Did I make a mistake in starting with Fedora Core 4?

[Jim Cornette]

Dave Gutteridge wrote:

>
>    Thanks for the words of encouragement, Jim.
>    The main reason I switched to to Fedora was because I was already 
> doing the bulk of my work with open source software. Firefox, 
> Thunderbird, and OpenOffice are what I use 90% of the time on my 
> computer. So even though I knew Fedora was not as "plug and play" as 
> Windows, I thought it would be workable since these programs were 
> native to Linux.
>    I expected it not to find things like my Canon scanner and my 
> Kenwood USB audio connection, as those are a bit obscure as hardware 
> goes. But, happily, Fedora detected them and they work fine.
>    Having a major deficiency like not being able to read data DVDs was 
> unexpected. Especially as Fedora installed just fine from one of the 
> DVD drives that it now won't reliably read.
>    If I can get past this one obstacle, I would love to continue using 
> Fedora. There's a lot I like about it. And I'm willing to learn 
> UNIX/Linux commands to settle into the environment. But I don't think 
> I'm being unreasonable in thinking that Fedora should at least read 
> from DVD/CD-ROM drives, that I'm not being a particularly whiny user 
> in wondering why there are difficulties with this basic hardware.

I had to grab some files that were burned on a DVD+W disc that was 8x to 
put on my server that has a DVD-RW 4x recorder and the system lockup up 
hard for me. I never experienced such a lockup and would not think the 
Defective DVD would bring down the system. With your comments and the 
fact that you could put a defectively burned DVD in your reader, 
bringing down the system is not something expected. Since it is 
hardware, I could see how this could cause serious problems, but a 
method to release discs that are fouling up should be a bit safer.
These discs had fingerprints, scratches and probably were burned at 
their maximum speed.

I believe that since the way devices are dealt with recently with udev 
and dynamically created nodes for devices instead of a slew of devices 
under /dev is problematic since this is such a recent concept.

For your problem with getting the DVDs to eject, I have seen this where 
I have a SAMBA share for the dvd recorder. I can see where you are going 
with your concern for  more reliability with dealings with DVDs.

CDROM/DVDs seemed to have problems in different phases of development. 
They used to have problems caused by a program called fam which tracked 
changes in files so programs would be able to use the info so they would 
work quicker. The program also polled the DVD/CDROMs  often causing the 
devices to be unmountable. Killing this program was common discussion. 
The program was replaced by other programs which perform similar tasks 
that fam used to handle. I don't know if they poll the DVD/CDROMs or 
not, the files should be unchanged unless the device was written to or 
changed media. Polling the device after the initial read and when the 
disc was not changed is pointless and probably causing trouble with not 
being able to eject your discs. Sticking around and reporting troubles 
in the bugzilla should get projects aware of things that don't work 
correctly. Hopefully the method adopted for dealing with devices is 
considered a good idea for awhile and has time for it to be improved.

Going back to the command line options to get your CDROM/DVD to eject. I 
have used the -l option for mount to unmount the drive so I could later 
eject it with eject. I believe the -l option for umount is referencing 
lazy as an option.

umount -l /media/cdrecorder or whatever your recorder/reader is 
referenced as should allow you to run the below to eject the media.
eject hdc or whatever the device is referenced as should eject the media.

Filing a bug report  or adding information about your "me too" bug 
report gives the developer ammo to correct the problems you encounter 
using Linux.

Jim

BTW - the defective DVDs that I encountered were burned on a windows 
machine. They acted funny on the windows machine, but did not bring the 
machine to a halt. (Switching into CDROM mode for a DVD, not reading the 
discs or not reliably reading the media. Both systems need continued 
attention to make things work more reliably.)

To answer your question if starting out with FC4 was a mistake, not in 
my view. This release basically has what is in for the future releases 
and is most interesting. If you want a more conservative system, trying 
either a Redhat supported release with a longer life cycle and where 
things are held back to a slower pace, plus have tech support. You can 
also go with one of the clones which recompile the source to mirror the 
redhat releases, but lack the tech support option.


Fedora has a short lifecycle like a bug, but is not intentionally set 
out to be a swarm of bugs. When the 2 week release cycle is adopted, it 
will be closer to a bugs lifeycle and will become harder to distinguish 
any differences. :)

>
> Dave
>