Linux Saga

I really like Fedora

I wont say that I love it, like I do Debian Lenny, but there are some parts about it that i like more than Debian.

1) It is more bleeding edge(sort of) by that i mean that it has many more update packages than debian lenny, those packages are available in Sid though.

2) My rt2860 802.11N Wireless Card installed easily

I just added the rpmfusion repo and typed

yum install kmod-2860

This driver is supported on the 2.6.27 kernel that fedora has, Lenny has the 2.6.26 driver and I needed to create a patch so it would work on Lenny, and it still lowered the strength from 300 mb/s to 54 mb/s.

3) Fedora 10 has KDE4, and this version, although still not the greatest, is still very usable for me. The odd program will crash every couple of days or so but nothing i can’t do without, and it seems very snappy to me.

However, there is one thing that is very very bad about Fedora 10

There is not ATI driver support for Fedora 10, this means that the propietary driver will not work correctly so you cannot enable 3D effects and xgl doesn’t work.

I spent a few days looking for a way to install the ATI driver, and i thought i found one

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=155503&page=1&pp=10

I tried this and i thought i had it, the ATI catalyst control center installed and the video card was detected, but xgl did not work. Howver this way has a good reputation for x86 systems and i have a x86_64. Maybe if you try it on a x86 it will work *shrugs shoulders*.

I can see that fedora 10 is a really good system, but ever since Fedora 8, the ATI driver has been unsupported. I would happily move to this system and still use KDE4, as it worked well here and KDE4.2 comes out in a few days.

I (and I believe most people out there agree with me) like having the newest stable technology, and at least at the moment because of the lenny freeze, Fedora has more up to date software than Debian(even SID). It surprised me that things that hadn’t even yet been able to make it to SID, were included in Fedora stable, and worked great!.

But, until they decide to support ATI drivers, i dont think i will be ready to move to it. After i finish typing this i am going to boot into Lenny and install the 2.6.28 kernel. Hopefully when lenny is released Debian will  catch up to and pass Fedora again, which i think is very likely to happen.

As i write this I am currently downloading a torrent for Fedora 10 x86_64 DVD. I have been eagerly awaiting the release of KDE4, but they’re taking a fricking long time to release and every couple of months I create a new partition to install Lenny to and install KDE4, to see if they finally got most of the bugs fixed, and every time leave disappointed. So in order to break into a new change of pace I have decided to learn another side of Linux. I am going to go to the dark side and learn Red Hat Fedora ( Hopefully this time i wont quit like last time, last time i installed Fedora, updated and all of a sudden the update feature stopped wanting to work, talking about a “;” or something i don’t remember). Also since I’ve wanted to reinstall my Debian Lenny partition I am going to reinstall it too and begin anew, I have already backed up all my important information and settings to a FAT32 partition i use to keep music, videos, and .doc files.

Another reason i want to install Fedora is that, even though i really want KDE4, i’ve never used KDE. Sure i’ve played around with it a couple of times but I’ve never really learnt it, i just used gnome because it was the default on most distro’s I’ve used and it’s simple. But i know me, and i know that I love to have personalization, and KDE supposedly should give me that. I’m not going to abandon Lenny yet though, it has been good to me and so far it is the best distro I’ve met, but i know it has its setbacks, Lenny will just be on another partition, ready to access if i ever remove Fedora or dislike KDE.

I will also hopefully post a review on the differences i’ve found for Fedora and Debian sometime soon

Compiz-fusion is a very popular 3d compositioning system for linux that makes it possible to do a lot of school stuff with your computer. Compiz-fusion is so popular that getting the chance to play with it is oftentimes a large reason why people switch. This is how i installed compiz fusion on my Debian Lenny, but i imagine that the basic idea for this should work on most linux setups, with a few tweaks here and there. You will need a video card with 3d graphic acceleration with its driver installed.

$ su root

#apt-get install compiz

if you need the gnome backend run

# apt-get install compizconfig-backend-gconf

if you need the kde backend run

# apt-get install compizconfig-backend-kconf

for the settings manager

# apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

and for extra plugins(if you want them) i run

# apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-main

# apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra

Then go to System-> Preferences-> Sessions

under start-up programs choose new, name it compiz and put compiz in command.

click ok, close, restart and it should be running

if its not then press Alt + F2 and type compiz

if you are going to need to switch easily from compiz to metacity or window decorators then i recommend installing the fusion icon

# apt-get install fusion-icon

Someone gave me a good tip to use with the fusion icon somewhere on the internet, i dont remember where but it basically just lets me have the fusion icon ready to go in my panel without having to go to applications and start it and then having to run it from the panel. This is for gnome

go to System-> Preferences-> Sessions

under start-up programs choose new, name it fusion-icon and put fusion-icon in command.

click ok, close, restart

Even if you have ubuntu, and a propietary driver for your computer was automatically installed for you, its usually a good idea to install one yourself. The reason being that the drivers automatically dowloaded by ubuntu’s “hardware drivers” feature are oftentimes close, but not the perfect match for your video card. For example, i used to have to disable mip-maps on compiz with the driver that was automatically downloaded, otherwise i would see a white cube or window everytime i used compiz. To download the ATI driver you need to know what video card you have, once you know, head to the download site:

Drivers & Software

Be sure to choose your processor architecture. After you download the file it will have this at the end.

ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run

I had never heard of a “.run” file, and after some research i learned that it was a shell script. So to run this program i would execute the following command as root in the terminal

sh ‘/home/francisco/Desktop/ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run’

replace the part in quotes with the link to your download location

After you execute the command you should see this window

Choose to install the driver and press Continue. Then accept the license agreement.
\

Then choose automatic installation

Press Continue

Then Continue again

The driver installs, then follow the directions on the page

reboot

if after reboot the driver fails to install, run this from the terminal as root

aticonfig –initial -f

reboot

All right, there are several different ways to find and download a distro, if you can’t figure out how to download a file, then you probably are not going to be a good match with linux. However there is a common error that many new users do that can be avoided so you can save yourself from having to burn one or two corrupt cds.

After you have saved the cd to a file in your computer, you will need to find a cd burning program, if you are running a Windows, i recommend using ImgBurn

Install it, and follow the directions
Here’s the important part, burn it at the lowest or second to lowest setting. The higher the burn speed the higher the chance for error, and the wrong file being corrupt can cause the installation to fail or not work correctly.

If you choose to burn at a high speed, your installation may work but some files may become corrupt, so make sure you turn down the heat.