Fedora 9 Review
After spending a good deal of time configuring Fedora 9 I thought I would take this opportunity to provide my thoughts and feedback. The following is my Review of Fedora 9 (F9).
“Sulphur” smells only just a little.
Installation Media
The first thing I was happy to see was that the team finally decided to offer Fedora 9 in multi-CD installations in addition to the DVD installation. This has been missing since Fedora 7. I’m glad someone realized that Live image installation is NOT the same. I chose the DVD installation.
Installation
Note: For the first time I simultaneously installed Fedora on both a Laptop and Desktop. Additionally I used both 32-bit and 64-bit versions for installation.
As always the Fedora installer always seems to slowly lose features. Although in this case some very useful features got added. This release saw the addition of partition-resizing in the installer as well as encrypting your file system. While I do not think that majority of users require the encryption, the re-sizing ability is welcome as it accepts the possibility that many people wish to dual-boot or are not yet ready to abandon Windows. Unfortunately, I did not trust the Fedora installer to re-size my (pre-setup out) partitions.
For Package Selection I was fairly pleased with the default set of packages. I find that with each release there are less changes I need to do. Although I would still prefer if KDE, thunderbird, and k3b were installed by default. Oddly my install later added up to be a whopping 4.8GB! Almost 1GB bigger than I recall the similar installations for either F8 or F7! Not sure what was added!
The First Boot did see some minor changes. The security settings for both the Firewall and SE-Linux (Security Enhanced Linux) were removed. I would guess that many people possibly just disabled them upfront instead of actually learning to use them. I guess this is probably a smart move for Fedora.
Software: Fedora Desktop
After the First Boot configurations were set I made it to the login screen. This is where I will use the phrase: “Familiarity Be Damned!". I follow the Fedora defaults of using Gnome but this release really had some major changes in software components.
The new verion of GDM (which manages logins) requires you to double-click your name and has this annoying animation after selection. There is an option at the bottom for selecting alternative desktops (e.g. KDE). Overall the login screen seemed incredibly clunky and unpolished. I felt it was a minor detraction, since technically I did not see any major functionality lost.
After logging into Gnome, my first reaction was that nothing major had changed. Which from the perspective of the GUI seemed to be true. I did notice 2 new applets on the top-right. The first was PackageKit and the second was NetworkManager.
PackageKit seemed to give a pretty simple interface for accepting new updates. I liked it for the most part, it reminded of a similar feature in Ubuntu. Although, if one saw over a 100 I doubt there would be much usefulness in “Reviewing” an update before install. Overall positive improvement.
NetworkManager which I was believe was available in FC5 is finally enabled by default in Fedora 9. The previous network service is disabled. This is a potentially problematic issue. Some setup’s (like my desktop) may find NetworkManager a nuisance. I ended up disabling NetworkManager in Fedora and concluded that this option was still too beta-quality. That is until I tested the same on my laptop. I enabled the WiFi and clicked on the applet which showed my WPA2-PSK access point. I entered my pass phrase and I was connected! No configuring, no tweaking, no firmware-ing, no ‘yum-ing’. My Intel Pro ABG3945 Wireless worked out of the box! So, I can only conclude that NetworkManager, while not perfect for all configurations, is definitely worthwhile for some.
Firefox 3 - While I did not go through all the new applications, I am not very impressed with Firefox 3 (not Fedora’s fault). The interface seems a little annoying and only 2 of my 10 extensions work, which makes surfing a little difficult in Fedora 9.
Otherwise the GNOME setup seemed satisfactory. The only other quirk I had was that point-and-click NTFS partition mounting did not work for me like it did in Fedora 8. As usual I just prefer to have all my NTFS partitions fixed and mounted at boot. Also occasionally after I login I find that my time is several hours off? I do have NTP running. This causes a nuisance for dual-booting.
Software: Java
Fedora 9 ships with OpenJDK instead of IcedTea that was shipped in Fedora 8. I want to believe that the development is moving closer to be functionally same as the popular Sun Java, but I am confused. OpenJDK is version 1.6 while IcedTea was 1.7? Okay, no biggie. What was the biggest disappointment was the OpenJDK web-browser plugin did NOT work on the popular Java Test Page. Why does this bother me? Because IcedTea in Fedora 8 worked like a charm.
Software: KDE 4
Although I was initially excited about trying KDE4, that excitement quickly faded after using KDE for a few minutes - “Familiarity Be Damned!" Simply put, it is missing too many features and there are enough changes to frustrate you. While again, I do not blame the Fedora developers for including this, it does add to the feeling that many software components in Fedora 9 may seem incredibly unfamiliar or just NOT ready.
System Issues
While there may be many software updates at the system level, I did not notice anything new that would significantly change the user experience. I would say on a very positive note that sound seemed quite issue-free. The PulseAudio (first included in Fedora 8 ) worked great for me. While not a big deal, the doc writers should have made sure to add libflashsupport in the Release Notes to get sound in Flash working.
Now to SELinux - the super security tool everybody loves to hate and nobody has the patience to learn. For the first time I found running Fedora with SELinux set to Enforcing has NOT caused a single problem. All plugins, drivers, 3rd party and proprietary apps ran without issue. This was 3 different hardware installs! First time ever! It only took 4 years!!! Well, I’ll wait till a SELinux policy update renders my system useless. But overall, I was quite pleased.
Fedora included Upstart which is Ubuntu’s new startup system. While I know that this opens the door to many optimizations during startup, I did not notice any major changes. I think this will be gradually improved over time.
Hardware Support - Laptop
While I do not have much new hardware on my desktop, I do have a Thinkpad Laptop. I was shocked that almost every single feature worked out of the box for my laptop: video resolution, sound, touchpad/pointer, SD card, wireless, battery, volume, brightness and hibernate. While my mute button still does not work correctly and the suspend is a little buggy, I have not really debugged them. Even so, the amount of time in the past I would have to configure all of the previously mentioned options was days of tweaking, researching and kernel compiling. I was really pleased with how well Fedora 9 - 64-bit worked on my laptop.
System Issues - Xorg X-server
Unfortunately the release of of Xorg 1.5/7.4 was not ready in time for the release of Fedora 9 so a development version 1.4.9999999999999 was shipped (not sure how many 9’s). While there is nothing technically wrong with this, the Nvidia binary driver (must have for 3-D and compiz effects) will not work correctly with this release. Since no one knows the Nvidia’s release schedule or the internal working of their hardware, basically you cannot do 3-D or effects in Fedora 9 if you are an Nvidia user (like myself). I wish the Xorg release was ready. I’m eagerly waiting to fix the last remaining quirk on my Fedora 9. Annoying, but people should have patience.
Conclusion
I’m not a big fan of shipping development versions of software, but in the open source world - everything is development software. Overall I am not super thrilled with Fedora 9 on the desktop but the drastic improvements on the laptop front are well worth it. Obviously I don’t plan on using Fedora as a server.
I don’t think I will ever agree with some of the default decisions (e.g. NetworkManager over network) but nothing seemed too difficult to resolve. I think this release was definitely moving in the right direction. Much better than Fedora 8. I feel Fedora is trying real hard to catch up to Ubuntu’s polished quality.
I personally would recommend that people wait for at least the update to Xorg. This seems to be a big road block for many. I do not think that there was a major lack in quality in the distribution as a whole (like in many past releases). I just think that many of the components shipped in Fedora 9 just need a little catch up time.
Glad I tried multiple different installs, it broadened my perspective. Maybe Fedora 9 “Sulphur” will do the same for you? Happy installing!
Posted in: Desktop, Distributions, F9, Fedora, Hardware, Software,
7 Comments:
lingghezhi on May 23, 2008 - 07:07 AM
A few rough edges, but this still rocks. We’ll know how good it is once we matched it up against a few others like Ubuntu and opensuse
Rahul Sundaram on May 22, 2008 - 04:16 PM
So I just came across this review and I would like to answer a few things:
* Java - Yes, Fedora did move back a version and the reasons are explained in
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f9/en_US/sn-Java.html#sn-OpenJDK
The Java test page does not function due to some minor bug that doesn’t really affect any functionality but that bug has been noticed and is getting fixed in an update.
* Flash - Yes, we should have. I somehow missed that change since I yum upgraded from a previous release and didn’t notice the defaults. It has been added post-release and the release notes are going to get updated soon
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2008-May/msg00047.html
* SELinux - SELinux is a sophisticated security framework that covers everything and is complex as a result of that and it did take a good while to get things fixed but this is a pretty monumental change and I am glad, Fedora has taken the challenge and got it to this stage.
* Upstart - It is merely running in SysV compatibility mode just like in Ubuntu and if you haven’t noticed any change at all, that is exactly what we wanted to accomplish this release. We are likely to start taking advantage of it for Fedora 10.
Good to see your review. Keep the feedback coming.Paul W. Frields on May 23, 2008 - 10:10 AM
One other small correction – the interfaces in the Xorg version in Fedora 9 have been stable for some time now, and that means NVidia could have prepared a working binary driver that would continue to work with the final Xorg 1.5 with no problems. We wish they would have taken the opportunity to do this work, and they were aware of this need well in advance. Fedora does not tie its release timing to any non open source software, so we couldn’t wait for their closed software development processes to catch up. I encourage you to bring your concerns to NVidia, who are the only people who can fix this problem.
Mauriat on May 23, 2008 - 05:17 PM
Rahul, Paul: Thanks for the clarifications.
webaware on May 26, 2008 - 05:05 AM
G’day, from another mostly-happy FC9 user. Just a couple of comments on your comments:
Your problems with dual-booting and your system clock are because you’ve told Linux that your clock uses UTC, not local time. Winders can only handle local time, and you’ll endlessly shuffle back and forth on that one (until NTP fixes things). Untick the box for “System clock uses UTC” and all will be fixed.
The NVIDIA driver thing is a right PITA, but is Fedora’s fault not NVIDIA’s. Fancy delivering a beta version of Xorg in a release version of an OS! There is a thread on the Fedora forum about downgrading to Xorg 1.3, however, so it is possible to run Fedora 9 with the latest NVIDIA drivers and get all the fun that provides (like 1280x1024 on my GeForce 7000m, unsupported by the open-source nv driver). It isn’t too hard to achieve, and is reversible once Xorg releases 1.5 and NVIDIA releases a driver that supports it.
There are a few funny glitches they still need to iron out - the SELinux policy that raises a violation when you eject a DVD, for example. KDE4 is a PITA, because it seems to have downgraded a few things to make them more Winders-like (i.e. simpler and less useful), but as you point out, that’s KDE’s fault, not Fedora’s. Also, I’m yet to get Wine compiling properly on FC9, so I’m back on 0.9.58 which is annoying (nasty copy/paste bugs, terrible performance, and UI glitches that have been fixed in later versions) but I hope to sort that out soon.
I personally think that FC8 is better, easier to use, and more functional than Ubuntu, and that anyone using FC8 should wait a little while until some of the beta it beaten out of FC9 before moving to it, but at least FC9 was a big improvement over SWMBO’s FC7 desktop.Arie on May 27, 2008 - 07:07 AM
Many many thanx for the tip about de network connection(disable network manager) :D
Joe on September 28, 2008 - 02:02 AM
I am still a F8 user because, although F9 runs fine in my laptop (performance wise) and I recognize some useful improvements and updated packages, I find it just easier to keep an up-to-date F8 (and install updated versions of programs like Firefox 3) and wait till F10 is released (which hopefully won’t have the Xorg problem), than to go through the downgrades/polishes F9 needs to work properly. Mainly to downgrade Xorg to install the ATI drivers, and to downgrade GDM.