Fedora... I gave it a chance but

[Dougal]

Well guys 'n gals I gave it a couple of chances but, Fedora is not for me. Why??? you might ask - well if anyone reads this which I am sure you will, they will get my opinion. It is not nice but, there we are.

Fedora still has a ways to go before I will come back to it.

I started two threads for help and had no replies. I can work through some things from my limited Ubuntu experience and did indeed manage to get Crunchbang back into business with Fedora as an option on GRUB.

I have reported the clumsiness of certain parts of the install and the lack of info I encountered when updating packages. With this and no help from my second thread I am about to reinstall Ubuntu as my second Linux OS to play with and remove Fedora. Fedora looked pretty but, with the hanging system and lack of response from the forum I have been put off for now. Ubuntu seems (to me anyway) the far more reliably useful distro.

[Dougal]

Just a short report to say I will be staying with Ubuntu distros from now on. I didn't have a great time with Fedora lately and had absolutely no replies to two threads I started about my woes.
I did write s short thread on the Fedora forum but basically (for me anyways) I couldn't live with the apparent unrelaibilty of the distro. I believe there are many that have no problems with it whatsoever but, when I tried it I found the system installation clumsy with only mouse movement available and having to rely upon button clicks instead of Trackpad taps (Ubuntu has no problem with my Trackpad from the start). At the keyboard country selection I had to press the up arrow button before I could move down the list to select the UK keyboard. When I thought I had opted for the safer install onto a partition I had selected I thought my Ubuntu distro would be safe (good job I backed up my data) but, the partition was taken over by Fedora. I did a better job on second attempt which I did because I wanted Crunchbang back because after getting Fedora installed, the system hung for no apparent reason. The Fedora system update gave me no progress indication on the package manager window area. I put up with this for over one hour before terminating the syetm update. All else seemed to work meanwhile but, after reboot and strolling through the web and looking at settings (without altering any) the system just hung. I reinstalled Fedora (which doesn't show Crunchbang on it's menu although Windows shows!!!). I had the restricted drivers for the graphics card showing this time (funny it didn't show at last install) and I opted to install the ATI driver for my Radeon card - bad idea... I took note of the ATI instructions about the config in case all was not well after reboot but, when I rebooted and got a black screen when choosing Fedora from my Grub menu (after utilizing Crunchbang to take control of the boot menu list) I tried to find the command line entry point. I got a GRUB entry point but, no terminal interface. GRUB could not recognize the commands as it did not have them in its' commands file. How can people work with awkwardness like this. Atleast with Ubuntu we can get to the command line. Perhaps I missed something. I am not sure what. I have installed Operating Systems many times but, the Fedora experience left me wandering why it gets more people using the distro than any other.
I hope this has proved useful.

[reed9]

I personally don't care for Fedora, never have. For some reason I find it one of the most complicated distros to use (and I'm comparing it to Arch here, so maybe I'm just nutty).

However, if I can offer some friendly advice, I read through your second unanswered post here - or at least tried.

I would wager that part of the reason no one replied is that your post is very difficult to read. It needs to be broken up into smaller chunks, paragraphs if you will, and maybe phrased a little more concisely so we can quickly see what the problem is.

Fedora is known to be a bleeding edge distribution. They are often early adopters of new technology, which can be a double edged sword. They are also much stricter about including only free software than Ubuntu is, so for general desktop things people have come to expect, ie, flash, multimedia, and such, it can be more difficult to setup than Ubuntu.

But that early adoption can also be a good thing. Fedora 12 is the only distro I know of that supports my Broadcom 4318 wireless card out of the box, with only free software. This thanks to the open firmware project.

You may also find that for your particular hardware, Fedora works poorly, but on another piece of hardware, Ubuntu works poorly and Fedora great.

The Fedora Project also contributes a great deal to linux and pushing new tech forward, so I have to give them props for that.

[Lazydog]

If you want to try a RH distroy then you should be looking at CentOS. It is RH without the tax (RH Support). Fedora is bleeding edge stuff and is the testbed for RH. What they get working really well is then ported into RH.

[schwim]

Fedora's own mission statement tells you that it's existence is to test latest apps. You shouldn't be using it if you're not inclined to tinker.

As for the requests for assistance you kept mentioning didn't get answered: that has nothing to do with the distro. That's the community failing, not the operating system.

FedoraForum.org handled practically every problem I ever had with the distro. Unfortunately, the community reminds me of the blue hairs using Florida as God's waiting room. If you can handle the complete lack of joie de vivre though, they can get Fedora running on a toaster.

[wcorvi]

Repetition, Repetition, let me say it again.

[Roxoff]

I didn't have a great time with Fedora lately and had absolutely no replies to two threads I started about my woes.

I don't remember your threads. Maybe you can direct us? This isn't a problem with Fedora, it's down to us here to try to help, not the distro compilers or maintainers.

I did write s short thread on the Fedora forum but basically (for me anyways) I couldn't live with the apparent unrelaibilty of the distro.

'Apparent' unreliability? Not sure I follow you. I've used Fedora since FC1, and the only unreliability I experienced was either down to faulty memory (a pig to find and diagnose) or Broadcom wireless drivers which didn't work properly until about FC3 or 4, and then my laptop died...

I found the system installation clumsy with only mouse movement available and having to rely upon button clicks instead of Trackpad taps (Ubuntu has no problem with my Trackpad from the start).

It's a problem - but there seems to be little change applied to the install with each release, the project seems to focus on the distribution not the installer. If you have problems, you can always use text mode (and, for the expert, that's preferable anyway, 'cos it works better with no fancy frippery).

I thought I had opted for the safer install onto a partition I had selected

There is always a danger when installing an OS that you can pick the wrong partition...

The Fedora system update gave me no progress indication on the package manager window area. I put up with this for over one hour before terminating the syetm update. All else seemed to work meanwhile but, after reboot and strolling through the web and looking at settings (without altering any) the system just hung.

No progress monitor if you just click the 'get on with it' option on update is something that annoys me in Fedora too - it never used to do that (before Fedora 9, I think). Now I always select 'show updates' and tell it to get on with it from there.

I had the restricted drivers for the graphics card showing this time (funny it didn't show at last install)

The proper ATI drivers are proprietary, and hence excluded from Fedora. This is also true for nVidia ones. You can get binaries from rpmfusion, the only extra repository you'd need for this distro.

I took note of the ATI instructions about the config in case all was not well after reboot but, when I rebooted and got a black screen when choosing Fedora from my Grub menu (after utilizing Crunchbang to take control of the boot menu list)

Such issues should not arise if you're using video drivers from rpmfusion.

I tried to find the command line entry point. I got a GRUB entry point but, no terminal interface. GRUB could not recognize the commands as it did not have them in its' commands file.

I've been to the command line in grub in Fedora, but not recently. It could be FC6 or even earlier when I last did that. Maybe you'd inadvertently turned off some grub extras package during install?

I have installed Operating Systems many times but, the Fedora experience left me wandering why it gets more people using the distro than any other.
I hope this has proved useful.

left you wandering, lol... I'm sure that's not what you meant

If Ubuntu works for you, stick with it. I couldn't possibly use Ubuntu because I don't like brown

[Dougal]

Thanks for all the replies and helpful suggestions. I will look at finding the command line at boot again as I haven't scrubbed fedora yet. I do like to tinker, as one has replied and I am ever hopeful of success. As lots of you know already there is that little buzz you get when something works (and you know why it has worked).
I apologize for my text layout. It may be too much in one paragraph as suggested. I am used to constructing engineering technical reports for big companies and they have never complained but, there you are. I will make an effort to be more constructive and simple in my wording in future.
Thanks again...