Pigsflew.com

Here we go. Remember my evaluation list? Here’s the first set: what i’ve done so far.

1.) Install must be relatively comprehensive and easily usable, though not necessarily at the expense of options.

The installer for Fedora Core 5 included an X application that automated the entire install process. Going through it was very intuitive and incredibly easy, and you could easily go deep into the exact configuration if you wanted to, but it was not necessary.

Upon its completion however, I ran into my first problem. Grub didn’t install correctly. Now, I’ve said before that Ubuntu was running on my machine. It’s the same machine, the only difference in configuration since then is the graphics card. Ubuntu’s installer could figure it out. It strikes me as not just weird, but retarded that the Fedora Core 5 installer would fail to. Three times. I followed everything i could find on this problem. Finally I went to the Linux Users Group on campus, who gave me a few options, and then said my best bet, if it couldn’t install Grub correctly, was to use the Windows boot.ini file to configure the ntloader so I could boot from linux with that.

That was actually very easy, once I found a good tutorial.

For the installer, FC5 gets a C+. I had to hack Windows to get you to boot.

2.) Connect to the int4rw3b easily and reliably. Under this category I’m also going to try to test a few wireless managers with my 128-bit WEP secured wireless-g router. This is broad, so will become further defined within a review.

I have not yet tested Wireless. I wasn’t really concerned about wired internet connection anyway, but it is reliable. Grade (at current): A.

However: I really wish they’d package Thunderbird with the operating system in addition to Evolution. On the install DVD were the Konqueror browser (for use with KDE) as well as Firefox, so why not include both mail clients too? Also, Gaim didn’t include all the plugins I use–most notably, the one that allows placing the most recent conversation history into the next chat window. Just minor annoyances really, it’s no big deal to reinstall Gaim and install Thunderbird, they just struck me as unnecessary cuts from an otherwise complete desktop internet package.

3.) Ease of adjusting settings, particularly:

* Video settings/Graphics settings
This was the second blockade I ran into: There is no .rpm packaged nvidia driver for the FC5 kernel. There is one for FC4, but not FC5. Why? I have no idea. Also, when attempting to run the shellscript provided by NVidia to do the install, I found that my user is not in the Sudoers file (so i had to login as root), and it had to be run outside of X (so i had to shut down KDE/Gnome), and it doesn’t work anyway (So I’m still not using my graphics card, until I fix it.)

Saying that bothered me would be like saying I like getting punched in the face.

* Sound settings
Sure. Standard onboard sound card works great. I’m not really a sound buff, so I don’t have the latest in audio technology. I kinda expected this to be fine.

* Permissions
Permissions tab in the properties dialog for any item in Gnome, similar setup for KDE. Works fine.

Anybody notice that the Gnome browser is really… really simple? Konqueror is much nicer because it provides an addressbar by default and has all the nifty things I’ve come to expect from Windows Explorer. I do kinda like that the gnome one doesn’t browse the internet. That separation is good. I just wish it did more… exploring. Context menus, left hand side bar, that sort of thing. It may be available, but i haven’t found any options to speak of, much less options to turn that on. Wait a minute. Found it. File browser. Wow, that’s not at all intuitive.

* Printer Setup/Options
A complete and total breeze. Thank God for HP.

Also under this category I’d like to rate the completeness of design, i.e., Could I come to expect where I would find things and how things would be laid out and be correct?
For the most part, yes. In both KDE and Gnome.

Grade in this area: C+.

4.) Ease of installation/removal of software and packages, as well as how is the installation structure handled

Yum is alright. Not really better or worse than apt-get. The graphical interface to yum could learn a lot from Synaptic though. Grade: B

5.) My drives should just work. I’d like to not have to mount cd-rom drives. I don’t mind having to mount a floppy drive because I can’t see a reasonable way around it, but it should be done from within GUI. Similarly, simple USB devices should be automatically mounted.

Inserting a cd now. There it is! Beautiful. Although when I eject with the hardware button it doesn’t eject, I have to eject from software, which is kinda annoying.

I don’t have a floppy or usb drive to mount, but i’d assume it works swimmingly. My Wireless USB Keyboard is quite happy. I plugged in my control pad, but I can’t find a list of devices… and none of the games that came with it have joystick/pad support. I may revisit this later, if I try installing another game. That’s after i have graphics support, too.

Grade: A-

Overal Grade: B-

I’ve heard some news about Ubuntu, on top of using the installs of Breezy in the school’s Open Source Lab that make that sound more attractive than it was before. Much more attractive. So I’m making this stipulation: Ubuntu’s next stable release, Dapper, comes out in July. when that happens, if I’m not all set in FC5, I’m switching back. If by that time I do have to switch back, I may never look at Red Hat distros again.

However, this foray back into the world of Linux has caused a bit of my previous ire to melt. I think i actually like some of it. I just wish it would all work.

-out

I had a dream. It involved Mikah… started with a phone call, where basically we were both top students in our respective fields, and there was an awkward moment where we both said “Kudos” to each other, and then suddenly we were in the same room, and we were on this team of somethings, super hero-like, and then came the Power rangers who started swapping members with our team. Most memorable line was:
Teamie in Blue (Swapping to the Power Rangers): “At least I’ll get to wear colors other than blue.” (Suddenly realizes he’s the blue ranger now) “Aw, shit. I hate you guys, all of you all suck.”

Yes. I don’t get it either.

In other news, Mitali, you’re officially a “Civilian Heavy Transport Operator” or “Pilot” if you wish. My roommate and I were discussing euphamisms after we finished a conversation about “Personal Data Assistants”, during which we decided that we could handle the way you held them, but we didn’t like when people just go turning them on at the drop of the hat, and especially the way people touch the screen with the stylus. In fact, we’re just not fond of the user interface.

I love euphamisms.

And to complete the vicious circle, I’m posting this from my Fedora Core 5 installation. I have some initial feelings:
1.) Grub didn’t install right. Apparently I’m not the only one to have this issue. I decided to leave the windows bootloader and modify boot.ini in windows to load linux. There’s a decent tutorial for this here. It covers the use of bootpart.exe, which turned out to be an invaluable program during this process.
2.) FC5 takes a while to boot. Longer than Windows XP. I installed just a basic install with office/productivity software only, and then upon installation added some server software and development software, and either way it boots pretty slowly. Then you get to the user manager and the desktop environment takes more time to load. I’m thinking it may be a product of the second hard drive though, I’m not sure if it’s a slower rpm drive.
3.) I started using KDE this morning, and have decided I like it more than Gnome, if only because of the menu. Someone was telling me it’s closer to acting like windows… they’re right.
4.) The default font size for menus is too big, and too bold. I’ll figure out how to change that soon enough. Once i’ve figured out how to make it look like what i want, i’ll start in on making it do what i want.

Junk n’ Funk!