Fedora Core 6 - ‘Zod’ is finally running on my system. So is the Zod better than its predecessor, what has been my experience, to know just read on. Please note that this is not a review, but my experiences while installing and using the Zod.
My installation source was the CD’s, 5 of them altogether. When it comes to the installation, even though the installer is good, I will always miss the ease provided by the SuSe and the Mandriva Installers. FC6 installer Anaconda though better than previous version, still has some major drawbacks. For example, though an option to select custom packages is given, no mention of the installation size of the selected packages is shown anywhere during the installation.
Next comes the removal of certain default packages, I noticed that the installer does not resolve the dependencies on the spot, hence even though I had deselected certain packages, they got included again automatically as a part of dependencies (happens when I finished and clicked the next button) this information and the dependencies should have been show during the deselection itself, so one can remove the dependents as well if it is not required.
Another minor issue is that of the time remaining during the installation, it was running at its own speed and not at all near approximation, there was no way I would say when the installation would finish since only the progress bar was a good indicator shown and there was not display of the size finished or package count.
There were no other annoyances in the installation and it went on smoothly and finished in about a hour, and I also created the same user as in FC5 to reuse and continue with the previous home directory (in a separate partition), I did not encounter any problems and all settings were restored when it booted to the desktop.
I did not notice any major difference between FC5 and FC6, only some minor tweaks here and there, also FC6 includes the latest Gnome and KDE releases.
I had a few issues with the package manager since it does not by default allow use of installation CD’s as a medium for installation, hence one needs a net connection in order to reach it. I used yum to install a few packages such as the graphics driver (I had to install the kmod-nvidia-legacy driver for my Geforce2 MX integrated chipset, as kmod-nvidia was getting stuck when displaying the nvidia logo).
Using yum I installed the multimedia support (see resources below for the instructions), and several other packages such as Liferea (for RSS), Scribus (DTP), Frozen & Monkey Bubble (Games), xCHM (.chm viewer), Brasero (CD/DVD burner), D4X (download manager), xdtv (tv viewing) etc. A major problem with yum is; it is very very slow due to the way it resolves dependencies , I will soon be moving to Smart Package Manager to see if it is faster, which I believe it will be.
I still hate the dependencies certain software have. For example Liferea, a rss news aggregator which is only 700+ Kb, has a dependency on Firefox, so I had to install/update Firefox from the repo which is 1.5x version which is 18+ MB, though I use FF2 running from the home directory. I still don’t understand this sort of dependencies.
Overall, I am happy with the performance and the distro as of now, so I will continue with FC for some more time, but there needs to be some major changes with regard to package manager in the next couple of versions, else I am sure to jump to Debian or SuSe.
To conclude if you have a broadband net connection and want to use FC6, then there is nothing that is stopping you and there will be no issues to think about, just go ahead and install. But if you do not have a net connection or use a dial-up, think again.
- Fedora Core 6 Tips & Tricks
- Personal Fedora Core 6 Installation Guide
- Fedora Core 6 Starter Guide
- Services in Fedora Core 6
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The dependency problem with Liferea is that it needs something to render HTML with. And in the GTK/GNOME world there are only two serious libraries: GtkMozEmbed GtkHTML2. While GtkHTML2 is standalone library, GtkMozEmbed comes along with Mozilla, Firefox or XulRunner installations each of them big packages… You could use GtkHTML2 but its rendering capabilities are limited and you do not have the comfort of unrestricted browsing within Liferea by using the Mozilla rendering.
so uhm is this like better than the usual fedora ?
PS: am downloading fedora dvd rip (3.81gb) for a friend of mine, so would u suggest i get teh zod one as well?
@Sindhu:
Zod is actually the code name for this release, like Longhorn was initially the code name for Vista, There is no separate version called Zod.
Also, if your friend does not have a net connection, I would recommend openSUSE, I downloaded and installed it and was surely impressed by it, will write a post about it soon.
Nice review!
I have both FC6 and Ubuntu-Edgy on my T60p. Though both of them are equally good in terms of user-experience, the Fedora installation and upgradation leaves a lot to be desired.
Ubuntu is really cool with it’s apt-get tool. I would strongly recommend it
PS: I belong to the net-connection fraternity, so Ubuntu may not work for you if that’s you are not a member