Fedora oddities, the good and the bad and the ugly

Some links

• FedoraNews #12
• an FAQ
• tips
• multimedia
• videolan

Some notes:

  - nvidia:   there is a 4kstack problem ?
  - acpi seems to work , but apm is not in the kernel, so i can't
	suspend the laptop

surprises:

  - why did /etc /modules.conf need to be renamed again....
	now it's called /etc/modprobe.conf 
  - wish/tcl wasn't installed by default, in fact, i can't even find
    in it in the package selection....
	(package selection is still a pain in fedora, like it was in rh,
	 one cannot search)

  - grmpfff ... firewire is NOT compiled in the kernel. that makes NO sense.
	(well, they're unstable for kernel 2.6.6, so left out....)

  - grmpfff... my wireless was 'detected' as a normal ethernet card


here's some blurbs i need to look into

-----------
Eliot Stock wrote:
> On Fedora Core 2, I get this on boot and when I click 'activate' in the 
> system-config-network GUI for my Orinoco card, which is eth1.
> 
> lsmod shows orinoco, used by orinoco_cs, so that looks ok.
> 
> iwconfig only lists 'no wireless extensions' for l0, sit0 and eth0, but 
> I want eth1 - is this the problem?
> 
> ifconfig just shows l0.
I had this problem with my orinoco card in both FC1 and now FC2. For FC1 
I used the network config program (system-config-network?) to remove 
eth1 (my orinoco card, which it thought was not wireless) and then to 
add a new wireless connection.

For FC2 that didn't work. I played around with it for a while and I 
think what ended up fixing the problem was removing eth1 (or whatever 
your orinoco device is), closing system-config-network, then restarting 
it and adding a wireless connection. Sorry I can't be more specific, I 
just fumbled with it until it worked.
-----------

this

or maybe

this bug

---

also check pcmcia, if tht's the problem:

pcmcia bug

the obvious

1. X windows based installation went flawless again.
2. there are no installation manuals yes, though it's sufficiently close to RH9 that it didn't bother me, with one exception: the installation of X has been simplified, but there is no more option to NOT start at runlevel 5. I had to manually edit /etc/inittab and set it to 3.

the good

1. Dell I8200 w/ NVIDIA card: although version 4496 didn't install by default, after setting the environment variable IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH, as suggested by the failure logfile, it did finally compile a correct module, and the i have a working X driver again. See also moongroup.
2. the 'Move to workspace' window button now only moves the window, not the workspace. I actually prefer that. Perhaps it's a configuration option in Gnome now.
3. Rhythmbox looks like a nice replacement for xmms, it can also rip (though it once crashed on me)

the bad

1. hmmm, "wish" was not installed by default.... tcl/tk being deprecated?
2. the top bar (menu panel) has disappeared... really annoying. is that a gnome 2.4 feature?
   cheap solution: add a normal panel, make it thin, add the "Menu Bar" from "Add to Panel", and also "Window Menu". it's not a menu panel, but it will look like one. See also whatsnew in 2.6
3. no mp3 support (rh9 already had this problem, solution: gurulabs.com still works, but you need "rpm --nodeps"). See also livna.org for a yum based approach.
4. changing timezones using clock 2.4.0 works, but forget the timezone itself. rh9 does this ok. there is still the bug that all new shells are ok, but the clock itself won't change!! You have to restart X for this to work fine. I believe cron is also confused about time when you change timezones. They all inherit it from a parent that hasn't changed. This was filed as
5. ieck: moving objects from the panel into a drawer, makes them completely loose their identity.... they've become cute icons and nothing more. no more action.
6. the xkill application, but also the 'Force Quit' button you can add to menus surely used to kill only the window i would press on, but now it kills them all... notably killing one gnome-terminal will kill them all. xterms are safe from this. multi-threading is the culprit.
7. hmm. does redhat modify mozilla. the download area from rightclicks keep being reset to my homedirectory. i want it in /tmp, keep doing it, but when restarting mozilla, i keep getting my home directory
8. if you use auto-raise, switching a desktop won't auto-raise the window if you happen to land on one that was below. this was working fine in rh9/gnome2.2

the ugly

1. huh, no more pine? (mutt is still supported)

no mplayer? 
no xine?      - see http://rpm.livna.org/  for a list of removed and why

URLs to visit:
http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/mega-merge.php
Atrpms 
Dagrpms 
Newrpms 
Freshrpms

some other i8200 user:  www.isrec.isb-sib.ch/~agrosdid/fedora_dell.html

install from hd

If you have some disk partition which you don't install to,
you can do hard disk installation.
Simply, put the ISO images into some directory on that partition,
mount -o loop FC2-i386-disc1.iso /mnt/cdrom
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/vmlinuz /boot/FC2-install
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/initrd.img /boot/FC2-install.img
umount /mnt/cdrom
and add entry like:
title Fedora Core 2 Installation
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/FC2-install
        initrd /boot/FC2-install.img
to your /etc/grub.conf, then reboot into "Fedora Core 2 Installation".
During the install choose Hard Disk installation and point the installer
at the partition with ISOs.