Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Operating Systems Software Linux

Fedora Core 4 Test 2 Released 77

gmaestro writes "Fedora Core 4 Test 2 is up on the servers. New features in Fedora Core 4 test 2 include GNOME 2.10, KDE 3.4, as well as a preview of GCC 4.0 and support for the PowerPC architecture. Use a mirror or torrent and help with testing!"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Fedora Core 4 Test 2 Released

Comments Filter:
  • Has XFCE now been taken out of this?
  • 1 cd install (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gimpimp ( 218741 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:32AM (#12210708) Homepage
    I'm not sure if they've done this, but they REALLY need to compress their distro down a lot! 3 - 4 cd's to get a usable desktop is terrible. They should get a gnome desktop, and office suite onto cd 1, then development tools on cd 2, etc.
    last time i tried fedora, i needed to download 3 cd's just to get a desktop.
    • Re:1 cd install (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
      My gentoo install CD is 50MB... Sure I had to download roughly 400MB of other stuff to get a workstation [no desktop just X] but I got to choose what I wanted...

      That and updating is much simpler and flexible... /fanboy

      Tom
      • by Anonymous Coward
        Yes, you are a fanboy.

        "here's the command prompt, run the crappy command line partitioning tool with no resize, run newfs by hand, install bootloader by hand".

        Yeah, that's a real 1:1 comparison to Fedora.
        • Bah, fancy gui installers only dumb people down...

          Learning how to actually USE your computer should be more important.

          Imagine if people actually knew how their computers worked. There would be fewer viruses/etc/malware. Imagine if people knew how their cars worked and took care of them too, etc, etc...

          Granted you can't be a master of all but what's wrong with "if you want to use a computer you should know a bit about how it actually works".

          I mean pilots have to know how their planes work from end to e
          • Heh, I'm a programmer and I can't be bothered learning about how to use command line partitioning tools or setting up stuff from scratch.

            I just want a distro that I can install quickly, has the development environment I need so I can start working immediately.

            As a result, I lean toward distros which do have GUI installers.
            • Hi, I'm a developer [not programmer] and I don't see your complaints as being valid.

              It takes little time to setup gentoo compared to the time you use it.

              Hell installing windows+updates+patches+tools+reboots+etc takes ABOUT THE SAME TIME as a base install of gentoo.
              Tom
              • Umm - you're a developer who doesn't program? Or I'm a programmer who isn't a developer? Uh.. heh... not seeing the distinction, but please don't feel I need to be 'educated'.

                Not quite sure where you read 'my complaint' - I expressed a personal opinion which was aimed to counter your argument - to sum it up and add a little more depth: I don't need nor want intimate knowlegde of a bunch of command line tools to install a system, and further, I don't think anyone needs to unless they want to.

                Wouldn't hav
            • It shows your nature. Probably you include error messages in your programs like "an error occured. I don't know why"
              • Or like this perhaps:

                define ('PROG_MSG_ERROR_IN_EXEC','Warning: an error occured during processing');

                found on http://www.vlaamse-kern.com/sas/showdeltree.php...

                Sorry - couldn't resist ;-).
                • Well that's not fair. You'r only citing one message. You should site all of them. define ('ERR_DESC_OSNOTSUPPORTED',"Error: This script does not support the Operating System that you are using\n\n\rPlease contact me at \n\n\r\t\tx_terminat_or_3@yahoo.fr\n\n\rif you want your Operating System supported"); define ('ERR_DESC_NOARGS','Error: not enough arguments. Use --help for more info.'); define ('ERR_DESC_INVALID_ARG','Error: Unrecognized parameter '); define ('ERR_DESC_HOMEDIRNOTSET','Error: The enviro
                  • I know - was just messing around :-). It was the 'Warning you have an Error' thing that caught my eye and made me chuckle.

                    Didn't mean any offense by it - your original reply made me chuckle too btw :-) (fwiw, your code looks fine to me - though I confess to not having used php at all).
          • What if I want to use a GUI anyway, despite knowing how "things work"? I know how to ./configure make make install, but I'd rather use rpms when I can. I know how to navigate the directory structure of a Linux box using the command line, but I'd rather use a filesystem manager like Nautilus instead. I know how to copy, move and delete files using the commandline, but I find it easier to use the GUI. I could configure my system using only text files, but I'd rather use a GUI.

            Knowing how to a computer work
            • I develop software and cryptosystems for a living. The amount of time I spend "working on me box" is miniscule to the time I spend "working with me box".

              Gentoo isn't as complicated as people make it out to be. It has step by step instructions and once you bootstrap it's easy as

              emerge sync && emerge -u world

              Granted a GUI installer for gentoo would be cool but I think more inteligent "average" users would be cooler.

              Tom
              • And your preference is to use a commandline, mine is to use a GUI. Just because I use the GUI doesn't make me dumb, it just means I'm different from you. GUIs serve more than to just make life easier for the layman, it makes life easier for me as well. GUIs make normal, repetative tasks easier to endure and faster to accomplish. Knowing how to add multiply 36 with 7 in your head might be nice, but having a calculator to do it for me saves me lots of time that I can use to do something.
              • I develop software and cryptosystems for a living. The amount of time I spend "working on me box" is miniscule to the time I spend "working with me box".

                Well la-dee-freakin-da. Are you trying to convince yourself what a good decision Gentoo was by insisting all of us who are trying to discuss FC turn around and say "you're right, Gentoo is so much cooler with it's lack of GUI installer!"? Give it a rest. The reason people over-generalize it is because of people like you who can't seem to let us discuss so

                • Gentoo has a lot of benefits over FC is why people keep talking about it. Maybe if other distros stopped just being "yet another distro" and took note you wouldn't see people pluging other OSes all the time....

                  Like the portage system which is a hell of a lot cleaner than the RPM system. The lack of a GUI installer shouldn't be a "show stopper".

                  Tom [someone who uses FC at work and really enjoys the requirement to install a new kernel so I can update gnome ... ]

                  • Gentoo has a lot of benefits over FC is why people keep talking about it. Maybe if other distros stopped just being "yet another distro" and took note you wouldn't see people pluging other OSes all the time....

                    Your feeble mind just can't handle the thought that other people just don't care about and don't want to discuss Gentoo. Especially in discussion about FC.

                    Justin [who knows an update to gnome that adds integration with dbus and hald just might legitimately need a new kernel that actually supports d

          • How often to you fdisk a drive? How often do you install a boot loader? Any OS dumbs down the user. Back in my day we wrote right on the HARDWARE! Little sissy boy needs and command line! We had switches and lights and where happy to have them.

            Seriously you want to play with that stuff that is all fine and dandy. But you really gain nothing more than you would by reading the instructions. The whole idea that you should know a bit about how it works is amusing. What bit? I can write code all day but I have
          • Learning how to actually USE your computer should be more important.

            Maybe if you're a 12 year old with nothing better to do, or no marketable skills apart from being able to "USE a computer".

            Imagine if people actually knew how their computers worked. There would be fewer viruses/etc/malware. Imagine if people knew how their cars worked and took care of them too, etc, etc...

            Society wouldn't function because everyone would be too busy learning how to make a car or build a house from scratch.

            Granted you

            • "If you want to be able to eat you need to farm the land, slaughter the animals and combine the ingredients."

              Where did I say you had to make the computer or distro?

              But to turn this around on you. I'd think people WOULD be better served by understanding what actually goes into the foods they buy at the grocery store. How to actually make a meal that is healthy, etc...

              Largely I blame the market for that though. They inundate people with so much crap that it's hard to actually pick out the healthier stuf
      • Re:1 cd install (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @08:52AM (#12211255) Homepage Journal
        comparing net-install to a cd set with all available packages is hardly meaningfull.

        (and besides... booting up netinstall shouldn't take more than 2 floppies - if even that)
      • I'd like to get this answer from some actual gentoo'ers. What exectly is it that you can learn from a gentoo install rather than something like FC or slack, etc for that matter. im not trolling here but everytime i see/ask this question a whole bunch of non-gentoo'ers inevitably answere.. and that answere is always nothing. aside from manual partitioning, nothing seems to me to be the right answere. What am i missing?
        • Well, you usually know that you have partitions named in this way, the configuration files lay in this folder and this is the place to change network configuration, without any all-powerfull app that controls everything, which means that your configuration is always going to stay the same if you do not explicitely touch the config files.

          When you have problems, you're more likely able to resolve them if you know how your OS operates, mainly because you've put together all parts. You're not a linux guru by
        • You learn how to do things like compiling the kernel, inserting kernel modules (you'll probably need to fix something with one sometimes), deciding which daemons you need running at startup, learn to use the package manager properly, learn to use some of the important config files (OK I had to learn lilo.conf for Mandrake, but that wasn't their intention), etc. etc. I now know what all the processes running on my box do, and mostly how to disable them and why I want them there.

          As well as learning, and don'
    • Anyone know if the 'Minimal' install set requires more CDs? One could set everything else up from a repository [wieers.com]...
    • the FAQ (Score:3, Informative)

      by whovian ( 107062 )
      http://fedora.redhat.com/about/faq/

      Q: How will The Fedora Project be made available to the public?

      A: Fedora Core releases will be available as ISO images for both CDs and DVDs, and will also be available through other channels such as third-party online sales of physical media; distribution at Linux User Groups, included in magazines and in books, and maybe even handed out at trade shows. The bits may be actively pushed into content sharing networks such as BitTorrent. (Not all mechanisms will be used fo
      • i don;t have the bandwidth to download a dvd. thats the whole point of only wanting 1 cd. see?
        • by dorward ( 129628 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @07:59AM (#12210878) Homepage Journal

          If you are bandwidth challenged (as I was until recently) then you have a number of options.

          • Go with a distro that lets you do a netinstall [debian.org] and only download what you need.
          • Go with a smaller distro [ubuntulinux.org]. This is linux. You have the choice. Choose a distro that comes with everything. Choose a distro that fits on one CDROM. Choose!
          • Work with the Fedora team [redhat.com] to produce a netinstall version of Fedora (or pay someone else to do it for you.
          • Get a friend with a faster internet connection to download it for you
          • Pay somebody [linuxemporium.co.uk] or another somebody [cheeplinux.com] to download it for you
          • Buy a magazine [linuxformat.co.uk] that has a cover disc [linuxuser.co.uk] with the distro on it.

          Disclaimer: Some options may be overly expensive or impractical due to your geographical location. Don't winge. Pick a different option.

          • I believe Ubuntu will send you install CDs for free.

            (correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm on the way out the door to work and in a hurry :)

            SB
          • by The Madpostal Worker ( 122489 ) * <abarros@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday April 12, 2005 @09:34AM (#12211586)
            Fedora does do a netinstall.
            1) Download the Boot CD [redhat.com]

            2) Boot with the aguments askmethod

            3) Choose HTTP/FTP

            4) Enter http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux /core/test/3.91/i386/os/ as the source

            5) Profit.
            • You have it almost right
              you have to do (for HTTP install)
              download.fedora.redhat.com for server
              pub/fedora/linux/core//i386/os/ For the file holder

              Infact, just download the Rescue CD Iso, and at the prompt, type "linux aksmethod" and it will skip the disgnostics and go for the normal install, PLUS this way, you have the rescue CD anyway, at a much smaller download.

              Every time i do an install / update, i do it this way, takes less time for me to do that than to download three ISO files, even with a cable mo
          • But fedora does have a net install, over NFS, FTP, HTTP, etc. get the boot.iso ftp://fedora.secsup.org/pub/linux/redhat/fedora/co re/test/3.91/i386/os/images/boot.iso
          • If you are bandwidth challenged (as I was until recently) then you have a number of options.

            * Go with a distro that lets you do a netinstall and only download what you need.


            Bandwidth-challenged and net-install are not two words I tend to use favorably together.
            • Not at all. It's the difference between downloading complete ISOs (at least one full 650MB CD) and downloading a small install CD plus the packages you actually need. It may take a while, but it will take a lot longer to download 1-4 complete ISOs, especially if you do a minimal install. Since I don't like taking the time to burn all of the CDs (or a DVD), I usually save the ISOs on my server and do a net install over NFS.

              Ubuntu has the best compromise IMO: most of what you need is on the CD, so you can st
        • Indeed. Fedora doesn't package an install CD. Then again, you would likely have to wiat for the full FC4 in order to pick it up from a third party.
      • I don't think that's what the parent is complaining about. If the install was setup a bit more sanely, it would only take one cd for the desktop, add another for server tools, another for development, and the last for the extras. The fact that you have to download around 2 1/2 gig worth of images (CD or DVD) just to get a desktop is a bit silly. For those of us that just don't care (I download the DVD images anyway)it's not a big deal. For those on a cap (and I am on a cap of 10GB/month as well) it makes a
        • The fact that you have to download around 2 1/2 gig worth of images (CD or DVD) just to get a desktop is a bit silly.

          No, I agree. Gives me the following idea: Given how modular the distribution kernel is, I wonder whether it would be possible to redistribute (torrents of) ISO images of the default desktop, server, and workstation installation choices.
    • I'd rather they didn't. I can't use yam or apt-get to download software from repositories in Linux because my network card adapter isn't supported yet. I need distros like FC so that I can get most of the stuff that I need and want by downloading it in my Windows partition and burning it to 4 CDs. Distros like Gentoo and Ubuntu might be nice for a lot of people, but for those which can't connect to the internet from their Linux partition, FC fills a niche.

      BTW, Netgear WG121 is what isn't supported.
      • Not trolling or anything (Fedora is my first choice for a desktop), but I hope you've saved those mp3 codecs from some previous install :-)
      • If you're setting up dual boot, and have the images on a partition that FC can read natively (not NTFS) you don't need to burn the images. You can do a hard drive install and tell anaconda where the ISO files are. You can also do an NFS install this way, just share the folder containing the ISO images. Not sure why CIFS/SMB doesn't support this, but you can install MS SFU (Free download) to get a good NFS server on Windows.
      • You seem to be going through a lot of hoops just because your network card isn't supported. Not to sound like a troll, but a NIC is about $15, I'd think the hassle isn't worth it. And even if this is a laptop, I'm sure a PCMCIA card can't be that much if you shop around.
    • Fedora is a general purpose distro. I don't know what is on each CD, but I doubt "The Desktop" is the primary factor in the decision making purpose. Fedora is used for servers and development too.
    • The problem as i see it with DVD based all in one distros is quite simple .
      If I am going to want to install a large ammount of software with my distro then i would rather get it from package repository..

      With a DVD ISO based distro you first have an hour or two(or more)downloading a DVD ISO and burning it , instaling it and all the software you want from the CD .. then being a person with the bandwidth to easily download a DVD ISO i spend the next 3 hours downloading updated packages to replace the ones I i
    • Re:1 cd install (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      if you want to install on one cd download the first CD and do a "minimum install" if that is not good enough for you download the tiny "boot.iso". If that is still not good enough for you download two cd's and click "desktop install" If that is still not good enough for you then the one CD is not the problem, the problem is Fedora is not the distro you're dying to advertise on this thread.

      Fedora is not for people who have a 56k there is a billion updates constantly cause the distro is ever changing with ne
    • You can do network instalation if you wish. It will save you trouble of burning CDs.
  • screenshots (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    shots.osdir.com [osdir.com]
  • Could someone comment on the speed comparison between 2.8 and 2.10. I saw a significant increase from 2.6 to 2.8, and was wondering if I would see another one with 2.10's responsivness and load times.

    Also, what's the advantages of GCC 4.0? I've noticed quite a few updates with GCC 3, and was curious if it was just more optimizations or if they were simply adding more proc support to it. I've been using 3.4.2 under FC3 and a uClibc project, but I'd like to hear some other comments or views on it.

    No KDE/
    • > Also, what's the advantages of GCC 4.0?

      It's a whole lot faster when compiling C++. Fortran support is now up to F95 from F77. I think the C++ ABI is compatible with 3.4, so you should just be able to drop it right in (I'd keep 3.4 around just to be safe, and 4.0 hasn't even been officially released yet)
    • I run Ubuntu on a p2/400 with 192mb RAM at school. I just did an upgrade from Gnome 2.8 to 2.10, and yes, it's faster. The biggest difference was opening the Run box. In 2.8, I could hit Alt+F2 and it would appear about 5 seconds later, and wouldn't become responsive until after I had already finished typing in it. Now with 2.10, it comes up right away and is responsive right away. Just like XFce and Windows.

      The rest of the speed increases were not that dramatic, but they were there.

    • Also, what's the advantages of GCC 4.0?
      I can attest to a palpable optimization; on the other hand, the following refused to compile therewith out of the box:
      • Firefox
      • Lilypond
      • MPlayer
      On that account, mainly, I've fallen back on GCC 3.
  • Can someone who knows more than me (probably 99% of /. users) tell me more about PPC support? i.e., Does this test support dual-booting FC4 and OSX?
    • PPC support doesn't have anything to do with dual booting. It means that the OS can physically run on the system as long as the hardware's been prepared for the OS.

      This is performed by a boot loader, which also allows you to boot multiple OS's. I found http://www.linuxworld.com/story/47809.htm?DE=1 to be an interesting read.
    • If you're looking for a good distro to run on PPC, might i recommend Yellow Dog Linux [distrowatch.com] to you.

      it is a distro aimed at PPC users, and is very user-friendly. I'd put money down on the fact everything "just works" when you put it into your PPC machine.
  • Is it as much of an upgrade over 3 as 3 was to 2??

    The release notes for 3 over 2 might as well have read:

    ** Changes for GCC 3.0 (compared to 2.9):
    * Broke compatibility with all existing file formats, and in fact some parts of the C language itself.
    * New functionality: none

One person's error is another person's data.

Working...