So, I brought the 'server' down to upgrade to Fedora Core 5. Things of note:
Good:
- It's free!
- Installation is piss easy.
- GCC 4.1.0 and the Java support that comes with it is excellent.
- It's fast (everything's compiled with GCC 4.1.0).
- The Clearlooks GTK theme is nice.
- You can create a local YUM repository from the install CDs, so you can customise the installation without waiting for your Internet connection.
- You can do a basic install, and yum in everything you need (this is where the local YUM repository comes in handy).
- I seem to be using a lot less memory than I was with FC4. I don't know if that's because of different package versions, configuration, or GCC 4.1. Either way, I'm using 80256k RAM with Evolution and Firefox running on Fluxbox, and vsftpd, sshd, fetchmail and jamserve running as services. I could get away with 128MB with no swap.
Bad:
- Dependency ridiculousness. Evolution (for example) relies on 'NetworkManager' (a DHCP management utility for which I have no use), which depends on bind. This means I have to have a DNS server installed just to use a common desktop application. Also, it appears that half the apps I use depend indirectly on 'avahi', a zeroconf implementation. I have no use for this either, but I'm required to have it installed. Bugs have been raised, but I don't see it getting fixed. Update: Looks like I was wrong: Evolution no longer depends of NetworkManager.
- HAL no longer handles mount point creation. The developers have decided to move this functionality into 'gnome-mount'. Great. My backup scripts are now broken, because I can't have a consistent name for the mount point of my USB backup drive. Update: I've got round this with some fstab entries, and a few udev rules.
- No MP3 support. Not really a problem, but everyone else goes on about it, so I will too.
Indifferent:
To get my Logitech MX-510 mouse to work, the following was needed in xorg.conf:
Option "Buttons" "7"
and this is in my xinit script:
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 8 9 4 5 6 7 10 11"
exactly why xmodmap thinks my mouse has 11 buttons is something of a mystery. It seems happy enough, though.
Good:
- It's free!
- Installation is piss easy.
- GCC 4.1.0 and the Java support that comes with it is excellent.
- It's fast (everything's compiled with GCC 4.1.0).
- The Clearlooks GTK theme is nice.
- You can create a local YUM repository from the install CDs, so you can customise the installation without waiting for your Internet connection.
- You can do a basic install, and yum in everything you need (this is where the local YUM repository comes in handy).
- I seem to be using a lot less memory than I was with FC4. I don't know if that's because of different package versions, configuration, or GCC 4.1. Either way, I'm using 80256k RAM with Evolution and Firefox running on Fluxbox, and vsftpd, sshd, fetchmail and jamserve running as services. I could get away with 128MB with no swap.
Bad:
- Dependency ridiculousness. Evolution (for example) relies on 'NetworkManager' (a DHCP management utility for which I have no use), which depends on bind. This means I have to have a DNS server installed just to use a common desktop application. Also, it appears that half the apps I use depend indirectly on 'avahi', a zeroconf implementation. I have no use for this either, but I'm required to have it installed. Bugs have been raised, but I don't see it getting fixed. Update: Looks like I was wrong: Evolution no longer depends of NetworkManager.
- HAL no longer handles mount point creation. The developers have decided to move this functionality into 'gnome-mount'. Great. My backup scripts are now broken, because I can't have a consistent name for the mount point of my USB backup drive. Update: I've got round this with some fstab entries, and a few udev rules.
- No MP3 support. Not really a problem, but everyone else goes on about it, so I will too.
Indifferent:
To get my Logitech MX-510 mouse to work, the following was needed in xorg.conf:
Option "Buttons" "7"
and this is in my xinit script:
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 8 9 4 5 6 7 10 11"
exactly why xmodmap thinks my mouse has 11 buttons is something of a mystery. It seems happy enough, though.
Leave a comment