Hello one and all!
Well, I know I said that I would be back here last week but well with Christmas and everything it just got a bit hectic. That said, I feel it is time for me to really voice all the frustrations I have had with Fedora 16. I have to say this has been one of the most useless and poorly conceived distro any of the majors (except maybe for Ubuntu I don't know about them I have never used them) have ever produced. Here are a few reasons why.
First and right of the bat...... GET THE HELL OF ANACONDA AS AN INSTALLER!
It is useless and overly complicated o and by the way IT NEVER WORKS! I have installed Linux Mint, OpenSuse, and CrunchBang most in both 32bit and 64 bit and none, that's right, none, of them have ever given me as much trouble as Fedora and Anaconda.
Secondly, I have installed Fedora 13, 14, 15 and have attempted 16, the latest incarnatio. 16, for what ever reason does not install a boot loader on efi machines. What the hell! yes I know that most people dual boot and have to play around with boot loading but surely if I select the "use entire disk space" button that means that I want a fresh install of EVERYTHING on my computer, including the boot loader. All the other versions have done this, why not 16?
Thirdly, I have an older desktop which has 32bit architecture. So, by logical deduction I Download and burn the 32 bit fedora. Guess what? IT IS NOT A BOOTABLE DVD! I don't use Windows and would like to be able to install straight from disk. It is faster, has more options and gives me the ability to really customise the packages included in the distribution. Did I have that option? No!
Now I should admit that both times I tried to use the DVD full install and not the Live CD. These may have worked better but I prefer the DVD, as I said, because it really gives me the full option of choice when customising the distro.
So there you have it both the 64 and 32 bit versions of Fedora either wouldn't boot or wouldn't install a boot loader. So I have gone back to good ole reliable OpenSuse. I think for the forseeable future I will be staying with them to as they provide really stable distros and have an installer, YaST, that is both easy to use and allows for a highly customised distro and install pattern, it also has intelligence and detects both my windows and home partitions and installs around them, AND WORKS EVERY TIME!
I don't know what the guys at the Fedora project are doing and I have to say that the Fedora 13 box I use as a server has been so strong, It regularly has 100+ days of uptime and it still runs strong, especially on the old pentium 3 that it is on. This latest incarnation however has been a major disappointment. I was looking forward to trying out the latest and greatest but have had to go back to ole reliable because at the very least I need a bootable machine, and I mean really is that so much to ask? I can handle most other problems and am willing to deal with them for the latest and greatest, but to stuff up the installer? What the hell?
So there you have it, my experience, or lack thereof, with Fedora 16. Thanks guys, you have done such a wonderful....... o sorry that was the OpenSuse people. Seriously, you guys need to get your act together for the next release because if crap like this keeps happening you will see your ranking fall.
Anyways thats my little rant for the day, Coming at ya from my OpenSuse Macbook! Talk soon guys and as always, comments, criticisms and suggestions are always welcome.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Not much to talk about this week
Hey Guys,
Well there isn't really much to update tech wise this week as everything has been chugging along fine, although sound on the Desktop does occasionally just decide that life is not worth living and completely dies. Amarok also sometimes decides it doesn't like Daap for some unknown reason.... all good a restart normally fixes the problem just a bit annoying that's all. So I have moved most sound applications over to the laptop which is still chugging along strong. The wireless just occasionally decides it doesn't like my router, but loves the internet out of the phone. I chock that up to a broadcom update that happened recently though and it doesn't always happen so god knows what that is.
anyways...... since there isn't much happening tech wise for me at the moment..... maybe I should just distro hop for the fun of it... but it's so nice having a stable desktop built on the strength of Linux. meh.
It's also been a pretty big week for me personally as I have managed to graduate from Uni and secure a job so the tech stuff has fallen a bit to the way side.
Although I do think this week I may very well reinstall dos box and get back to the original prince of Persia and the first duke nukem 3d which have always been favorites of mine and run really well under dos box.
So in summary
Nothing really happened in tech for me because life happened. just some annoying bugs which have required work arounds.
So I will endeavor to do something slightly more interesting for next weeks post
As usual , comments, suggestions and criticisms are encourages, also if you have any ideas about things I should try under opensuse please comment and let me know.
Talk Soon!
Well there isn't really much to update tech wise this week as everything has been chugging along fine, although sound on the Desktop does occasionally just decide that life is not worth living and completely dies. Amarok also sometimes decides it doesn't like Daap for some unknown reason.... all good a restart normally fixes the problem just a bit annoying that's all. So I have moved most sound applications over to the laptop which is still chugging along strong. The wireless just occasionally decides it doesn't like my router, but loves the internet out of the phone. I chock that up to a broadcom update that happened recently though and it doesn't always happen so god knows what that is.
anyways...... since there isn't much happening tech wise for me at the moment..... maybe I should just distro hop for the fun of it... but it's so nice having a stable desktop built on the strength of Linux. meh.
It's also been a pretty big week for me personally as I have managed to graduate from Uni and secure a job so the tech stuff has fallen a bit to the way side.
Although I do think this week I may very well reinstall dos box and get back to the original prince of Persia and the first duke nukem 3d which have always been favorites of mine and run really well under dos box.
So in summary
Nothing really happened in tech for me because life happened. just some annoying bugs which have required work arounds.
So I will endeavor to do something slightly more interesting for next weeks post
As usual , comments, suggestions and criticisms are encourages, also if you have any ideas about things I should try under opensuse please comment and let me know.
Talk Soon!
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Update on my complete Linux switch
Hey Guys just a quick update on how the complete linux experience has been working out for me.
Firstly, I don't know what the Linux Mint team did with their latest round of updates but it DOES NOT work on a Macbook pro 5,5 from early 2009. it got to the point where every time I restarted after the upgrade the network card would hang the boot process and I couldn't get into the OS. I know I probably should have stuck at it to try and find the problem like a good Linux enthusiast but after nearly a week of tearing my hair out over it I decided to give OpenSuse 12.1 a try on the macbook because it has been SOOOOO stable on my 7 year old desktop.
So I go ahead and install the 64 bit version of OpenSuse KDE on the mac book and so far I am incredibly happy. My only gripe is their implementation of the open source Gallium driver (which I prefer to use because it is better integrated into the kernel than the proprietry Nvidia drivers, and actually does things automatically instead of having to manually tell it to do everything, seriously who doesn't auto detect new monitors any more?) seems to hang the computer on every time it resumes from RAM. Don't know why, but changing to the proprietry Nvidia drivers fixed it.
On the proprietary note, OpenSuse has to provide some of the easiest access to Proprietary Drivers of any distro, Mint and Ubuntu do it well but I think the one click install from the web that OpenSuse use is much better. Firstly, this method forces new users to determine that there is a missing driver that explains why there hardware either isn't working, or not working correctly. I think this is really important as, in my opinion, the whole point of moving to Linux is to become better acquainted with the inner workings of a computer. Secondly, when you do find the answer (and seriously it's not that hard) it works! I think it's a great way to both get users use to googling there problems (which is vital if you're going to use Linux) and trusting the answers when they do find them.
So after very little effort I have a very stable install, that doesn't hang on boot, and is doing everything I need it to, well!
It also means I have completely moved away from gnome shell in favour of KDE 4.7.x thus far it runs very smoothly on the mac and looks very nice. It's a little jumpy on the desktop but I chock this up to the ancient video card that is attached to it, I hope to upgrade it soon which will hopefully improve the problem. Having said that KDE is running fine it just has a few rendering problems and is a bit jumpy but it in no way makes it unusable.
I don't really use any KDE specific apps, I tried KMail but thunderbird, for me, is just so much more user friendly and after you have done 7 or 8 reinstalls in a week you do not want to sit there and try to determine exactly how signatures and all of that are meant to be implemented when it takes me a grand total of 30 seconds to set up in thunderbird. I've never really used Konqueror and like most I jump in favor of chrome because I have chrome sync I don't have to set up the browser with all my favourites, apps etc, i just tell it my google ID and poof, it's all there, which is very handy. I do use Dolphin as my primary file manager and it seems to handle everything I need admirably, I particularly enjoy the quick access to sudo.
There is one bizarre thing I will point out. I installed opensuse off of the live CD on my desktop and when I finally got round to setting up the network printer I discovered that the OpenSuse Live CD doesn't install any HP libraries, this rendered the HP printer unusable. Now again, this is a very easy fix but it just seems bizarre to me that such a small file that gives you plug and play access to the vast majority of printers around the world didn't come by default in the live environment. They were there in the DVD but that doesn't have a live environment. However, once they were installed setting up a network printer was a simple press of a few buttons. If your interested in a how to please comment and I will post one at a later date.
Anyways, there you have it a quick update on what has happened in the last week. I now use OpenSuse on all my client computers and fedora 13 on the server. They are all integrating very smoothly and thus far I am very happy with the set up.
As always, if you have any suggestions, criticisms or opinions please feel free to comment below.
Talk soon!
Firstly, I don't know what the Linux Mint team did with their latest round of updates but it DOES NOT work on a Macbook pro 5,5 from early 2009. it got to the point where every time I restarted after the upgrade the network card would hang the boot process and I couldn't get into the OS. I know I probably should have stuck at it to try and find the problem like a good Linux enthusiast but after nearly a week of tearing my hair out over it I decided to give OpenSuse 12.1 a try on the macbook because it has been SOOOOO stable on my 7 year old desktop.
So I go ahead and install the 64 bit version of OpenSuse KDE on the mac book and so far I am incredibly happy. My only gripe is their implementation of the open source Gallium driver (which I prefer to use because it is better integrated into the kernel than the proprietry Nvidia drivers, and actually does things automatically instead of having to manually tell it to do everything, seriously who doesn't auto detect new monitors any more?) seems to hang the computer on every time it resumes from RAM. Don't know why, but changing to the proprietry Nvidia drivers fixed it.
On the proprietary note, OpenSuse has to provide some of the easiest access to Proprietary Drivers of any distro, Mint and Ubuntu do it well but I think the one click install from the web that OpenSuse use is much better. Firstly, this method forces new users to determine that there is a missing driver that explains why there hardware either isn't working, or not working correctly. I think this is really important as, in my opinion, the whole point of moving to Linux is to become better acquainted with the inner workings of a computer. Secondly, when you do find the answer (and seriously it's not that hard) it works! I think it's a great way to both get users use to googling there problems (which is vital if you're going to use Linux) and trusting the answers when they do find them.
So after very little effort I have a very stable install, that doesn't hang on boot, and is doing everything I need it to, well!
It also means I have completely moved away from gnome shell in favour of KDE 4.7.x thus far it runs very smoothly on the mac and looks very nice. It's a little jumpy on the desktop but I chock this up to the ancient video card that is attached to it, I hope to upgrade it soon which will hopefully improve the problem. Having said that KDE is running fine it just has a few rendering problems and is a bit jumpy but it in no way makes it unusable.
I don't really use any KDE specific apps, I tried KMail but thunderbird, for me, is just so much more user friendly and after you have done 7 or 8 reinstalls in a week you do not want to sit there and try to determine exactly how signatures and all of that are meant to be implemented when it takes me a grand total of 30 seconds to set up in thunderbird. I've never really used Konqueror and like most I jump in favor of chrome because I have chrome sync I don't have to set up the browser with all my favourites, apps etc, i just tell it my google ID and poof, it's all there, which is very handy. I do use Dolphin as my primary file manager and it seems to handle everything I need admirably, I particularly enjoy the quick access to sudo.
There is one bizarre thing I will point out. I installed opensuse off of the live CD on my desktop and when I finally got round to setting up the network printer I discovered that the OpenSuse Live CD doesn't install any HP libraries, this rendered the HP printer unusable. Now again, this is a very easy fix but it just seems bizarre to me that such a small file that gives you plug and play access to the vast majority of printers around the world didn't come by default in the live environment. They were there in the DVD but that doesn't have a live environment. However, once they were installed setting up a network printer was a simple press of a few buttons. If your interested in a how to please comment and I will post one at a later date.
Anyways, there you have it a quick update on what has happened in the last week. I now use OpenSuse on all my client computers and fedora 13 on the server. They are all integrating very smoothly and thus far I am very happy with the set up.
As always, if you have any suggestions, criticisms or opinions please feel free to comment below.
Talk soon!
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