Kainaw's Journal: Fedora Core 6

Downloaded and installed FC6. I did a clean install. When I tried the yum upgrade from FC1 to FC2, nothing worked. From FC2 to FC3, I ended up with a lot of weird problems. From FC3 to FC4, I spent days removing left-over FC3 packages that caused conflicts. From FC4 to FC5, I couldn't reboot afterward. So, I backup up all my files (including the hidden ones) to USB and did a format/install.

Six disks! Fedora is getting huge. I downloaded all 6 iso files. I don't have a CD burner - that is on my wive's Windows box. But, I found out that Windows XP now has built-in iso burning support from the desktop. Right click on an iso and the option to burn it is right there. So, I burned all 6.

I was good. I checked the media. It all failed. I tried to burn the first iso three times (even using cdrecord on a linux box as work). Finally, I remembered that my CD player does not support DMA. So, I had to install with ide=nodma. Suddenly all the disks tested good.

On to the install. Looks like FC5 - just a slightly different background. Personally, I like the bubbly look of FC5 more than the DNA look of FC6. I do not like the way it tries to force you to use Gnome. I've been using KDE since it was first available for slackware. Why do I have to change now? I had to go into the "customize now" prompt, remove Gnome, add KDE, and then look through all the other bloat FC6 wants to add: Bluetooth? I don't have any bluetooth devices. Power management? This isn't a laptop. HP Printer Drivers? I don't have an HP printer. I used to complain that Windows installs everything including the kitchen sink "just in case", but Linux lets you choose what to install. By making it an awkward option to un-choose the bloat, FC6 is turning into Windows.

Install complete - reboot. No network. What!? I had network access during installation. I check /etc/sysconfig/networking and find that I have eth0 and eth1. So, ifup eth1 and I have networking. What!? I have two network cards!? Yes. All the way through Fedora Core 5, the on-board network wasn't supported. Now, it is. So, I downed eth1 and put my cable in the onboard eth0 port. That's a plus for FC6, but you'd think it would make the active network device eth0, not eth1.

Now, compile my NVidia drivers - no, that fails. Just like when FC5 was released, the drivers won't compile. I did see something strange, installing kernel-devel installed both the i386 and the x86_64 source. I don't have i386. So, yum list | grep installed | grep i386 ... where did all that crap come from? I spend the next three hours removing all the i386 packages. I thought that it is possible that an i386 package would be needed by some x86_64 package, but no. So, I'm left wondering - I installed from x86_64 disks. Where did all those i386 packages come from? I was just lucky that I tend to do a minimal install first to make sure things work. Had I done a complete install, it would have taked a very long time to remove all the i386 junk.

Wow - there i586 and i686 stuff on here too. At least I got quick at removing things with the i386 junk.

Well, I installed the video driver from livna - maybe it won't randomly crash my... OK. If I run glxinfo, it crashes the X server.

Got it all installed. I can boot (and the network works). I can finally add the programs I need and get back to work. I just with that Fedora made it easier to upgrade. At the very least, a fresh install shouldn't require immediate purging of unwanted junk.

Wow

[nizo]

Ok I haven't had as much trouble as you have had; right now I am on Fedora core 5, and have been using Fedora since core 1. Right now my install is slightly borked (second ethernet card is funky, causing me to manually start it when I need it). I like gnome, so I went ahead and installed ubuntu on my old laptop, and it works like a champ. Once I am done with classes I will probably look at switching my desktop over to ubuntu too; it just seems to work better on the desktop. I dunno if there is a 64bit versi