Andrew Healey's Blog » fedora http://halfloaded.com Smash forehead on keyboard to continue... Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:11:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Fedora 11 Beta: First Reactions http://halfloaded.com/blog/fedora-11-beta-first-reactions/ http://halfloaded.com/blog/fedora-11-beta-first-reactions/#comments Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:22:39 +0000 Andrew http://halfloaded.com/?p=288 It seems like just yesterday that I got home from Iraq and refreshed my laptop (Dell Latitude D610).  I ran Fedora 8 the entire time I was in Habbaniyah.  After getting home, I was excited to get a chance to skip 9 and go right to Fedora 10.  I didn’t use it long before I got a new laptop (Dell Latitude D630).  Linux never made it on the new laptop.  After I read a review of Fedora 11 Beta, I figured it was worth a shot.  I downloaded Gparted LiveCD, opened up 20GB of space and popped in the DVD.  I split this posting into three sections: the good, the mediocre and the ugly.

The Good

Sprint Cellular Broadband Card: God Bless NetworkManager.  No reboot.  No installation.  I just plugged it into my running machine and it worked like a champ.  In fact, I’m using it now since my broadcom wireless card isn’t working.

Performance: This thing rocks.  It is probably because the drastic changes going from a single-core, 32-bit proc to dual-core 64-bit.  But, this thing is snappy!

Ext4: First major distro using this as default.  Congrats Fedora Team!

The Mediocre

Gnash/swfdec: I wish these two would just join forces and develop a kick ass, open-source flash player.  I decided to go with swfdec.  64-bit, mozilla-plugin. Adobe can kiss my ass.

PackageKit: This software just annoys me.  I understand its purpose but yumex is and always has been a better solution.  I guess I am a bit biased though since I am not a beginner.

The Ugly

Installation: The installer can’t seem to figure out how to eject the DVD and pukes at the end.

Wallpaper/Background: It is just ugly.  Now, I couldn’t design anything nicer but all I wanted to do was change the desktop background and never see it again.

Firefox: Firefox is great.  However, I am a habitual text highlighter.  The entire system locks up when I drag text a little bit on accident from within Firefox.

Broadcom/Nvidia: Can’t really blame this on Fedora but these drivers are still an issue.  I can’t get either of them to work.

Conclusion

What can I say?  I heart Fedora.  This seems to be the least stable beta release I have tried yet but I think it is because they are pushing the envelope.  I like to see it too.  Fedora is consistently trying new things and experimenting.  It is good for the community and OSS movement.

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