Many of the things you point out aren't specific to FC2... at least to the best of my knowledge. I do appreciate them within the context of helping to improve the individual applications.
While Red Hat may or may not have intended Fedora Core to becoming the new consumer mainstream distro, that is what is happening, if you agree with it or not... whether you think it should only be used by bleeding edge testers or not. Many former Red Hat Linux users have decided to move on to Fedora, that that is just a reality. From my perspective, the only difference between Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core is that you can no longer find boxed sets... or install support... but who used install support anyway?
Gnome is definitely not specific to Fedora Core. Perhaps you can take your Gnome comments somewhere where they will have more impact. I greatly respect Nicholas Petreley but most of his negative comments about Gnome have been disproven. Your single complaint about the file selector is not enough to throw away all that is Gnome. I'm sure you use applications all the time that are part of Gnome... I know I do. I have to admit that I don't know much about Gnome as a desktop because I'm a long time KDE user (I compiled the 0.x series from source). I do appreciate the comments about perceived flaws in Gnome but I do think they could be more constructive. Is there any room for a compliment once in a while?
Shouldn't some of your comments about Evolution be addressed at the SuSE people... since they bought Ximian?
Here's a more general comment about negative reviews... and not all of my comments are directed at the author of the original review.
- - - - -
I'm not sure why everyone seems fit to pick on Fedora Core 2 alone... when other distros share many of the same problems. I'm not a Mandrake user but I know a few people who are... and everyone I've talked to who tried Mandrake 10 switched back to the 9 series because they had noticable differences in hardware compatibility. I'm not trying to pick on Mandrake here but it seems to me that the 2.6.x kernel simply isn't finished. I'm not trying to bad mouth the kernel developers... but it is a fact that Linus has not started a 2.7.x devel tree... and that even now the kernel developers are making major changes to important subsystems... in what is supposedly a production kernel.
I'm confident that in a couple of months, once the 2.6.x kernel has been weened from the developers... and all of the issues get worked out at the distribution level... it'll be a clear winner.
On the flipside of the coin, I've installed FC2 on about a dozen machines and have actually found that some hardware that didn't work in any previous distribution release, now works great in FC2. For me, FC2 works quite well on a variety of hardware and I am confident that as some of the minor issues are resolved, it will just get better and better.
I don't know if this is just a mis-perception, but I feel that the Fedora Core team is taking even bolder steps to mainstream Linux than Red Hat was... and Red Hat has always been aggressive in promoting new software technologies. I see this as a good thing. Without that pushing, Linux would not continue to improve and mature at the impressive rate it has enjoyed thus far.
Using Fedora Core 1 and now FC2, I can actually start to see the not too distant future where Linux has a good fighting chance at, dare I say it seriously?... the DESKTOP MARKET!
While it is true that FC2 isn't perfect, no new major release (new kernel, new releases of the desktop environs, etc) is born perfect... and it is unrealistic to think any will or even should. Regardless of the amount of people submitting bugs during the test-releases, in the real world an initial production release is just the next step in shaking out the bugs. It is that way even with Microsoft and Apple... even if they don't want to admit it. The difference is that our community is more open about the bugs and as a result, most of them get fixed and fixed faster.
In summary, quit picking on the fruits of Red Hat simply because you have some resentment about their change in marketing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and their success in the marketplace. If you want to debate those, do so directly. I don't expect everyone to love them, but give them the fair shake you give everyone else... and have realistic expectations. Long live Linux.
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I appreciate your testing but...
Posted by: Administrator on May 31, 2004 04:01 AMWhile Red Hat may or may not have intended Fedora Core to becoming the new consumer mainstream distro, that is what is happening, if you agree with it or not... whether you think it should only be used by bleeding edge testers or not. Many former Red Hat Linux users have decided to move on to Fedora, that that is just a reality. From my perspective, the only difference between Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core is that you can no longer find boxed sets... or install support... but who used install support anyway?
Gnome is definitely not specific to Fedora Core. Perhaps you can take your Gnome comments somewhere where they will have more impact. I greatly respect Nicholas Petreley but most of his negative comments about Gnome have been disproven. Your single complaint about the file selector is not enough to throw away all that is Gnome. I'm sure you use applications all the time that are part of Gnome... I know I do. I have to admit that I don't know much about Gnome as a desktop because I'm a long time KDE user (I compiled the 0.x series from source). I do appreciate the comments about perceived flaws in Gnome but I do think they could be more constructive. Is there any room for a compliment once in a while?
Shouldn't some of your comments about Evolution be addressed at the SuSE people... since they bought Ximian?
Here's a more general comment about negative reviews... and not all of my comments are directed at the author of the original review.
- - - - -
I'm not sure why everyone seems fit to pick on Fedora Core 2 alone... when other distros share many of the same problems. I'm not a Mandrake user but I know a few people who are... and everyone I've talked to who tried Mandrake 10 switched back to the 9 series because they had noticable differences in hardware compatibility. I'm not trying to pick on Mandrake here but it seems to me that the 2.6.x kernel simply isn't finished. I'm not trying to bad mouth the kernel developers... but it is a fact that Linus has not started a 2.7.x devel tree... and that even now the kernel developers are making major changes to important subsystems... in what is supposedly a production kernel.
I'm confident that in a couple of months, once the 2.6.x kernel has been weened from the developers... and all of the issues get worked out at the distribution level... it'll be a clear winner.
On the flipside of the coin, I've installed FC2 on about a dozen machines and have actually found that some hardware that didn't work in any previous distribution release, now works great in FC2. For me, FC2 works quite well on a variety of hardware and I am confident that as some of the minor issues are resolved, it will just get better and better.
I don't know if this is just a mis-perception, but I feel that the Fedora Core team is taking even bolder steps to mainstream Linux than Red Hat was... and Red Hat has always been aggressive in promoting new software technologies. I see this as a good thing. Without that pushing, Linux would not continue to improve and mature at the impressive rate it has enjoyed thus far.
Using Fedora Core 1 and now FC2, I can actually start to see the not too distant future where Linux has a good fighting chance at, dare I say it seriously?... the DESKTOP MARKET!
While it is true that FC2 isn't perfect, no new major release (new kernel, new releases of the desktop environs, etc) is born perfect... and it is unrealistic to think any will or even should. Regardless of the amount of people submitting bugs during the test-releases, in the real world an initial production release is just the next step in shaking out the bugs. It is that way even with Microsoft and Apple... even if they don't want to admit it. The difference is that our community is more open about the bugs and as a result, most of them get fixed and fixed faster.
In summary, quit picking on the fruits of Red Hat simply because you have some resentment about their change in marketing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and their success in the marketplace. If you want to debate those, do so directly. I don't expect everyone to love them, but give them the fair shake you give everyone else... and have realistic expectations. Long live Linux.
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