Fedora Core 8 Works!

[kf6rdn]

Finally got around to cleaning up partitions on my laptop, deleting the XP partition I'm not using, ghosted Vista and copied my data out. Re-copied Vista, installed Fedora 8 to dual boot.

EVERYTHING works, WiFi, sound, graphics.
System is a Dell Xps1210. In the past you had to fuss with downloading firmware for the Intel wifi cards, sound maybe or maybe not worked, I can even plug my phone in & use it as a fast "modem" via rndis.

Used GRUB for boot, before I'd used the windows loader, but was too lazy to do the required kernel copy. Kinda wish I did, I like the windows boot loader better then grub. Actually the best one was the one from OS/2, but havent used that in ages.

There's now a pretty good NTFS file system driver, it's ntfs-3g. Packaged with it.

I've had no problems with Vista, but may end up dumping and going back to XP just because it's leaner, and I may be using Linux more, XP for gaming and specialized media stuff.

[AE6IP]

Congratulations.

I, alas, have not had such good luck with Fedora 8. It really doesn't get along with Nvidia cards, still, especially with odd dual monitor configurations like mine, and using the ccache version of gcc breaks a lot of my build tools.

Still, I was able to work around those and it's nearly as stable as 6 was, except that I was silly enough to turn on Compiz which breaks in really interesting ways, including having crashed several Gnome sessions.

[W2JGA]

I have Fedora 6 running as a web server in my basement, along with Plesk. Still trying to learn this stuff. Should I dump it and go for Fedora 8?

[k3wrv]

Same question as JGA, and why should I switch? Also, how much manual config did it take?

[AE6IP]

If you're happy with 6, I'd stay with it for a while longer.

I switched because it amuses me to be on the 'bleeding edge' not because of any particular feature of 8. If you like Vista-style or OS/X GUI animations than 8's better than 6 for that, but if you just want a workhorse machine they're about equal.

I've never 'upgraded' Fedora, by the way. I put /home on a separate partition so that I can do a fresh install every time. The Fedora team recommends fresh install over updating.

The trick for me is to backup /etc to somewhere on /home before doing the install, and then to do a compare/restore of configuration files.

One gotcha I ran into that way was that FC8 numbers ethernet controllers differently than FC7 did, so if you've got a box with 2 or more controllers, eth0 might not be attached to the same hardware in 8 as it was in 6 or 7.

[kf6rdn]

I'll agree with 'ip, if you are still learning, no reason to change.

However if you are learning, sometimes "hacking" through stuff that doesnt work IS a good, albiet frustrating learning experience.

I do this for a living so tend to need to keep up with the Joneses.

If you're using a laptop though, 8 seems to support alot of the components better, USB, scanners vidio etc..

I updated the nvidia driver, it runs pretty well. Not as good of luck on my desktop system, however for that it's functioning more as a server, so I dont care about graphics.

I'm actually re-doing it, I had a full desktop system as a server. With the price of large hard drives now fairly cheap I'm using one of those small, lower power systems, with external USB drives as a backup.
I was thinking about getting creative and designing something that would power them off, then on for backups/access.

I usually do fresh installs as well. No choice this time, the drive bit it. Lost some stuff, not too much as it was mainly storage (which was backup up) and some databases also backed.

'wrv define "did it take"? To get everything working? Very little. To get stuff as I want? More, but that's just personalizing and setting up some specialized stuff I use for work, VPN, ssh key exchange, custom email setup.

Fedora 6 is pretty robust still, using it for various app servers at work. The appache2 upgrade is stable, I dont know what kinda web server you're running, but ours run for months with no problem.

[W2JGA]

Is it possible to put the entire installation onto a hard drive, make the hard drive bootable so I could install to a 2nd? Then take the install hd out and voila!

[kf6rdn]

Quote[/b] (W2JGA @ Dec. 10 2007,04:40)]Is it possible to put the entire installation onto a hard drive, make the hard drive bootable so I could install to a 2nd? Then take the install hd out and voila!
You would have to create a bootable disk somehow, involving putting a boot loader on the boot partition, pointing to a kernel with a root partition.

Meaning you can just copy it to a hard drive. There are pre-done boot media OTHER then the DVD. You can even put it on an FTP server.

[n2ize]

Quote[/b] (AE6IP @ Dec. 09 2007,11:04)]If you're happy with 6, I'd stay with it for a while longer.

I switched because it amuses me to be on the 'bleeding edge' not because of any particular feature of 8. If you like Vista-style or OS/X GUI animations than 8's better than 6 for that, but if you just want a workhorse machine they're about equal.

I've never 'upgraded' Fedora, by the way. I put /home on a separate partition so that I can do a fresh install every time. The Fedora team recommends fresh install over updating.

The trick for me is to backup /etc to somewhere on /home before doing the install, and then to do a compare/restore of configuration files.

One gotcha I ran into that way was that FC8 numbers ethernet controllers differently than FC7 did, so if you've got a box with 2 or more controllers, eth0 might not be attached to the same hardware in 8 as it was in 6 or 7.
Quote[/b] ]

I've never 'upgraded' Fedora, by the way. I put /home on a separate partition so that I can do a fresh install every time. The Fedora team recommends fresh install over updating.


I never cared for updating, as a matter of fact in the early Linux days it was sometimes problematic. I never had much trouble with full installs though because I always put stuff on different partitions. I'll generally slice up a drive into 6 or even more partitions. At the bare minimal I usually give..

/ root it's own partition
/usr it's own nice sized partition
/usr/local it's own partition
/home it's own large partition

I'll usually also make several rather large arbitrary partitions just for storage of things like media, large databases, electronic books, etc. Although with the low price of external drives these days these latter storage partitions are not as important.

Quote[/b] ]
One gotcha I ran into that way was that FC8 numbers ethernet controllers differently than FC7 did, so if you've got a box with 2 or more controllers, eth0 might not be attached to the same hardware in 8 as it was in 6 or 7.


That's dumb. I hate when they do stuff like that. That can cause a royal headache trying to figure why nothing works until you finally realize the obvious. Especially right after an install when you're thinking about other things.

[kf6rdn]

Quote[/b] (n2ize @ Dec. 23 2007,00:46)]Quote[/b] ]
One gotcha I ran into that way was that FC8 numbers ethernet controllers differently than FC7 did, so if you've got a box with 2 or more controllers, eth0 might not be attached to the same hardware in 8 as it was in 6 or 7.


That's dumb. I hate when they do stuff like that. That can cause a royal headache trying to figure why nothing works until you finally realize the obvious. Especially right after an install when you're thinking about other things.
That happens with the enterprise versions too. Hate that, using a Dell poweredge server, with the ports labled 1 & 2, 1 becomes eth1 & 2 becomes eth0, so because I'm kinda anal about that sorta thing, I have to go force it via the MAC address to bind to the proper port.

There's probably a better way, perhaps the way the modules loaded but too much hassle.