I have been using Fedora 7 for 2 weeks now and feel I’ve setup and configured almost all of the software and hardware as I would like. The following are my observations and assessments of this release. Installation: Media Many people have complained that the methods for installing Fedora 7 (F7) were poorly thought out. There are 2 types of ISO’s available for download: Live Images and basic DVD Installs. The Live Images boot to a useable instance of Fedora in memory and provide a method to install the contents of the disk onto the drive.

The jokes made about confusing Linux dependancies may at times seem funny, but they reflect a sad truth. After my previous complaint about gui nuisances in Rythmbox, I installed of copy of FC6 - 64bit to a spare partition. Following my own FC6 Guide, I came upon the MP3 section. Adding MP3 support to Rythmbox (GTK based GNOME media player) requires: yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly This downloads 7 packages which are less than 1MB and most come from the Livna repository.

Back in 2000, xmms was the hot MP3 player for Linux that everybody loved. Most likely due to it’s near perfect match in design and functionality to Winamp. Well time makes you bolder and MP3 players get older. And with no major updates (not even a port to GTK2), xmms just sits around. Recently some distributions have stopped including it in favor of more modern players. So I tried Rythmbox (the Music management and playback software for GNOME.

Although there is no update on the official Linux Flash Blog from Adobe, it does appear that a final NON-beta version of the Flash 9 Plugin has been made available for Linux. The release version is 9,0,31,0 (the last beta was 9.0.21.78 on Nov 20, 2006). So update!!! Fedora Users: The official Fedora Flash repository has not been updated. However if you pick: Option 2: .rpm Download the Flash Player .

I have a decent computer with a large hard drive. My initial intent was to boot multiple different operating systems (as can be seen by the 6+ EXT3 partitions). However the latest technology hype is the need for virtualization or emulation. In effect, this would allow loading one operating system inside another without any reboot. I use the term “hype” because the consumer demand (i.e. non admins, non developers, people with real lives) is very low.