Submitted by DistroWatch reviews Fedora 7, and concludes: “While Fedora doesn’t seem to have made great advances in the ease of configuring those finer things in life (like non-GPL drivers and non-free codecs), it’s not overly complicated if you’re willing to get your hands a little dirty. Once you start needing to customise the machine outside of standard Fedora boundaries though, things can become a little less reliable.”
Does the reviewer resort to command line with the rpm, all you do it click the livna-release-7.rpm from the website and install it with software installer.
“Unfortunately for most, playing encrypted DVDs, using Java, watching your favourite wmv video clips, listening to your mp3 collection and getting some 3D action on NVIDIA cards are all still an issue with Fedora 7. Out of the box Fedora played my flac and ogg files but none of the other test formats that I threw at it, which included: mp3, asf, mov, wmv, divx, xvid and swf”
Again WHEN will reviewers realize that this type of software CANNOT be installed “out the of the box” due to licensing issues, I get sick of hearing this and other OS’s don’t either(because of different reasons).
“This was where SELinux came into play. Simply turning it off and re-installing the driver solved the problem”
No you don’t need to reinstall the nvidia driver, you can pass the selinux=0 to grub.
Edited 2007-06-04 17:42
what’d be better is if livna would take some time to make sure their driver worked with selinux enforcing.
Well apparently in the #fedora channel on freenode, there is no such issue, maybe they have magic rpms?
It is actually NVidia’s driver blob… And because it is a blob only NVidia can fix it (assuming the problem is in the driver and not in the way it is packaged, e.g. the RPM SPEC-file).
Again WHEN will reviewers realize that this type of software CANNOT be installed “out the of the box” due to licensing issues, I get sick of hearing this and other OS’s don’t either(because of different reasons)
Ubuntu asks you if you want to download the required plugins and then plays your files a few seconds later. That’s pretty “out of the box” to me.
It’s not out of the box since they have to be downloaded from the repos, The term “Out of the box” means it all works without needing to do anything extra and like I said they have licensing issues (non GPL).
It’s not out of the box since they have to be downloaded from the repos, The term “Out of the box” means it all works without needing to do anything extra and like I said they have licensing issues (non GPL).
Yes, I know what the term means. My point was that if it’s not legal or genuinely free to include some things in a distro, you can make it easier or harder for the user to enable the functionality post-“out of the box”.
Ubuntu chooses the easy way by politely asking the user if he/she wants to install the required plugins to enable mp3 playback.
Fedora chooses the hard way by not doing this and instead encouraging the user to type yummy terminal commands.
I’m not saying there’s a wrong or right. I’m just saying Fedora makes it harder for the average end-user to play his/her music collection, compared to Ubuntu. The parent poster claimed it is “IMPOSSIBLE” to do it “out of the box”. I’m claiming it IS possible to do it “out of the box”-ish.
”
Fedora chooses the hard way by not doing this and instead encouraging the user to type yummy terminal commands. ”
Ubuntu is outside of US, includes proprietary drivers by default and can point to third party repositories with patent infringing code while Fedora might not be able to but there is solution called codec buddy being developed
See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/FeatureList.
Note that you dont have to use the terminal at all for installing any of the packages in Fedora . Terminal is just convenient for some people but a part of Pirut (Add/Remove programs) called system-install packages automatically shows up when you click on any RPM package in Fedora. Since third party repositories usually provide a RPM package to add in their repository to Fedora it is quite easily done graphically.
Rahul, you have a nice explanation of how Fedora is different from Ubuntu. I actually like version 7’s approach where Fedora only installs free software unless you select the package in add/remove software. Overall I agree with the comments posted here that Ubuntu currently has a more user friendly approach to installing the non-free software by asking during installation. It isn’t really a big deal and the proposed codec buddy sounds like a good solution for Fedora 8.
From a new user’s perspective, people don’t care how easily non-free software can be selected in add/remove software or using yum commands, they just want it to work right out of the box without any tweaking. In this way Ubuntu is more of a Windows replacement now since the user doesn’t have to figure out why mp3 files are not playing. New users coming from Windows aren’t interested in free versus non-free software philosophical stances. They just want it to work with minimal frustration. Even though I love Fedora I understand why Dell chose Ubuntu as a linux distro.
Edited 2007-06-05 22:03
“From a new user’s perspective, people don’t care how easily non-free software can be selected in add/remove software or using yum commands, they just want it to work right out of the box without any tweaking.”
If by out of the box you mean by default, Ubuntu doesnt support that though it does install proprietary drivers in some instances and is apparently planning to add more in the next version.
If you want non-free software by default Fedora wouldn’t fit your needs.
It is not good for the rest of the community. That’s why we don’t use Ubuntu.
I’ve learned that many communities stay smaller because the people in those communities aren’t willing to accept the changes need to make that community grow. However, many small communities continue to thrive even in the absence of constant change. On the same lines many communities that learn to accept those changes end up neither thriving nor advancing and sometimes end up in worse shape.
Speaking in terms of Ubuntu. I believe they are trying to reach a mass market of users who don’t live in the open source community. Those people neither care about or participate in the politics of open source. Although you say what Ubuntu does isn’t good for the community it maybe the catalyst for the change that brings Linux completely mainstream. However, that change maybe good for market share, but bad for the fundamentalist of open source.
There is FFMPEG which is a package of OSS codecs that implements support for most of the closed formats without relying on the proprietary win32 codec package and it has been true for quite sometime now. I think that the only issue with it is that the original codecs themselves are patented(?), and therefore FFMPEG developers cannot freely distribute theirs on the U.S despite it not being a copyright infringiment, if I understood it correctly.
I have been using it to watch my (huge and growing) anime and movies collection with files encoded in all sorts of weird codecs and containers and so far, I had lucky playing all of them.
Codec Buddy is fine if you ask me. The real reason that I don't use Ubuntu is that it is somewhat buggy (at least Kubuntu is; I haven't played with vanilla Ubuntu for too long to make an opinion of it) and it is a tad slow, albeit a bit better than OpenSuSE and other RPM distros…
> at least Kubuntu is; I haven't played with
> vanilla Ubuntu for too long to
> make an opinion of it
As far as desktop software goes, most of the stability problems I have been encountered have been in Kubuntu-specific components. I used Ubuntu for several months last year and had very few problems. But KDE is my personal preference on the desktop.
Kubuntu Edgy and Dapper had older versions of fontconfig and weren’t compiled with some of the more recent linker optimisations. Feisty fixes both of those and it accounts for something like half a second on the startup of every major KDE application.
>I think that the only issue with it is that the original codecs themselves are patented(?), and therefore FFMPEG developers cannot freely distribute theirs on the U.S despite it not being a copyright infringiment, if I understood it correctly.
No! It is not a copyright infringement, it’s a patent infringement. Copyright and patents have almost nothing in common, why people always mix them up? Maybe they do what the industry want them to do, thinking in terms like “intellectual property”?!?
But i don’t understand why we should care about patents in mp3, wmv or other codecs. They also don’t care about other patents like tabs, or does they remove tabs from all programs (e.g. firefox, konqueror,…)? I don’t think so. Patents are a big problem. Almost every program violates patents. But i can’t see why you should give patents on media codecs a special role and treat them different than others?
Edited 2007-06-04 22:40
‘This is out of the box’ assuming that one have nice, fast and working internet connection. Unfortunately, not everyone has it; hence, Ubuntu or fedora will never be ‘out of the box’ system.
Theres lots of Distros out there that DO have nvidia/ati drivers, mp3, dvd, asf, mov, divx, swf, java, etc.
If i really wanted to use fedora then I’ll just find a fork where someone has done all the work for me and created a “based on fedora” distro with the goodies to go.
and thats the beauty of Linux.
Edited 2007-06-04 19:38
Why do you not read what I’ve said, distros that are GPL only DON’T come with what you say. What distros are you talking about since the software and drivers you talk about mostly of not supported anyway.
[q]Again WHEN will reviewers realize that this type of software CANNOT be installed “out the of the box” due to licensing issues, I get sick of hearing this and other OS’s don’t either(because of different reasons)[q]
OpenSUSE will install much of the “forbidden” software out of the box (Acrobat Reader, Java, RealPlayer, Flash).
All you have to do is to accept the agreement.
Besides openSUSE will automount your Windows partitions and it has a very easy tool to mount other partitions, including hfs+ ones.
Also, installing NVIDIA drivers is pretty trivial.
Of course openSUSE should stop crippling Kaffeine and other media players. It is enough not to provide libdvdcss and win32codecs, just as Mandriva does.
Edited 2007-06-05 04:20
does anyone else think it’s fabulous? Kudos to the artists who did that.
Yes, I like the artwork too.
“””
does anyone else think it’s fabulous?
“””
Yes, I think the artwork is exceptional. From grub, through RHGB, through GDM, to desktop, it is a joy to behold.
“Uplifting” is what I would call it, both literally and figuratively.
Edited 2007-06-04 21:13
Ubuntu asks you if you want to download the required plugins and then plays your files a few seconds later. That’s pretty “out of the box” to me.
Fedora was planning to use Codec Buddy to do something like this. It will probably be in Fedora 8. Right now the user has to manually add mp3, Flash, realaudio, Java and Nvidia drivers. It is pretty easy using yum commands. Not quite user friendly for newbies yet. Ubuntu in that regard is more of Desktop distribution that Windows users will feel comfortable on.
If you install the updates for the nvidia kmod that will come up and this solves the selinux issue with the nvidia driver.
Onces you installed the updates then you can turn on selinux enforcement mode.
for a distro that cannot handle dependencies. and cannot play any of common audio/video file formats and cannot install correctly nvidia. This author is so generous.
I advise him to review ubuntu, he would probably rate it 14 out of 10.
I have nvidia correctly installed. The first package was using a deprecated feature, and wouldn’t work. That has been remedied. Without touching any of the SELinux stuff.
The comment about audio/video formats is getting old.
And since when could Fedora not handle dependencies. Now this is just flat out lying.
Edited 2007-06-04 19:17
I have upgraded to F7 yesterday.
I found it a bit slower that FC6. Firefox “Save Link as” option causes browser to hang.
Some applications refused to start.
Well, there is no easy way to roll back. I’ll try to download recent updates.
Heh. It turned out what ANY “Save As” menu option in ANY app in my F7 setup doesn’t working.
What should i do now? =/
you probably have a corrupted installation. Did you check your SHA sum of the ISO image that you burned your CD/DVD from? Did it pass the Media Test during installation? If the answer to both of those questions is yes (which I doubt) then file a bugzilla report against gtk component at https://bugzilla.redhat.com
You probably have a corrupted installation.
Did it pass the Media Test during installation?
Yes.
I didn’t checked the checksum though.
My system was upgraded in this way: FC5->FC6->F7
Probably the problem in some old files.
“Did it pass the Media Test during installation?”
I would not use the media test to verify the dvd. my failed, but i went along and installed fedora anyway, it works great.
“Did it pass the Media Test during installation?”
I would not use the media test to verify the dvd. my failed, but i went along and installed fedora anyway, it works great.
I believe when the media check was originaly introduced they had lots of problems with false posatives, I.E. the media would be reported as invalid, but it was fine. However I think that has now been resolved.
You may be lucky in that the secion of the media that is busted contains data that you have not tried to install, or you have but are not using it now.
I hardly think recomending users (I would take your comment as a recomendation as opposed to a factual statement) to skip this step is wise.
“You may be lucky in that the secion of the media that is busted contains data that you have not tried to install, or you have but are not using it now.”
media test failed before it began testing the DVD.
It works without any problems on my computers. I second that you probably got a bad download.
I’d like to a few points.
I have been using Fedora since Fedora core 1 was
available. It has always been my favotite distro. it was the one distro where I could always get everything that “I” needed to work, Java, DVD, Flash, MP3 etc. However after all the problems with Fedora 6, I was forced to try other distros, and I have found one that I am truly happy with. I downloaded the Fedora 7 live disk and gave it a try. I was dissapointed in the fact that once again it did not reconize my wireless card, also in the etc/hosts file it still does not list the loop back address correct it still reads ::1, instead of 127.0.0.1 this can create a real headache at times. Yes, a simple fix however, I feel I should not have to fix it. I also know that the developers are aware of the problem. I did see many things that were nice, yes the art work is grand. and I like the load into ram feature of the live CD. The fact Fedora Core and Extras has merged is a great thing. For now I will monitor Fedora development I look forward to Fedora 8 but will continue to use my new Distro in the mean time.
In other Fedora related news I have been trying to get a good working MYTHTV set up and the new MYTHDORA based on Fedora Core 6 is outstanding. By the way it does include all the video and Audio codecs out of the box.
In terms of Fedora not including java and flash, when did MS start to include these, as far as I know you still have to install the plugins and JRE on a Windows system.
I may be wrong on this but I also don’t think Windows Media player will play commercial DVD’s out of the box either. I’m taking a gamble that i’m right on this.
also in the etc/hosts file it still does not list the loop back address correct it still reads ::1, instead of 127.0.0.1 this can create a real headache at times.
I don’t know what you did but on my machine after clean F7 installation I had in /etc/hosts these lines:
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
“Once you start needing to customise the machine outside of standard Fedora boundaries though, things can become a little less reliable”
Hmmm… aint that somehow true of any distro/OS?
I understand why they can’t include them by default, but the problem that I have is when they start purposely crippling the default media players such that even if you install the correct codecs, it still won’t play them. That to me crosses the line and is not something I’m willing to put up with or spend the time to fix.
On top of that, I’ll never go back to a RPM based distribution.
“but the problem that I have is when they start purposely crippling the default media players such that even if you install the correct codecs, it still won’t play them”
Fedora does not ever do that. I have never heard of any distribution doing that either ever.
“On top of that, I’ll never go back to a RPM based distribution.”
Fedora is more yum based these days. RPM is not a end user level tool for more instances. There is apt-rpm and smart in the Fedora repository too.
“Fedora does not ever do that. I have never heard of any distribution doing that either ever.”
Actually now that you say that, I have remembered it was SuSE that I had heard those complaints about. When I read the following from the article, it made me think it was RedHat.
“Unfortunately, when I tried totem-xine and totem-mozilla they both failed to install complaining about GConf conflicts”
You can’t say that no distribution has done it. A simple Google search shows that they have.
As far as the repositories are concerned –
# Fedora.-
The number of packages reported by yum list all command is: 7334
CentOS.-
The number of packages reported by yum list all command is: 5785
Ubuntu.-
The number of packages reported by apt-cache stats command is: 24,088
Debian.-
The number of packages reported by apt-cache stats command is: 23,851
Package management is right up there at the top of my priority list right behind stability and security. The amount of software available and ease of dependency resolution in Debian-based distributions kicks the dog crap out of RPM based distro’s. IMHO – YMMV
The RAW Numbers you quoted might be correct however there is more to it than simple numbers.
It is the way things are packaged that will alter the numbers quite considerable.
If distro A uses 3 packages for option Z and distro B uses 6 packages for option Z then will that not skew the numbers a bit?
Please take some time to look at what is offered at a higher level. I expect the differences will not be that much.
Number of packages is meaningless when there is no consideration about active, maintained, obsolete and depreciated packages. What you forgot is both Fedora and CentOS only include FOSS packages so it you add external repository like livna or freshrpms, the number of packages increases. It is also Fedora policies to not include obsolete, unmaintained package from upstream as the OS is all about latest technologies. For example, udev has replaced the old /dev method, it does not make sense to maintain the latter.
I moved away from Fedora to Debian on all my machines (i386, AMD64, ppc) but I still think Fedora is just great.
I tried the livecd of Fedora 7 on a machine with 1.5GB of RAM, chose the “run from RAM” option in GRUB and I was AMAZED by the speed, polish and ease of doing *anything*.
I fell in the same problem about the nvidia drivers, but was absolutely happy with the way Fedora handled the problem and brought back X.
Fedora 7 is a solid release. Full stop.
Something is crazy wrong with this release… downloaded it the day it came out and spent days fighting with it did not have the same problems with fc6…
ok new hardware was my test bed but after removing (installing) other distro’s I have not had to fight at all… and got better hardware detection… (thinkpad)
I notice that you are running a laptop (mention of a thinkpad).
You’ve not actually give any one any idea of what problem your having, so it limits any one’s ability from even trying to help you (so appart from complaining the purpose behind your post is well less than obvious).
However, leaving that particular gripe aside
I ran in to a problem on a Dell D620 after installing the RC2 and have the same problem on the final release.
That is, after installing, when botting the system appears to just freeze.
This is liable to be a bug relating to the improvements in the kernel to try and reduce power consumption.
Have a look at this bug https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=239007, it may be a solution to a problem that you may or not be having :p
After adding nohz=off to my boot parameter the system comes up cleanly.
Edited 2007-06-06 08:18
great little article. I’m using fedora 7 to learn how to master RPM.