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An Early Look at Fedora Core 2

February 18, 2004

This article was contributed by Ladislav Bodnar

The first beta version of Fedora Core 2 was released last week, after a 10-day delay from the original schedule. Also known as version 1.90 or FC2-test1, this is the earliest preview of what will in due time form the basis of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, and what will soon be making its way to desktops and servers of Fedora users. In many ways, this is the most significant product by Red Hat in years, with the brand new Linux kernel, substantially enhanced security, and new versions of the popular GNOME and KDE desktop environments. As such, it warrants a closer look, even in its present unfinished state.

First the bad news. Those accustomed to high standards of past releases by Red Hat, even the beta ones, will be surprised at the apparent lack of attention to detail in this release. A glaring error while building the ISO images prevents the installation CD from booting on architectures other than i686. The usually comprehensive release notes were replaced by a quick overview listing a few known issues and a link to Red Hat's bugzilla. The two main desktop environments, GNOME and KDE are both beta versions - GNOME is a development release 2.5, while KDE is version 3.1.95 (also known as 3.2rc1).

The version of GNOME included in this release is very buggy. Both Evolution and Nautilus are reportedly prone to crashes and Evolution is unable to import existing mail. Some users have complained about the new default way of browsing folders in Nautilus, the so-called "spatial mode", in which every click on a folder opens a new Nautilus window (without a menu or toolbar). The left panel with a tree structure is missing in spatial mode. Apparently, this is an intended behavior of Nautilus in GNOME 2.6, so those users who prefer the old way of doing things can restore the "browsing mode", either by launching the program with the "nautilus --browser" command, or by right-clicking within a Nautilus window and selecting "browser mode". Others have voiced their concerns about the newly overhauled "Open File..." dialog in GNOME, which in the words of one of the testers on the Fedora mailing list, is "poorly laid out, improperly sized and unnecessarily complex". Even the most faithful GNOME users are bound to be displeased with all the glitches and inconsistencies in this development version of GNOME.

Surprising as it may sound for a distribution that has traditionally demonstrated a clear preference for GNOME, the KDE desktop seems in much better shape. It still uses the Bluecurve theme by default, but users can select a different one during KDE's initial configuration dialog. Apart from misplaced menu entries of certain system applications, accidentally placed under a "Lost and Found" (!) menu entry, there have been few reports of KDE applications crashing or behaving unexpectedly.

Another surprise, and a rather pleasant one for users with older hardware, is the appearance of XFce (version 4.0.3) in the distribution. This is the first time that XFce was included in any Red Hat product and it comes at the expense of WindowMaker, which was dropped from Red Hat Linux after version 8.0. The inclusion of a light-weight desktop would seem to indicate that Red Hat has decided to lower the stringent hardware requirements and give users an option to run a less resource-hungry desktop on older hardware. Unfortunately, there is no mention of this in the release notes. XFce is not given as a choice during system installation; however, once installed directly from RPMs, it appears as an option on the login screen, alongside GNOME and KDE.

Disappointingly, the much awaited SELinux functionality was pulled from this release due to "a couple of last minute problems". It is now expected to be ready for inclusion in Fedora Core 2 Test 2, scheduled for release on March 8. SELinux (or Security Enhanced Linux) is one of the two major new features planned for Fedora Core 2; it is designed to enhance security of the operating system by allowing users to define explicit rules for file and device access and by confining user programs to the minimum amount of privilege they need to perform their tasks.

Unless you are an experienced user or intend to help with bug reporting, this first beta release of Fedora Core 2 is best left alone. Some of the many, many bugs in it are not necessarily Red Hat's fault, although one has to question the company's insistence to ship a highly experimental version of GNOME, which seems to have a long way to go before it becomes 2.6 final. Other frequently reported problems include issues with sound, printing, up2date and yum, which together with missing SELinux functionality and haphazard release notes make for a rather poor distribution. The Fedora developers have a lot of work on their hands before the product enters its second phase of testing.

Luckily for them, the final release of Fedora Core 2 is only scheduled for April 19, so there is plenty of time. But as things stand now, Mandrake's own beta releases appear to be in a much better shape.

Comments (9 posted)

Another early look at Fedora Core 2

February 18, 2004

This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier.

The first Fedora Core 2 test release was pushed out last week, so we thought we'd take a look to see what Fedora users can look forward to with the second Fedora Core release. Fedora Core has grown since the first release, literally. Fedora has grown from three installation ISO images to four, which I downloaded using BitTorrent.

I installed FC2 on two machines, a dual Pentium III Xeon machine with 1 GB of RAM and a Pentium III 500MHz machine with 384 MB of RAM. The install hasn't changed significantly since Fedora Core 1, though the install procedure no longer automatically ejects CDs -- something that has been widely discussed on the Fedora-test mailing list. The first install, on the dual Xeon machine, went flawlessly. The second install failed on the first attempt when I jiggled the mouse while Anaconda was in the process of trying to detect it. The second attempt at installation went fine.

Unfortunately, test1 does not include the much-anticipated SELinux functionality, at least not by default. The packages are included in the distribution, but the user will have to install and configure them manually. There is precious little documentation for the user to do so. The package "selinux-doc" contains only a brief README with a list of necessary components, a file with instructions for porting SELinux-aware applications to the new policy and API, and a brief Changelog. According to this post from Jeremy Katz, SELinux should be available in test2. Users who are looking forward to trying SELinux without having to get deeply involved in the actual mechanics of SELinux will have to wait a while.

Fedora still sports the familiar "Bluecurve" theme for GNOME and KDE, so there are no real surprises for users of Fedora Core 1 when GNOME starts up. FC2 uses GNOME 2.5 by default, though KDE and XFce are also available. The GNOME panel froze on me a few times during testing, which required a restart of GNOME. Evolution 1.5.3 is also a bit buggy. I wanted to import a mailbox file from an older version of Evolution, but it simply refused to open the Import dialog from the menu.

Nautilus, or at least its default behavior, has changed in FC2 -- and not necessarily for the better. The familiar "browser" interface for Nautilus is no longer the default, though the user can return to the old behavior by launching Nautilus with the "--browser" option, or by right-clicking on an object and selecting "Browse Folder." Annoyingly, the default for Nautilus is now to open a new window for each object, rather than opening the object in the same window. Users who prefer to point-and-click their way through the directory structure will find their desktop filling up with Nautilus windows in short order. This is, of course, not specific to Fedora Core, but a reflection of upstream changes in GNOME.

A number of users have reported having problems with sound in test1. Some users have noted that their sound card is detected, but sound is muted by default -- leaving the user to think that sound is completely broken. Other users have noted that their sound card, which was previously supported, simply isn't detected. Neither of my test systems has a sound card, so I was unable to verify the sound-related problems.

Another interesting feature for FC2, of course, is the inclusion of the 2.6 kernel by default. From a user perspective, however, I didn't notice any real difference in using the 2.6 kernel versus using a system with a 2.4 kernel.

Other than aforementioned glitches, the user experience for FC2 is pretty much the same as FC1. Most, if not all, of the packages in Fedora Core 1 have been upgraded -- but it feels more like a minor version upgrade than a major version release. This isn't a bad thing, Fedora users are likely to appreciate the fact that FC2 is largely familiar and full of gradual improvements rather than jarring changes.

If all goes as scheduled, the second test release should be out around March 8, followed by a third test release by the end of March. The final Fedora Core 2 release is slated for April 16, if all goes well. However, if the first test release is any indication, it may take longer for the Fedora project to fully integrate SELinux and iron out all of the various bugs present in FC2.

Comments (1 posted)

Distribution News

Debian GNU/Linux

The Debian Weekly News for February 17, 2004 is out. This week's topics include a debian-desktop IRC meeting, Debian ranking according to Google, the new ftp-master, Project Leader nominations, and more.

Debian Project Leader Martin Michlmayr lists the conferences that he will be attending in February.