The Fedora Craptacular

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.