FC6 through the rear view mirror

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sun, 2007-02-04 at 15:07 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-02-04 at 15:47 -0600, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> > I have found FC6 to be the least installable of all the Fedoras.
> > That is my conclusion but first some caveats. I am trying to run it on a
> > year 2000 Dell Optiplex GX1p. This machine ran FCx (x<6) with minimum
> > problems. It is an old machine but FC6  has given me more serious
> > trouble with the installation than and other Fedoras.
> > 
> > On the bright side it has been a learning experience but I am full of
> > anxiety as to what will happen with FC7. There is something wrong with
> > its construction and let me list some of the more serious problems.
> > Maybe it is only with older machines but I have seen others having
> > similar problems.
> > 
> > 1. shutdown would not turn off the machine. Finally fixed with 4 months
> > of hitting my head against the wall.
> > 
> > 2. The system did not recognize my sound card. It showed up in the early
> > boot messages but then it was lost. lspci did not list it, and it did
> > not show up in modprobe.conf and when the appropriate lines were put in
> > the file they were  ignored. Again after much turmoil the modprobe had
> > to be run in rc.local.
> > 
> > 3. Once sound was enabled use of sound was ephemeral. With updates, CD
> > playing which worked stopped working.
> > 
> > 4. Getting various video and audio sources to play also came and went.
> > 
> > 5. firefox configuration to use plugins properly was especially
> > confusing and tedious.
> > 
> > 6. Using system-config-httpd to configure the web server does not really
> > work and caused me the hidden problem of ending up with two Listen
> > commands in the configuration files which took a while to trouble shoot.
> > 
> > 7. And today's special, rpm's that are removed by yum erase for
> > dependencies are not re-installed with a yum install
> > 
> > There were other things but these were the biggies. Now I ma not trying
> > to start a rant and for people to say it worked for me is not helpful.
> > What was helpful in getting things to work was advice I received from
> > people on the list. Again all this worked fairly well in previous
> > Fedoras on this machine so I can't really blame the machine.
> > I am not bitter I just want the installation process to be smoother and
> > for it to work as it has previously.
> ----
> and how many of these things did you add to bugzilla?
> 
> Things don't get fixed because of this list - they get fixed because the
> package maintainers use bugzilla as a guide for things that need to be
> fixed.
> 
> By the way - Item 6 - firefox plugins aren't part of fedora packaging
> 
> Craig
> 
The not turning off the machine has been on bugzilla for a while with no
solution I am aware of.
But in general I understand righteousness of your comment about bugzilla
but here is my experience I have never has a problem I posted to
bugzilla that has been resolved. I guess it is just my luck. In one case
with a problem with yumex the developer responded he was too busy to
correct the problem. In another case the problem in one distribution
that we really needed fixed  was replied to after we had installed the
next distribution. That is one of the problems with a volunteer
workforce.
-- 
Aaron Konstam <akonstam at sbcglobal.net>