So I was there at 2pm GMT that day, and as soon as the mirrors started to make Zod available I started downloading it.

Installing Fedora Core 6

There are Fedora mirrors all around the globe, so you're likely to find one close to where you're located and you should enjoy good download speeds. Depending on the mirror, you may find a 3.2G DVD ISO. In any case you can download the ISO files for the 5 CDs which the distribution consists of. If, like me, you're interested in a default Gnome Fedora desktop, then you only need CD1 and CD2. The three other CDs contain other packages which are available in the Fedora repositories.

The Fedora Unity project also released a series of "Live-Spins" for Fedora Core 6. You'll find more information on this on this website: http://torrent.fedoraunity.org/

The installer has changed a bit since Fedora Core 5. The way it is displayed seems different. On my computer it didn't fully fit the screen in 1024x768, and there seemed to be more things happening within modal windows than in the previous release. For instance, I remember reading the Releases Notes while the system was installing, and although it is still possible, the Release Notes now appear within a window which hides the installation. There is still no keyboard layout test and for an installer of that quality it is definitely a pity.

On the other hand, a huge improvement was made: you can now use additional repositories within Anaconda. This basically means that the next time you install Fedora from your CDs it is not going to use the outdated packages from your CDs but the updated ones from the repositories. Also, Anaconda is still able to produce a log and a kickstart file (which records the options you selected during an install, so that you can run automated similar installs on other computers). Thanks to the repositories and the kickstart file the possibilities are endless. You can tell Anaconda where to find updates, you can tell it to install packages that are not there by default in the distribution and you can even automate the process.

Before Anaconda proceeds with the installation it allows you to check the integrity of your CDs and it even tells you which CDs will be required (in my case, as I only selected the default selection of packages it was CD1 and CD2). This way you can start installing safely. The installer asks you all the questions first, and then proceeds with the long process of copying the files and installing the system. During that time, the Release Notes are available if you want to read them, and while you can't wait for the installation to complete they make a very nice read.

The first time you boot on Fedora Core 6, a wizard appears and asks you a few questions (License agreement, firewall setup, SELinux configuration, Date & Time, Create a user account, Sound card detection). Although the wizard is pleasant and it doesn't take time to go through it, I was a bit puzzled by the License agreement. Now that I had wiped the content of my hard drive to install Fedora Core 6, and after having gone all that far, was I really going to refuse to sign the License agreement if I didn't like it? I just did as most people do: I didn't read it, and I pressed OK. {mospagebreak title=Inside Fedora Core 6}

Inside Fedora Core 6

Artwork

In Bordeaux the main theme was made of blue bubbles and it was present not only on the desktop, but in GDM, at boot time and during the init process. In Zod, although the new theme is similar to its predecessor and still features a nice dominance of blue, the bubbles were replaced by some sort of underwater DNA.

As before, the theme is not only apparent on the desktop but everywhere within the system. The default fonts were changed but the icon set is still the same. I don't really know what creates this effect, but the desktop looks a bit like in a cartoon, there are no sharp edges and it is pleasant to the eyes. In my opinion this is one of the nicest distributions when it comes to artwork. One of the first things I usually do after installing a distribution is to change the wallpaper and the login screen. I probably won't this time though. They are both superb.

Desktop

The desktop is nice and easy to use. Gnome provides a lot of built in features (burning CDs, mounting devices, connecting to remote servers) and its menus are well organized. A "Computer" icon allows the user to quickly access the devices, the filesystem and the network. There is also a shortcut to the "Home" folder on the desktop. By default, the Home folder only contains "Desktop" which is the directory shown by Gnome as the desktop itself.

Nautilus looks better than ever, although I regret it doesn't open directories in the same window. This is only a detail however and it's easy to configure.

3D Effects

The integration of 3D effects was one of the key features in Mandriva 2007. A popup window in Mandriva One was even making sure you wouldn't miss it. In Fedora Core 6, 3D effects are here as well but the distribution is far more humble and they are not activated by default. They work really well though and activating them is really easy. In Gnome, all you have to do is click on System->Preferences->Desktop Effects and push the "Enable Desktop Effects".

All sorts of nice 3D effects immediately become available.

I was disappointed not to find a configuration tool though. In Mandriva I could configure each effect, make the cube convex or concave, define how wobbly my windows would be...etc. Here I didn't find any of that. For instance, one of my favorite 3D effects is the fact that you can show all the windows from a workspace by tiling them, and then selecting the one you want to work with. In Mandriva this was done by pressing CTRL+ALT+UP. As this combination of keys doesn't do anything in Fedora, I would have liked some configuration tool to activate that effect, or to assign it this combination of keys.

Default Selection of Software

Fedora Core 6 uses the Linux kernel 2.6.18 to which it made a number of modifications. It comes with Xorg 7.1.1 and Compiz 0.0.13. The desktop uses Gnome 2.16 (even though the Help still refers to Gnome 2.14) and it features a nice set of applications. Only the minimum is installed by default but it provides all the common needs. As the distribution was being finalized when Mozilla released Firefox 2.0, the default browser is Firefox 1.5.0.7.

The default email reader is Evolution 2.8.0 which looks very good. The default office suite is OpenOffice 2.0.4. I noticed that OOWriter featured a spell checker. I'm not sure if I have to thank OpenOffice or Fedora for that, but it's nice to see it installed by default.

The default multimedia player is Totem and Rythmbox 0.9.5 is there if you want to listen to music.

Package Manager

An applet was introduced in Fedora Core 6, which tells you when there are updates available and allows you to install them. Also, Fedora announced performance improvements for its package manager.

I couldn't wait to try it. I clicked on Applications->Add/Remove Software and this launched Pirut. I was immediately disappointed. After a brief error message, Pirut simply closed itself. I had to configure things through files, since Pirut wouldn't let me do that through its interface.

The repositories configuration is done in /etc/yum.repos.d/ and to configure the proxy you have to define and export environment variables and play with your .bashrc, or your /etc/profile. Although it is definitely a good thing to be able to change this through file, I personally believe a graphical configuration tool should be provided for ease of use.

The first time you run Pirut, it is extremely slow. I suppose it's getting a maximum of information from the repositories. I closed Pirut and ran it again, and this time it was fast to launch.

In terms of functionality Pirut is extremely disappointing. It consists of a three panes application: one pane to browse, one to search and one to list packages. If you move from one pane to another, the current state of your pane gets reinitialized. For instance I was searching for "thunderbird", went to the browse pane, and when I came back to the search pane, my search result was gone. Pirut shows the name, the version, and a description of each package. There is no information about its dependencies, the size of download...etc.

Overall, I don't think this is good enough. Compared to the graphical package managers found in Mandriva or Ubuntu, Pirut looks like a joke. It misses important features, it doesn't show any information, and it's not even faster. If I was to keep Fedora on my machine I would definitely use yum from the command line instead of Pirut, or look for an alternative package manager altogether.

Multimedia

Fedora won't play your MP3 songs or your encrypted DVD movies by default. The Flash and Java plugins are not there either. The reason for this is explained within the Release Notes and Fedora is one of the Linux distributions which stick the most to Free Software Philosophies. You may or may not agree with them on this. In any case, if you really need support for these formats the procedure is usually quite easy and well documented on the Internet.

Networking

Fedora Core 6 comes with support for Bluetooth devices. Hcitool is there and you'll even find two applications within the Gnome menus to scan Bluetooth devices around you and share files with them.

The "Computer" icon located on the desktop allows you to browse the network. I tried to access my Windows network; everything worked fine and it was quite fast.

Gnome is also full of networking features such as "Connect to a Server" which allows you to place shortcuts to remote filesystems (Samba, FTP...etc) and see them as mounted directories.

Hardware Recognition

My IPW2200 wireless card was not recognized by default, but the firmware was available for it within the LIVNA repositories so I could solve that problem quite easily. On my T2XP laptop, the widescreen resolution didn't work and I noticed that 855resolution and 915resolution were not installed by default. I found the RPM for the second one, updated my /etc/rc.local file to change the modes and upon reboot everything was fine.

ACPI didn't work properly for me, and this was a bad surprise, as it always worked quite well on other distributions. I noticed that the computer could not manage to resume after it was suspended. It's only a little detail though and I'm sure I could fix it if I spent some time on it.

Overall the hardware recognition was not very impressive, and maybe it's due to the fact that Fedora only comes with free and robust drivers. However I didn't experience too many problems and the ones I had were easy to fix.

Speed

I found Fedora Core 6 quite fast. The system starts in 1min35s on my Sony Vaio T2XP laptop. The desktop is very responsive. The applications launch fast. With the 3D effects turned on and a color depth of 24bits I get 380FPS under glxgears. {mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

Conclusion

After reviewing Fedora Core 6 I have mixed feelings. The biggest problem in my opinion is the poor quality of its package manager. The Package Updater applet is good, Yum is good, but its interface Pirut is one of the worst graphical tools I've seen. You can't ask a novice user to rely on the command line all the time, and if you combine that with the fact that both hardware recognition and multimedia support need extra configuration, you simply get a distribution that will not "work" out of the box for many novice users. For experienced users though, it's a different story. Once you know how to use yum, how to add repositories, how to add non-free drivers and multimedia support (thinking about that, it's a pity Stanton Finley didn't publish his Installation Notes for this release) you can start appreciating the quality of this distribution. The artwork is fantastic, the selection of packages is very good and the desktop is one of the best. I don't know if it's the general look and feel or the way the menus and applications are set but the desktop environment is one of the best I know. It's really comfortable and pleasant to use. Overall if you manage to configure your system properly and you can get passed the poor quality of Pirut, you will certainly love Fedora Core 6.