Fedora RPM Sources

[d2kx]

Hello,

I want to have a look at Fedora and need your help. I usually use Sidux, based on Debian/sid and like it, but they has to be a reason why Fedora is so popular. Well, I tested it once. FC1 Test 1 or something... now my question is, what 3rd party RPM sources should I use? There are Livna, FreshRPMs and two more I heard of. Is it ok to use them all? Which do you use? I want non-free stuff like multimedia stuff and fglrx, the newer, the better, of course.

- d2kx

[Michael]

d2kx,

Glad to hear you're trying out Fedora

By FC1 Test 1 do you mean Test 1/2 of Fedora 7?

As far as third party repositories go, I usually use FreshRPMs for attaining anything else that I don't feel like building from source. I seem to have had great success with FreshRPMs in the past. For whatever reason, I generally try to avoid Livna. As far as ATRPMs go, I use them on my MythTV Fedora boxes. Be forewarned that ATRPMs will try to replace some of the system packages with their own.

[d2kx]

Michael,

now, I mean I have tried Fedora once when the first test version of Core 1 was released some years ago. Well, I hadn't any experience with linux at that time.

I will finish downloading Fedora 7 Test 2 in some minutes. I will try it in VMware/VirtualBox. I think that I build fglrx myself, but what about other multimedia packages, can I use the ones from Fedora Core 6 from freshrpms? I really don't need much, just codecs, mplayer (which isn't non-free as far as I know), and yeah, that's it.

[Michael]

You can get mplayer from FreshRPMs. Just change the release version to 6 in yum, since FreshRPMs isn't setup for 7 yet.

You can get the codecs from mplayer's website and drop it in /usr/local/lib/codecs/

[d2kx]

OK, so I tried Fedora in VMware, just a bit testing here and there, and I really like it. The important things like fglrx, multimedia and more are tested when I install Fedora on my hard disk.

When I compare Fedora to Ubuntu:

- Fedora has software updates, and not only security-updates like in Ubuntu (at least more)
- Fedora needs 3rd party repos for multimedia, which is ok
- yum seems to be slower than apt, but it's ok (but yum update could be faster, really)
- Fedora comes with a firewall and SELinux which I both don't need, because I think it's safe enough
- Fedora seems a bit faster
- Fedora's artwork is better and after configuring the fonts to size 9 and LCD subpixel rendering, it looks very nice
- takes more time to configure yum's mirror than in Ubuntu
- Fedora seems more stable

But all in all, I really want to try Fedora out on my harddisk. But I decided to go with Fedora 6 until Fedora 7 is done. I am currently downloading that one. Why is it 3.3GB? But hey, 3 hours to go.

I have no problems with Windows XP which I am currently running, but I really like to switch and I gained a lot of experience the last years. The only thing that holds me back is:

- fglrx freezes X11 when I try to switch to the VT and stops rebooting because of the same reason, I have to do Ctrl Alt Del
- fglrx always crashed after a while in games (seems to be gone in 8.34.8 from what I've seen in a short test with Sidux)
- Games! But the most important is HL2/Mods at the moment. Wine 0.9.32 could really fix the problems I recently had. How fast is Wine getting updated in Fedora? it currently has 0.9.31
- fglrx: my ATI Radeon X1900 XTs cooler is always loud (well, not loud, but it runs, not as fast as in 3D)

that are the most important reasons I think... and small things like Warsow didn't work properly (mouse didn't move right) and other small things, which will be interesting because may be many of the problems are gone with Fedora. Who knows?

Sorry that I now missed the topic but may be you can give me some feedback with the things I wrote, what I might do wrong or where I did false comparisons with Ubuntu. Thanks.

- d2kx

[glussier]

OK, so I tried Fedora in VMware, just a bit testing here and there, and I really like it. The important things like fglrx, multimedia and more are tested when I install Fedora on my hard disk.

How can you do that? the vmware virtual machine doesn't support direct access to your video card, so there is no way to install the fglrx drivers inside a vm.

As for wine, it is usually available in the extra repository, less than a week after you see it advertised at winehq.

[d2kx]

I didn't test fglrx in VMware, I will test it when I downloaded Fedora Core 6 and installed it on my harddisk instead of in VMware.

Sorry for my English, it may be a bit confusing... I am 15 years old and really learn more english on the internet than in school here in Germany.

Too bad I think I can't install Fedora Core 6 today... got a class test tomorrow for which I have to read a smaller book today (a little late, I know), topic German... it's always the same... analyzing and interpreting poems, books, texts, I hate it. Completely useless...

[glussier]

Have you downloaded the respin or the original dvd? The respin contains all updates, up to Jan 11th 2007.

[d2kx]

I am downloading it via BitTorrent, so it's not the respin. I forgot that there's a respin already... but I don't think that there are more than 500 MBs of updates and with the 20070111 respin I sure would have to download nearly the same amount of updates.

[glussier]

You are probably right. There is more than 240 updates to apply after installion of the respin.