Just so long as...

Just so long as...

Posted Oct 10, 2006 3:46 UTC (Tue) by jd (guest, #26381)
Parent article: Fedora Core 6 release date pushed back

I can install it. The last version I could install on my Dell (Dimension 2400) was test release 1. For test release 2, X rejected the graphics card. For 3, the installer segfaulted. C'mon, guys, I've never known any Fedora Core - even in the test releases - to be as hard to get going.

It'd be nice if RPM was cleaned up - it's a bugbear when you accumulate too many packages and have large updates. We're talking tens of thousands of packages and a couple of thousand updates at a time. The database accumulates cruft and requires regular --rebuilddb'ing to stop RPM hanging.

Also, if manually partitioning, just offer all the filesystems. It's easier, it lets me mix-n-match, and it's much more in line with the ethos of an OS that offers choices openly and freely.

I find Fedora Core to be overall one of the better Linux distributions, I've used Red Hat's stuff since it first came out and I'm impressed with the overall quality, but it really shouldn't be so easy for me to find problems with it. (Fedora's maintainers can take pride in the fact that I've found far more flaws in every other OS and most other Linux distros I've ever used, and in far less time, but the RPM bug is almost an antique and the other problems are careless.)

I would be concerned if Fedora Core 6 were to be released prior to Red Hat being confident that it'll install well on common machines. It would be far, far better for Fedora to verify "problem" machines are working as well as they should, even if it means adding a further day or four from the extended deadline. A quality release that's a day or so late will be remembered for being a quality release. A brown-paper-bag release that's on time will only ever be a brown paper bag, no matter how quickly the errors are corrected.

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