, that works and I have already done it. But it should be selectable as part of the original install.

I then setup "sshd_config" to only allow public-key authentication. Then, when I tried to login, I discovered that SELinux is blocking access to 'ssh/authorized_keys'. Yes, the message says how to change that. But it is a ridiculous default setting.

I installed "ecryptfs". After my next login, I checked, and the ecryptfs private directory was not mounted. It seems that SELinux is blocking that, too. The command "ecryptfs-mount-private" does work, but the attempt to do that via PAM is failing and generating SELinux messages.

ImpldConsent
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·Comcast XFINITY

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Click for full size
Quck screenshot
Installer sucks but installed easy on VBox 4.2.6 (4GB/25GB). Interesting. Can't tell much without hammering it.
ImpldConsent

ImpldConsent to graysonf

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to graysonf
Holy WinDoze... 200MB update ... with a mandatory reboot.

spacce
join:2001-10-20
Mobile, AL

spacce to graysonf

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to graysonf
i installed it a few days ago and the installing was "bulky" in my opinion.. of course though i haven't installed previous versions or CentOS , but I did not like the install at all.. though..

rexbinary
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to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:

said by chrisretusn:

I just installed the KDE version, Firefox is not part of the install. You have to install it via Software Management.

Yes, that works and I have already done it. But it should be selectable as part of the original install.

Firefox was available for me at install, but I also enabled network install. I always do this when I install Fedora so I don't have to patch afterwards.

Maxo
Your tax dollars at work.
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Tallahassee, FL

Maxo to chrisretusn

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to chrisretusn
said by chrisretusn:

I got both the KDE and GNOME 3 Fedora 18's to install on VirtualBox with no problems.

It must be something specific with my work laptop. I gave it 2 gigs of RAM, 64 mega of video ram, and 40G of hard drive space all on the latest release of Virtualbox, 4.2.6. This is a 64-bit machine with a quad-core Intel I7 processor and virtualization turned on in the bios. The host OS is Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit.
I'm going to try again on my home PC.

rexbinary
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rexbinary to graysonf

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Well after installing it into a VM I didn't have any real issues at all other then I just dislike the installer. This weekend I'll update my Netbook from 17 to 18 and see how it goes. Clean install of course, retaining my home directory. Fedora has never been a disto you simply upgrade.

chrisretusn
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chrisretusn to nwrickert

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to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:

said by chrisretusn:

I just installed the KDE version, Firefox is not part of the install. You have to install it via Software Management.

Yes, that works and I have already done it. But it should be selectable as part of the original install.

Why? The only browser I prefer is Firefox and yes I was was annoyed that Firefox was not available but, it is Fedora KDE and KDE comes with Konqueror. Now on the GNOME install, Firefox is installed as your default browser.

nwrickert
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nwrickert

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said by chrisretusn:

Why? The only browser I prefer is Firefox and yes I was was annoyed that Firefox was not available but, it is Fedora KDE and KDE comes with Konqueror.

That's a good reason why selecting KDE shouldn't automatically select firefox.

But that's beside the point.

The main point is that I already downloaded the DVD, and firefox is part of what I downloaded. It should be available as an option extra selection when installing from the DVD.

Otherwise, stop producing DVD images and require installing from the live KDE distribution.

rexbinary
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rexbinary

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said by nwrickert:

The main point is that I already downloaded the DVD, and firefox is part of what I downloaded. It should be available as an option extra selection when installing from the DVD.

Indeed!

chrisretusn
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chrisretusn to nwrickert

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to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:

The main point is that I already downloaded the DVD, and firefox is part of what I downlo

Well OK, I can sort of see your point. That said, what stopping you from opening the DVD and installing the package from there?

Should all of the packages on the DVD be available as on option extra selection?

The way I see it the DVD is there to give you some choices, mostly related to desktop environment. Additionally the Firefox version on the DVD is 17.0.1, so the more up to date version will still have to be downloaded.

I'd say it's pretty well explained here: »docs.fedoraproject.org/e ··· x86.html - 9.9.Software Selection

nwrickert
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nwrickert

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said by chrisretusn:

Should all of the packages on the DVD be available as on option extra selection?

The old installer (as in Fedora 17) was a lot more flexible.

The new installer is an unwarranted dumbing down.

rexbinary
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Well I decided after a few installation runs of Fedora 18 into a VM that I would tackle my real systems. I always clean install Fedora while retaining my /home directory.

I did this on both my desktop and netbook, and I had no real issues. I did have to use system-config-date to change the system time from UTC to Local time, as both systems dual-boot Windows. This issue is listed in the F18 Common Bugs.

»fedoraproject.org/wiki/C ··· ure_this

The installer is awful, but I manged to use it. Installed the proprietary Nvidia drivers from RPMFusion on my desktop with no problem. I also took this opportunity to move from Gnome 3 to KDE on both systems.

graysonf
MVM
join:1999-07-16
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graysonf

MVM

said by rexbinary:

The installer is awful....

One of the few replies that used a single word for it, even shorter that AC's 'useless.'

Selenia
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said by Ryan:

Yea, I went through one of the worst upgrade experiences I think I have ever had, or at least have had in a long time. With that said after my work desktop was made unbootable I did a fresh install and even then just starting fedora took forever. Enough was enough and switched over to kubuntu + kde backports. I am pretty happy for now anyway.

You and AC just wait for any major upgrades. There is a reason I am a vocal hater of Ubuntu distros. Not just the bloat/lackluster compiling(especially for i686 packages), commercialization, and general slowness in comparison to almost any other distro(including even Fedora and OpenSuse). When you push that dist-upgrade, hold on tight!! This is the only distro that left me with critical errors, or worse, an unbootable system after a major version upgrade. This is even with only stock repositories enabled(third party get disabled anyways). Laughable you have to burn a CD/DVD/USB stick just to push an error-free upgrade that should not require this. I been pushing Debian upgrades to a server for years. Only downtime it's had was upgrading and the reboot after. You can't even trust Ubuntu to come back online after that's done(your network might break or the whole system might). Would like to see if AC still thinks
Fedora is the worst after a few months with Ubuntu.
Selenia

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said by spacce:

i installed it a few days ago and the installing was "bulky" in my opinion.. of course though i haven't installed previous versions or CentOS , but I did not like the install at all.. though..

CentOS installs quick and painless. Both are RedHat based, but Fedora seeks a home on the desktop, while CentOS seeks a home on the server. Thus, a CentOS install tends to be minimal, by default.
Selenia

Selenia to rexbinary

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I always install Debian that way. I am surprised Fedora offers a Wifi option for install. Usually an installer loads minimal drivers. Debian is wired only for a net install. If that seems to be Fedora's main installer issue, people need to stop being lazy and just plug it in

chrisretusn
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chrisretusn to nwrickert

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to nwrickert
said by nwrickert:

said by chrisretusn:

Should all of the packages on the DVD be available as on option extra selection?

The old installer (as in Fedora 17) was a lot more flexible.

The new installer is an unwarranted dumbing down.

I do agree the new installer needs work. I don't think it's all that bad though. There are a far worse installers out there.