Tech Olive

Surprisingly, few people know about Linux and how wonderful it can be; a completely free OS with no ties or commitments. The ability to modify and redistribute at your leisure. Sounds great doesn’t it? Don’t get your hopes up.

I will say that I am a Windows fanboy, but I dual boot with Ubuntu. All comparisons with the Live CD version of Fedora 11 will be with the Live CD version of Ubuntu 8.08.

Day1:
I decided it best to get the Live CD 86_64 option, to see what a regular user would feel when trying out the OS. As most people would want to try it before installing it. Putting in the DVD and waiting, I immediately see a beautiful blue startup screen, top that Microsoft. Things went south quickly, for some reason it decided it didn’t like my SATA DVD drive and refused to boot. Reading online and changing a few settings in my BIOS only seemed to confirm the inevitable, it wouldn’t work on my system.

Figuring the regular user wouldn’t have as powerful system as mine anyway, I asked to borrow my sister’s tower; an AMD Sempron 3400+ with 512MB of RAM and a Nvidia 6200.

I know it’s a Live CD, and therefor it’s going to be slow, but it took exactly 8 minutes to get to a desktop while Ubuntu took only about 3, and Ubuntu worked with my SATA DVD drive.

Finally at a desktop I noticed a very scary thing. They were exactly the same.

(Thanks to http://polishlinux.org/ for Ubuntu screen shot)

I began to rummage around and do my usual exploring and see if I could connect to a network. No. Maybe view my hard drive contents. Only with difficulty. See what else there was to offer…err.

To begin, I will say this: I’ve never had luck with Ubuntu connecting to a network and I didn’t expect much from Fedora either. While I did like how the network connections window was much more organized, it didn’t help the fact it wouldn’t connect to my network even after specifying IP, DNS and other settings.

Next up I decided to view some random pictures that I store on my hard drive. Last I checked Linux doesnt have support for NTFS, so I was surprised when it showed up in the Directory viewer. A few clicks later I was being told that it was un-mountable, yet not skipping a beat and a directory window opened anyway. Navigating down, I discovered Fedora likes to open a new window for every directory. I found this extremely annoying, but to each their own and I’m sure there is a setting somewhere. Finally satisfied I decided to try some other apps, like Gimp. Halfway into loading, Fedora crashed and I didn’t feel like waiting for another 8 minute boot.

Day2:
My first day with Fedora 11 could’ve been better, but the second day more then makes up for it. I began by installing an old IDE DVD drive into my system, where Fedora 11 booted promptly and rather quickly. Still at a slow 6 minutes, but once it got to a desktop it was loads faster than on the previous system. The first thing I like to get working is my multiple monitor system and check out the mini Compiz Fuzion. Fedora however decided these features shouldn’t work. I can only assume, had I not used the Live CD and had Nvidia drivers downloaded, it would work.

Next up, it was time to play with all the nifty applications that came pre-installed with Fedora, all 5 of them. When they say bare OS for simply surfing the net, they mean it. The music player and movie player refused to work with any files I had, however, once again I must assume that had there been the correct codecs installed, I might have had better luck.

Speaking of networking, I was lucky enough for it to connect and was surfing in no time. That’s not all. I accidentally plugged in my iPhone. Those familiar to Linux know that it’s a painstaking process to insert USB devices because you usually have to find drivers. Much to my surprise, the iPhone was recognized and Fedora was able to import all my pictures. Even Gimp them up!

All in all I feel I wasn’t getting the full experience with only a Live CD, so sue me. It’s a very simple OS with a lot of features that could be added, improved or made more original to Fedora 11. Frankly, the price however can’t be beat! My final recommendation though, is if you’re looking for a free OS to tinker around in, but can still be made very powerfully, check out Ubuntu.

http://fedoraproject.org/