rkl
2004-07-17, 03:57 AM CDT
Finally got around to burning the DVD ISO image of FC3T1 and installing it on my standard test partition. Here's some quick thoughts for folks out there:
* DVD ISO confusingly has a volume name of "FC-2 i386", because F3CT1 is versioned (yes, also confusingly) as "2.90". It's especially bewildering when you do a media check and it says "Checking Fedora Core 2 DVD" :)
* Installer's not changed much, except for the "Firewall Configuration" section where SELinux is enabled by default. Sadly, the help text down the left isn't "enabled" to actually describe what SELinux does, so I guess that'll have to wait for FC3T2. The help text also hasn't been adjusted to reflect the changed firewall options either. Needless to say, I installed with SELinux disabled - I might be braver with FC3T2 and try an enabled install for that release.
* Didn't like them using "hiddenmenu" in /etc/grub.conf by default - it gives a much less professional/pretty impression to grub if you ask me. I took it out straight away - this is something they should revert back, IMHO.
* Didn't seem to get prompted for monitor/X settings until the first reboot and even then, it wouldn't let me go above 800x600 (I have an Nvidia Geforce 4 MX 460, which is happy at 1280x1024). Had to copy my xorg.conf from FC2 and install the Nvidia 3D drivers to fix that problem.
* Still way too many services enabled for a "desktop" or "workstation" config. "chkconfig --list | grep on" comes back with *32* of them, half of which aren't really needed.
* openmotif2.1 seems to have quietly been dropped from the FC3T1 release (FC3T1 ships only with 2.2.X). This means that RealPlayer9 RPM floating around the Net can't be easily installed (yes, I guess I could install FC2's openmotif2.1 RPM and cross my fingers...). I say "quietly", BTW, because the Release Notes make no mention of this omission at all.
* Sadly, Firefox didn't make it into FC3T1 in time. It desperately needs to be in there, along with Thunderbird, which is also missing. At least it does ship with Mozilla 1.7, but FC3 final is going to beautifully time with the release of Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0, so really they have to be in the FC3 test releases ASAP. One hopes, it will be the default "Web browser" for FC3 Final - a quick hack to htmlview is all that's needed really.
* OK, where's OpenOffice 1.1.2 ?!! Can't believe FC3T1 still ships with 1.1.1 :(
* Update: I spotted this but thought I was wrong (maybe I hadn't checked "Kernel Development"? But it turns out I had...) - "kernel-sourcecode" is not installed, even if "Kernel Development" is selected - someone else confirmed this (http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2004-July/msg00260.html), so I wasn't dreaming...
Initial impression conclusion: Not different enough from FC2 to warrant an upgrade. Some omissions and non-updates mean that the only "advance" here is the move to kernel 2.6.7, which for most people won't be that important. In other words, exactly as I predicted before FC3T1 was released - all the major updates were done for FC2 and this is just a minor revision (should be called FC2.1 if you ask me!).
Things left for me to check out:
* Wireless access with my Netgear MA311GE card on my second PC. Hoping it will be supported out of the box, rather than having to fiddle getting wlan-ng working.
* Updates from the development tree via "yum update" - yep, there's a shedload of them downloading right now in a terminal window. Let's hope for no breakage... Update: Yep, some things broke after a dev update - worst was iptables, which now segmentation faults when opening a port for NTP. Serves me right for being on the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge :)
* DVD ISO confusingly has a volume name of "FC-2 i386", because F3CT1 is versioned (yes, also confusingly) as "2.90". It's especially bewildering when you do a media check and it says "Checking Fedora Core 2 DVD" :)
* Installer's not changed much, except for the "Firewall Configuration" section where SELinux is enabled by default. Sadly, the help text down the left isn't "enabled" to actually describe what SELinux does, so I guess that'll have to wait for FC3T2. The help text also hasn't been adjusted to reflect the changed firewall options either. Needless to say, I installed with SELinux disabled - I might be braver with FC3T2 and try an enabled install for that release.
* Didn't like them using "hiddenmenu" in /etc/grub.conf by default - it gives a much less professional/pretty impression to grub if you ask me. I took it out straight away - this is something they should revert back, IMHO.
* Didn't seem to get prompted for monitor/X settings until the first reboot and even then, it wouldn't let me go above 800x600 (I have an Nvidia Geforce 4 MX 460, which is happy at 1280x1024). Had to copy my xorg.conf from FC2 and install the Nvidia 3D drivers to fix that problem.
* Still way too many services enabled for a "desktop" or "workstation" config. "chkconfig --list | grep on" comes back with *32* of them, half of which aren't really needed.
* openmotif2.1 seems to have quietly been dropped from the FC3T1 release (FC3T1 ships only with 2.2.X). This means that RealPlayer9 RPM floating around the Net can't be easily installed (yes, I guess I could install FC2's openmotif2.1 RPM and cross my fingers...). I say "quietly", BTW, because the Release Notes make no mention of this omission at all.
* Sadly, Firefox didn't make it into FC3T1 in time. It desperately needs to be in there, along with Thunderbird, which is also missing. At least it does ship with Mozilla 1.7, but FC3 final is going to beautifully time with the release of Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0, so really they have to be in the FC3 test releases ASAP. One hopes, it will be the default "Web browser" for FC3 Final - a quick hack to htmlview is all that's needed really.
* OK, where's OpenOffice 1.1.2 ?!! Can't believe FC3T1 still ships with 1.1.1 :(
* Update: I spotted this but thought I was wrong (maybe I hadn't checked "Kernel Development"? But it turns out I had...) - "kernel-sourcecode" is not installed, even if "Kernel Development" is selected - someone else confirmed this (http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2004-July/msg00260.html), so I wasn't dreaming...
Initial impression conclusion: Not different enough from FC2 to warrant an upgrade. Some omissions and non-updates mean that the only "advance" here is the move to kernel 2.6.7, which for most people won't be that important. In other words, exactly as I predicted before FC3T1 was released - all the major updates were done for FC2 and this is just a minor revision (should be called FC2.1 if you ask me!).
Things left for me to check out:
* Wireless access with my Netgear MA311GE card on my second PC. Hoping it will be supported out of the box, rather than having to fiddle getting wlan-ng working.
* Updates from the development tree via "yum update" - yep, there's a shedload of them downloading right now in a terminal window. Let's hope for no breakage... Update: Yep, some things broke after a dev update - worst was iptables, which now segmentation faults when opening a port for NTP. Serves me right for being on the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge :)