Fedora 19 Schrödinger’s Cat Review – Back in the box

After a long delayed and divisive Fedora 18, how has the latest Fedora shaped up

Like previous releases before it, Fedora 19, code-named Schrodinger’s Cat, comes with many, many new features and feature enhancements, and, of course, its own share of bugs. Installation images are available as Live CD/DVD ISO images. The main edition uses the GNOME 3 desktop environment, with an unmodified GNOME Shell. Installation images for other popular desktop environments are also available for download. These other flavors, known as Spins, run the KDE, LXDE, Xfce, and MATE Compiz desktops.

There are also specialty flavors designed for specific computing tasks (Design-suite, Electronic-Lab, Games, Jam-KDE – for the musician in you, Robotics, Security, and SoaS), and ready-to-run images for Cloud platforms. Installation images for ARM, PPC, and s390 architectures are also available.

This review is based on test installations of the main edition and the KDE Spin on real hardware and in a virtual environment powered by VirtualBox. I usually like to begin a review from the installer, but for Fedora 19, I’ll leave for somewhere towards the end. The following list shows the topics I’ll touch on in this review, starting with features common to the main edition and all the Spins.

Here are the list of features that interest me:

• Network upgrade of existing installations
• Automatic bug reporting tool
• Firewalld Rich Language
• SELinux
• 3D printing
• Anaconda
• GNOME 3 Edition
• KDE Spin
• Graphical Package Manager(s)

So the famous Schrödinger’s cat experiment is one of those stories from history that is perceived incorrectly in popular culture. Like King Cnut arrogantly trying to stop the tide, or Bill Gates saying that 640K would be enough for everyone, Erwin Schrödinger’s hypothetical experiment was actually a way of explaining how some interpretations of quantum mechanics were a contradiction of common sense. While this name was voted on for Fedora 19 by, of course, the masses of the internet, it’s sort of indicative of the kind of problems people have been having with the default state of the distro for the last few iterations. GNOME has been moving quickly away from the traditional desktop metaphor for years, with recent updates going against a mouse and keyboard workflow. The anaconda installer update from Fedora 18 limited some options in favor of a more aesthetically pleasing experience. The distro has also not been particularly bug free, with systemd causing headaches for some. Fedora 19 had a much quicker turn around time this cycle, with only a week or so delay throughout the schedule. Have some of these immediate issues been addressed, or are there new ones to throw on the list?

The first thing you’ll experience with Fedora is the installer, which has been upgraded again. Hardware recognition seems fine, and there’s now a lot more control over the partitioning and editing of storage locations, an issue a lot of people had with Fedora 18. However, the method of doing so is not the most straightforward. Like in other graphical installers, you can select the hard drive you wish to use, however instead of then performing a manual partition, or selecting a recommended installation scheme, you need to start “reclaiming” space. This can be done by either completely deleting any existing partitions, resizing, or creating your own through the reclaim option, otherwise it will automatically try and fill into the space already made. Pre-existing swap partitions are ignored though for some reason, and 19 will create its own if space is cleared out. The installation will start before you can finish creating a root password or user, saving some time, however it still seems that this new installer is not ready. While Fedora is the test platform for Red Hat, the new installer still needs a lot more time in the oven.

If perhaps the installer is supposed to be more in-line with the simplification of GNOME, it’s doing a good job. GNOME 3.8 hasn’t had many major changes over 3.6, insomuch that it’s still “dumbed down” in many respects. As if to highlight that this is the path the GNOME Project is taking, a video explaining how to use GNOME launches on first boot. Credit where it’s due though – the search function launched from whatever the Windows Key is being called these days has always been good. Even if it’s supposed to be a substitute for a large amount of a workflow, the search function part is faster than mousing around in most cases, and has now been upgraded to include some system settings results in your search. Sort of like a hybrid between the same functionality in Unity’s HUD and the classic search results, but without an unnecessary split between them, or the inclusion of Amazon adverts.

The software updater has also been separated from the generically termed “Software” package manager now as well in the applications list, although it’s still accessible from there. It’s here and in the repos that you can access all the alternative desktops if you so please, although there are three extra spins of Fedora that you can also use from the start. As well as the KDE one, there’s also the lightweight XFCE and LXDE choices, with other popular desktops such as Cinnamon 1.8 and MATE available in the repos. This version of Cinnamon is built to work on GNOME 3.8, so you won’t need to downgrade.

The distro itself is a touch more stable than Fedora 18 on the physical setup we used to test it. In a virtual machine though, we did experience some quite noticeable slowdown and minor graphical glitches – nothing too serious for just testing, but for virtual distribution, you may need to do some extensive testing before deployment. Fedora then is not quite the beast it used to be, with its cutting edge stance harming it more than it has in the past. For those that were using Fedora 18 without any issues, it’s a great upgrade, however for those that moved away in recent years, this won’t be bringing you back. The box contains only one quantum waveform, and it’s not looking good for the cat.

Veridct

3/5

The latest Fedora has fixed some of the problems we had with the previous editions, however there’s still a way to go for some of its features..

Fedora 18 Review – Great Bovine Spheres!

A new Fedora is always a big deal, as the Linux distribution is known for being on the bleeding edge of free and open-source software and technology, coming with the best and brightest the extended community has to offer. Fedora 18 may have had a bit of a bumpy ride to the finish line, but the longer wait hasn’t hampered the quality of the release at all. Any quality problems are mainly down to GNOME 3.6, but we’ll get to that.

Like we mentioned in our review of the beta, the new installer is a wonderful, minimalist designed app that allows for quick installations with decent default settings, and a more advanced set-up if you have some specific requirements. It also starts copying and installing while you finish up with root passwords and such, similar to how the Ubuntu installer works. While there’s not always much to do after the actual installation starts, it’s a step in the right direction to streamline the installation process. It also has the standard post-reboot user set-up that we also saw in Fuduntu this issue, which is good for OEMs and Sysadmins, and doesn’t really slow down the process for desktop users. The actual installation itself is a little slower than we’d like, but it won’t keep you waiting for too long.

It’s after all this that you’re put straight into an updated GNOME environment – GNOME 3.6. We’ve aired our grievances in previous issues about this latest version of GNOME, about how it slows down workflow in favour of being touch and keyboard friendly. Luckily, it’s at this point that you can start installing any number of other desktop environments, such as KDE, XFCE, or newcomers Cinnamon and MATE. Now that both of these are native to the repos, they definitely look a lot better than previous implementations on Fedora 17, with fonts being cripser on Cinnamon, and MATE gaining the ability to look a lot more like a modern desktop. Red Hat has a big stake in GNOME, same as Fedora, so it’s not surprising that it still shows up as the main desktop choice. It would be nice though to have more available spins though.

There’s a bit of an update to the default app selection as well, and while nothing has really changed that’s not related to the system settings, the Fedora Project have at least added the LibreOffice suite to the starting selection. While it’s a minor thing, it’s a nice addition. On the system tools side, the package manager, updater, etc, are all now part of the same generic Software app. This is not accessible by typing update or updater into the search bar, and in GNOME 3.6 the drop down menu to access the graphical updater is a little hidden. It’s easier to just use YUM to update the system.

The Fedora devs also thought it noteworthy to mention the inclusion of a new command line tool, System Storage Manager. This simple package available in the repos can do some basic partition management, as well as checking partitions for errors and such. It’s a nice little tool, perhaps more suited to headless servers or working from the command line.

Otherwise, it’s got the standard package and security updates, a move to Linux kernel 3.6.y, and is still a great operating system for desktop, server, or the cloud.

Verdict

4/5

Fedora 18 is a minor but important improvement over Fedora 17, and the new desktop environment choice is great for desktop users, especially with the inclusion of a default GNOME 3.6. It’s just as slick, up-to-date and free as ever, and well worth the update..

Fedora 13 Review!

Fedora 13 Review!

I’ve been using Fedora 13 for a few weeks now, so it’s time to relay my thoughts on the new release.
I’ve never had a good experience upgrading a Linux operating system to the new version, and usually elect to just do a fresh install but I was assured that the “preupgrade” application would meet my needs. It was a simple application but carried the unfortunate downside of not working. At the time of Fedora 13’s release it appeared that on a lot of systems including both my desktop and my laptop the application incorrectly reported insufficient space on the /boot partition of the drive and thus refused to upgrade the system. Further annoying is the fact that this bug was reported and fixed before the final Fedora 13 release, and yet appeared not to have been rolled out into the Fedora 12 repositories in time.
I assume that the issue has been fixed, since I have seen reports of many smooth upgrades on the Identiverse since; however this was a fairly major issue which could have been handled better. So in the end I resolved to do a fresh install, which went without a hitch. I was amazed at how fast the installation went and I was up and running straight off, and in this new version the first time configuration displayed properly with two screens (which were detected and configured automatically) which was one of the only problems I had with Fedora 12.
In terms of new features there is certainly no shortage. Many distributions seem to treat upgrading to a new version of software as a new feature (And there is plenty of that: KDE 4.4, Netbeans 6.8 for example) when not much innovation has gone on since the last release but Fedora certainly seems to have made an effort to introduce truly new features as well as actually improving how the Fedora software compilation works together; improvements to Pulseaudio integration, improved GNOME colour management as well as automatic print driver installation which fall together to make the Fedora desktop an increasingly complete desktop. Another notable improvement is that one can now install Python 3 in parallel with Python 2, which is a big help for developers.
My personal favourite newcomer is the advent of compositing for the open source ATI drivers (as well as the NVIDIA one as far as I’m aware), which means that Fedora is no longer limited or made inferior by being a Free desktop solution. This is what we’re after, in the end the free software movement can only succeed when we have brilliant developers creating software that is equal to or better than the proprietary equivalents.
Unfortunately there are still a few items within Fedora which really need to be adressed and I think that the main one of these is the PackageKit GUI. While it is simple and you can install software through it, it’s also lacking features and is a definite weak point in the desktop experience. There is one particularly annoying bug which has come to my attention which is that if you are upgrading software which requires a system restart then a notification will pop up asking you to restart both before and after the actual update is performed, which could cause problems to those not watching carefully.
Overall, the system is still nice and stable and the software works. The new features have really come together well for a smoother desktop experience though I think it may be easy to miss quite a few of the more subtle but essential improvements to the system as a whole.