Two Weeks with Fedora 9
Recently, I came across a blog post about how to install a LiveCD version of Red Hat's upcoming Fedora 9 release onto a USB stick, leaving space on the stick for data to persist between reboots. Impressed by the persistent USB LiveCD fun and partition encrypting installer improvements, I chose to throw caution to the wind and load up Fedora 9 Beta on my main notebook, replacing the Hardy Heron Beta install I'd been running--quite stably--for several weeks. Read on for the testing details, but the bottom line for Fedora 9 is more or less the same as with previous Fedora versions: Fedora can indeed be used for anything. Its primary purpose is to serve as a leading-edge development platform for Red Hat's initiatives. As Red Hat confirmed very clearly last week, providing a mainstream desktop/notebook operating system is not one of their product goals. While I've very recently called on Red Hat (and Novell) to address mainstream Linux users more directly, I can certainly respect their decision to focus on their bread-and-butter products. What's more, even if they aren't productizing it, Red Hat's desktop and notebook work does continue, and is definitely evident in other, more end-user focused distributions--such as the Ubuntu release, which I returned after spending two weeks with Fedora 9. Spending Time with Fedora 9 As I mentioned above, it was Fedora 9's support of USB stick-based persistent LiveCD deployments that enticed me to download the in-development distro, and when I tried it out for myself, it worked great. Fedora 9 booted up from the 2GB USB stick I used, and, through the virtue of solid state, did so a lot more quickly than CD-based LiveCD images do. I used my portable Fedora 9 system to browse the Internet. I downloaded some things, and I installed a piece of software, too. I tried rebooting the system, and, sure enough, the changes I'd made did persist. Next, while perusing the Fedora 9 Beta release notes, I saw that Fedora 9 now offers a partition encryption option at install time. It's been possible to set up a Linux system with encrypted partitions for some time now, but only Debian and Ubuntu had implemented it as an install-time option. Installation on my trusty ThinkPad T60 was smooth, and the encryption part boiled down to checking off an option box. I booted up and keyed in my encryption passphrase. Everything seemed to work, including my wireless network. I hit the Web, and found that Flash and Java didn't work properly for me. For Flash, I hit the same bug that Linus did--YouTube videos wouldn't play. As for Java, the StatTracker applet for my Yahoo-hosted fantasy basketball league wouldn't load. I was prepared for these snags, however, since I know that Red Hat and Fedora are focused on pushing the all-free software envelope wherever possible. As a result, Firefox came pre-configured with the LGPL (Lesser General Public License) Swfdec-Mozilla plug-in, in lieu of a pointer to Adobe's Flash download page. I downloaded Flash from Adobe, and I put off downloading Java from Sun. Sadly, at the time I was testing Fedora, I was already more or less out of contention in my fantasy basketball league. Next, I applied all the available updates (since Fedora 9 was still in development, there were many). I restarted, and found that my X server wouldn't start. Annoyingly, Red Hat's usually great fail-safe display mode didn't kick in, either. I had trouble with this when I tested Fedora 8, and the fix required me to twiddle with a config file to force my way into fail-safe mode. After I got my X back, I installed the RadeonHD driver that my notebook requires, and I was back in business. I turned next to installing the KVM virtualization software and Red Hat's virt-manager virtualization management tool. I used the virt-manager tool to create a virtual machine, and I hit another familiar snag. As in my tests last year of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 5, I found that by policy, SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) wouldn't allow the virtualization application to read files in my home directory, where I'd instructed the setup tool to create the hard drive image file for my VM. Like I wrote in that RHEL 5 review:
I ended up tossing SELinux into permissive mode, which records and flags the activities it's been instructed to deny, but doesn't deny them. Even though SELinux can be a pain, I'm a believer in MAC (mandatory access control) enhancements for operating systems, and I'm rooting for them to succeed. Feature wise, the combination of KVM and virt-manager is nowhere near as good as VMware Workstation, but it serves the same basic functions, and it's free. The Windows XP VM that I created under Fedora 9 performed well, and the fact that KVM is built into the system is a major plus. One of my pet VMware peeves is having to compile and recompile drivers, and the fact that KVM is part of the Linux kernel means never having to think about drivers. Fedora 9 may no longer power my primary notebook, but I'm not done with it. I'm looking forward to digging into the distribution's PolicyKit and PackageKit frameworks, and spending time with the much-needed FreeIPA project, which rides along with this release of Fedora. Stay tuned.
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Comments (12)
Words like compile, config file, inaccessible Home Directories.
Is Linux really ready for the desktop or is Fedora just a bad distro by nature?
Posted by Andre Da Costa | April 22, 2008 9:02 PM
I think you meant Mandatory Access Control.
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_access_control
Posted by Garry Williams | April 23, 2008 8:44 AM
Words like compile, config file, inaccessible Home Directories.
Is Linux really ready for the desktop or is Fedora just a bad distro by nature?
--------
Have you been under a rock, or did you not read this entire post? Red Hat (and thereby Fedora) are not interested in the consumer desktop. Sure that does not mean they cannot produce software that will run flawlessly, but 'dummying' down the experience so Joe six-pack can use Linux is not a goal of RH.
People have been making the same statement for years upon years. "Is Linux ready for the desktop?" I say, who cares. If the aforementioned Joe is happy shilling out $300 for M$ products, then more power to him. Linux is not about domination, but software morals driven by a community effort. Those who want to use Linux, will.
Posted by JayT | April 23, 2008 9:01 AM
@Andre Da Costa
Most software in early beta have one or two flaws.
Betas are made to help software developers find bugs so that the final product can be as flawless as possible.
I'm confident that Fedora 9, when released as a finished product will be a very good distro.
On the other hand Fedora states that they want to be on the bleeding edge on technology. This means that it will have more new fun features than e.g. CentOS that have a longer release cycle and better tested software.
It's a lot like in the windows world, where you chose Vista if you want the fancy stuff, but stay with XP if you actually need it to work at all times.
And yes, Linux is ready for the desktop. Even Linux distros that mainly target the server side such as CentOS makes good desktops, and if you look at e.g. Novell/SuSE you will find a system that can rival Apple in ease of use and usability.
Posted by ue | April 23, 2008 9:04 AM
Andre Da Costa is the same M$ shill that hangs out at Microsoft-watch. He has not a clue.
If you want to know if Linux is ready for the desktop, ask someone who uses Linux for their desktop.
I've been driving Linux on my desktop since 1995 and had yet crashed . I really don't care what my neighbor drives.
Posted by n0neXn0ne | April 23, 2008 9:11 AM
I've tested the Live USB Flash Drives and was very happy with how well it worked.
Also, with the release of Fedora 9 (currently scheduled for May 13th) a pre-built Kingston Flash USB disc will be available from On-Disk.com, which also fills a Sponsored Media request.
Posted by tomiro | April 23, 2008 9:48 AM
I've been using Fedora (Red Hat) Linux exclusively since Red Hat 5.0 release and I've been really disappointed about their efforts lately.Those comments about not being interested in Linux desktop are going to come back and haunt them some day.
Unlike them Ubuntu has made all the right steps and have not neglected Linux community the way Red Hat did.And they've started entering server market as well.
I'm pretty sure Ubuntu will emerge as number one distribution in server market pretty soon.
I'm currently running Fedora 8 and that is probably my last Red Hat Linux.
I'll make switch with upcoming release of Hardy Heron.Red Hat has so far proven to me that they are trying to become Microsoft of Linux world.
And that is not good thing for Linux.....
Posted by markaur | April 23, 2008 10:54 AM
Thanks for the MAC catch, Garry. I'm going to blame that on our copy desk. :)
Posted by Jason Brooks | April 23, 2008 10:55 AM
Words like compile,
The author said that he didn't have to compile, since KVM (and Xen) are included in Fedora.
config file,
I hear the word "registry" just about as frequently. This is the state of computing: things sometimes go wrong and need to be fixed. It doesn't matter what OS you use. Even OS X's plist files need to be fixed sometimes.
inaccessible Home Directories.
The author's home directories weren't inaccessible. They were secured in a way such that one program (KVM), which is a daemon and not a desktop application, couldn't access them. It has an area of the filesystem reserved for images; the author tried to use someplace else. Presumably you'll see more of this in the future of computing, not less.
Is Linux really ready for the desktop or is Fedora just a bad distro by nature?
Fedora is an excellent distribution. I think you read what you want to read. The question is, why do you want Fedora to fail?
Posted by Gordon Messmer | April 23, 2008 11:27 AM
I really don't understand this whole Ubuntu thing. The core software in Ubuntu is the same as what is in Fedora. Not only that but many of the desktop/notebook centric enhancements have come directly from RedHat. NetworkManager was a much needed utility and was a much better implementation than similar ideas that came before it.
The biggest issue I see is not, generally speaking, the overlapping software. The simple truth is that Ubuntu comes with proprietary drives and Fedora does not. It is a simple thing to fix, but it does not *ship* with Fedora.
The FreeIPA package contribution cannot be understated. How many of you all run more than one Linux server. Do you deploy Kerberos and LDAP? I do, but the FreeIPA will make this type of deployment almost automatic for new hosts. RedHat spent real cash on getting Netscape/Sun's LDAP and Certificate servers, GPL'd them, and now ships them in Fedora. The certificate server alone is huge (not included by default yet). The FreeIPA effort's goal it to tie all of these things together and optionally integrate into a Windows environment.
Have any of you actually used Kickstart to install Fedora, Centos, or RedHat Server? It's been around for ages and it is extremely useful. I am surprised it does not get mentioned more.
If you run servers, seriously consider checking out Fedora/Centos/RedHat. Reconsider running Fedora on your notebook. I really don't think you will find much missing after a quick trip to livna's repo.
Hip distros come and go. RedHat is forever. :)
Posted by Jeff | April 23, 2008 2:04 PM
I've been using Fedora as my primary desktop environment since... well, since it was called Red Hat 4.2 (before the RH/Fedora split). I've always liked living on the edge, which is why I use Fedora. I have tried Ubuntu (very nice for new users) and openSUSE (good for corporate environments), but have consistently come back to Fedora. It doesn't always work out of the box, but I can almost always fiddle a little and get it running.
I tried installing Fedora 9 (Beta) on my laptop, and was amazed at how much stuff just came up without even blinking twice. Unfortunately, I've got the proprietary ATI video (pain in the [whatever] to get working). The beta doesn't seem to have support for the Livna repositories yet, so I ended up dropping back to F8. The little bit of F9 that I saw was VERY nice, even for a Beta release. I plan on rolling forward as soon as I can get Livna support so I can install things like the mp3 and fglrx support.
Regarding Ubuntu -- it was one of the easiest distributions I have ever seen to get working, even with proprietary drivers, and it was very stable and easy to maintain. My main complaint was that, once in Ubuntu, you were pretty much stuck inside of Ubuntu. It is possible to install outside packages, but you're risking really screwing the system up. If you don't care about running the latest OpenOffice.org, or the Firefox Beta, or setting up an LDAP server, then Ubuntu is great. If you like to push the edges of the box, then Ubuntu is probably going to frustrate you.
Posted by Charles Tryon | April 25, 2008 1:28 PM
I've been running RHEL and CentOS servers at work and Fedora on desktop for a few years.
One thing I like especially is the kickstart installation - if I have a new machine to install it only takes a couple of minutes of my time and an hour later it's already ready to be used, all applications and patches installed, integration with LDAP set-up, etc. The same if I want to install a Xen guest which is well integrated in the RedHat distributions.
I plan to try new Fedora 9 soon.
Posted by ZoltarStark | May 5, 2008 3:17 PM