Fedora 11 was released recently, and I decided to check it out. Fedora used to be my distribution of choice between Fedora 1 – 4, but due to the problems the distribution started to have, I’ve moved away from it. I have dabbled with Fedora a bit ever since, and I remember playing with Fedora 5 and 6 for a time. I decided to check out Fedora 11 so I could get an update on what is going on with the distribution, and maybe even write a small review. Unfortunately, my time with Fedora 11 would have been better spent elsewhere.
To be honest, I didn’t even get passed the install. I tried to install Fedora on the same machine I always do my testing on. The machine in question has an AMD Athlon 64 processor, 2GB of RAM, an 80GB SATA hard drive and a 20GB IDE hard drive. Nothing amazing, but it works and it hasn’t failed me.
I downloaded the 64-bit live ISO image, burned it to a blank CD, inserted it into my testing PC and away I went. The boot process itself didn’t take too long and I was brought to the Fedora 11 live desktop. The first thing I did was click on the installer, then I set up all of the options as I always do. A few minutes after Fedora started to install, it stopped and displayed the following error:
Nice. “Oh well”, I thought – maybe I did something wrong. I’ll just start over. Maybe I will just change a few of the options around to be sure. I decided to try a different hard drive. No go, I got the following error message instead:
Wow, I am really striking out here. I tried redownloading and reburning the ISO. It still didn’t work. Maybe I will just create my own partitioning scheme instead of letting Fedora do it for me? After doing that I found out that Fedora apparently cannot boot from EXT4 volumes:
At that point I was getting very frustrated. Ubuntu has no problem booting from EXT4 volumes, so why does Fedora? I gave up trying to figure that out and decided to create an EXT3 boot volume, as well as few partitions for / and /home. This time it will work, Right? Nope! Another error appeared:
At that point I just gave up. While I was hoping to test out Fedora 11 and see what all it had to offer, I was not even able to get it to install. Fedora and I have a long history of not getting along though. I thought Fedora 1 was amazing. Fedora 2 not so much. Fedora 3 was very good. Fedora 4 was horrible. Fedora 5 and 6 didn’t impress me at all. I was hoping that Fedora 11 would have been the one to change my opinion of the distribution, but unfortunately it had the opposite effect. It’s the version of Fedora I like less than any other. Due to Fedora 11 being completely unable to work with my computer (when no other operating system Linux or otherwise has had any trouble) I am forced to give it a 0/5.
Please also keep in mind that I tried all of the typical measures to check the PC before calling it quits. I checked the hard drives several times, memory, motherboard, you name it. I even tried disabling the IDE drive in case there was a conflict between that and the SATA drive. No matter what I tried, Fedora 11 refused to work.
Report Card:
Overall: 0/5 (Terrible)
Fedora 11 will not install on my test machine, while all other Linux distrbutions works fine. Even Windows 7 RC1 had no problem installing. Fedora 11′s installer is full of bugs and no matter what method I tried, it will not cooperate with my machine. I give an automatic 0 score for situations like these.
The Good:
The Live CD booted quickly.
The Bad:
It won’t install at all.
Jeremy is a Certified IT Technician that blogs at ITNewsToday.com in his spare time. He has over ten years of industry experience, and studies the IT industry every single day. Jeremy has become an open source enthusiast over time and is studying for his Linux+ certification. He lives in Waterford MI with his wife Krystal and son Alan.
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I hit the same problem, but it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. A very unwelcome one, but it does act like it’s supposed to.
Check here: http://celettu.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/fedora-11-no-review/
The problem is Grub. Grub2 recognises and allows ext4 partitions to boot, whereas the version of Grub that both Ubuntu and Fedora ship with don’t (although Karmic Alpha2 does now ship with Grub2). The workaround, is to create a ext3 partition called /boot and your away.
I could not get it installed.. I attempted to install it but it would crash everytime it got to partitioning the drive. I have been using Fedora since version 1 but was not impressed with it if your can’t even install it.. i think its time to move onto another distro as noone seems to have a solution to this.
There has been a patch for GRUB to allow it to boot from EXT4 for ages. Arch linux (my distro of choice) has been using the patched GRUB for months, and as the reviewer said, other distros have also managed to boot from EXT4. I had the same experience with Fedora failing to install my first couple of tries, though I was able to get it installed at last, using the separate EXT3 boot partition. While Fedora isn’t known for being incredibly friendly to new users, when selecting the default options cause an install to fail, that’s a serious problem.
Just for the record… Arch may patch grub for ext4 /boot but they don’t officially support or recommend it using it.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ext4
“Warning: Booting from an ext4 partition is not ‘officially’ supported by GRUB, and GRUB2 is still under development. While GRUB does currently work, the ‘safe’ option is to boot from an ext2 or ext3 /boot partition. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!”
Is it really fair to hold up a grub patch for ext4 /boot in other distributions when those distributions consider that scenario as explicitly unsafe?
It should be there for F12
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=486284#c12
-jef
I hate to pile on, but I’m in the same boat. I’ve been using Fedora since the beginning and RedHat before that. Over the years, I’ve had some issues, but I’ve almost always got it installed. I’ve got a standard workstation install that includes LVM on top of RAID1, so I accept that my situation is a bit more complex that others. F11 crashed during the custom partitioning. I tried it over and over, changing the order of activities and interestingly it changed the point of the crash. Eventually, I gave up on my standard partitioning scheme and tried LVM by itself. It crashed. I tried RAID1 by itself. It crashed. I tried the default install scheme. It crashed. To be fair, I did manage to complete two basic laptop installs without issue, but both workstations are nothing but problems. The truly interesting part is that I participated in pre-release testing and didn’t see half as many bugs. Hopefully, there will be a respin. If not, I’ll have to wait for F12 and hope Anaconda is fixed by then.
Installing to hard disk from live session was also a fiasco for me. Whether it was due to a bug or careless programming, the bottom-line is that the installer does not work. For the developers to ship it out after keeping the entire Linux community in suspense is highly irresponsible. That Fedora did not immediately rectify the situation by releasing a proper installer with apologies to those whose time it wasted makes matters worse.
I’ve heard of this issue and plan to upgrade via the “preupgrade” software as I already have Fedora 10 installed.
Well…sorry you had trouble. The live CD install is
very limited, but has worked fro me on a couple of machines.
The DVD of course lets you do whatever you want.
But…the grub it offers does not support ext4. So what;
who needs huge /boot files?
When you do get it installed it is fast and very very friendly.
I just tried to plan an mp3 – oops it says, cannot, would
you like me to install the required rpm? sweet….
Bill
Ps The suspend and virt capabilities are superb…
It installed fine for me and works great, I used the normal 64 bit DVD & not the live CD though. Try using the normal DVD rather than the live cd
@ Gwydion Ddu
I’m using Ubuntu 9.04 with all EXT4 partitions; including “/”, “/home” and my external drives and all works very well. The version of Grub shipping with Ubuntu 9.04 can indeed boot from EXT4 partitions and does so without issue. Furthermore, it was dead easy to set this up with the Ubuntu installer. Therefore, the problem has nothing to do with whether or not Grub2 is in use.
Honestly it sounds to me like the reviewer has a bad CD. I wonder if he’s tried burning his Fedora 11 ISO at the slowest possible speed and then running the install again? Sometimes a shoddy burn will appear to work okay but have spurious errors throughout which causes bizarre behavior such as described.
I found that you need to set an EXT3 200mb partition for the /boot and then a partition for the / . Fedora 11 will then install. Fedora has an issue recognizing other installed distros. I had to enter them in grub manually
Try the install DVD, LIve CDs in general are more problem prone
Have you tried installing from an install DVD (not the live CD)? What were your results? What were the exact settings and steps you took during the installation? What software are you using to burn the image to dvd?
My guess is that your issue is with GRUB bootldr, and that you’ve inadvertently done something to corrupt it. Interesting enough…windows will overwrite this without prompting, while Linux seems to at least tell you that something is wrong. I’ve just activated a partition after purposely corrupting the grub bootldr.
It is certainly NOT the OS, as we would see many more users having the same issue from as early back as the beta release.
I’ve installed FC10 x86_64 on this same machine multiple times…as well as installing Windows first, and then reformatting through the FC10 install. The FC11 install was the same…successful each time. I have selected to overwrite all partitions though, which could also be a problem in your case. I suspect we will not know until you provide complete details, rather than a
As a MS Developer (yep…I’ll admit it…I’ve been using .NET since it was a beta in 2001), I use Virtual Machines heavily. Moving from the VirtualPC / VMWare world to VirtualBox, in FC10 x86_64, I could run only one virtual machine. Any additional software running would result in performance degradation on the host (Dell Precision M6300 with a 64 GB Flash Drive & 4GB RAM). I’m now running two VM’s simultaneously from the same machine, while playing music in Rhythmbox, and surfing the web, now that I’m using FC11 x86_64 (on the same machine that FC10 x86_64 was installed on).
And for the Virtual Machines…..One is a Windows Server 2003 running SQL Server, SharePoint, and Visual Studio 2008, and the other VM is running Windows XP w/ Visual Studio, Office 2007 Ultimate and Quickbooks Customer Manager.
I really can’t see how ANYONE can say that performance isn’t better in FC11. While I understand and sympathize with you in that it can be annoying when something doesn’t work as expected. Remember that there are two pieces of that install…..the installer, and the installer. I would first suggest you identify the root cause of the failure, rather than making a blanket statement that “Fedora won’t install”. Statements like these will likely cause readers to view as a reason NOT to try out FC 11.
My aplogies if this post comes off as abrasive. It’s not intended as such.
I’ve been running Fedora 10 for quite a while and it is rock solid. I decided to upgrade to Fedora 11 via yum. The only problem was ntp but I’d installed from the updates site a while ago so this was my fault. The updates were newer than the Fedora 11 core. Fedora 11 comes a number of betas i.e. Firefox and Thunderbird. Problem is my addons don’t yet work with these versions. One other known problem is flash doesn’t work properly yet. Selecting fullscreen crashes the browser. Fedora 10 was great in all these areas. Should have stayed with that version.
Install was flawless on 32-bit version. I have Asus pro50VL, 2GB ram, 250 GB hdd, ATI x2300.
I always use 3 partitions (excluding swap). /boot is on ext2, / I put now on ext4, and my /home was untouched on ext3
Booting, 14 seconds till login, 15 more to load KDE4 fully.
Problem 1: Terrible soundcard setup. Kubuntu did it perfectly. Couldn’t get SKYPE to work (sound).
Problem 2: Well, that is not Fedora problem. XServer 1.6 doesnt work with ATI fglrx, or vice versa. Somebody screwed up.
Problem 3: Printer could be setup only from http://localhost:631
Annoyance 1: I was always required network manager password to connect wireless.
Apart from that, everything worked OK. But since I had sound problem that I could not overcome, removed it and used Kubuntu (Btw, I am openSUSE user, but last update screwed everything up)
My opinion: Shows lots of potential, but doesn’t work for me, unfortunately.
The first bug is a classic F11 anaconda storage subsystem problem. Anaconda is the Fedora installer. Its entire set of code for dealing with disks (creating partitions, LVM stuff, RAID stuff etc) was completely rewritten for F11, because it was really old code that was holding up other things (the feature page for this is http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AnacondaStorageRewrite . Unfortunately, since it’s highly complex and sensitive stuff, some regressions and bugs like this were more or less inevitable, and it’s one of those that you’re seeing. We fixed as many as possible but simply couldn’t make it to all of them. Yours looks similar to, but not quite the same as, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=498602 . If you could file it as a bug that would be very much appreciated.
Fedora 11 doesn’t boot from ext4 because it requires a fairly invasive patch to grub which was proposed quite late in the cycle. Fedora’s grub maintainer decided to take the safe path and not accept it. Ubuntu decided to let it in. It’s a judgement call, there’s no real right or wrong choice.
This is your typical Fedora moronic lack of common sense. It’s on a par with the “dual boot bug” they had back in Fedora 2 because they never tested a dual boot with Windows, claiming ridiculously that none of their testers had a dual boot machine, even though they KNOW a lot of users dual boot.
So what do they do? They put out a release with EXT4 support – except in the boot loader.
Sheer genius. The reality is they’re geeks who don’t give a damn about testing.
Fedora 11 is nothing more than Betaware!. Not a nice stable and trouble free distro, like everyone was hoping for. But the Fedora community will never learn!. We don’t need bleeding edge, beta filled (Firefox and Thunderbird) software. Just give us a nice stable distribution. Is that to hard to ask for!.
Fedora is known as a “bleeding edge” distro, so I’m not sure why you’d expect a “nice stable” distribution. If that’s not what you want, don’t use it. There are plenty of other distros to choose from. You complaining about Fedora being bleeding edge is like complaining that you have to compile stuff with Gentoo.
Never mind bleeding edge software and stability. At least give those who bother to download the release a chance to try it out without the aggravations.
I’m tired of hearing all kinds of explanations for this fiasco. There simply is no excuse for getting out a final release with an installer that refuses to install. Lest some forget, Fedora postponed the release at least twice so it had all the time to address real and potential problems. What a shame.
C’mon boys and girls, FC is a cutting edge distro! That’s what it’s put up as, that’s what you expect when you download. If it wasn’t full of beta software, it’d be called – ahh, maybe debian stable. Sure, I accept install problems are going to wreck anyone’s day, but the dev’s obviously got it working on something… Being cutting edge, it’ll have glitches. They don’t call it beta software for nothing. But that’s why we download it; to see if it works.
The installer Fedora bundled with the release isn’t cutting edge for sure.
Thanks for all of the comments everyone! I didn’t get a chance to catch up until now so sorry I wasn’t able to address all of you independently. I will try to address the common concerns with this message.
First of all, I understand that the DVD will probably work, and no I have not tried it. Reason being, there is no reason why the Live CD should not work. Whether or not the DVD works for installation, having a Live CD released with a broken installer puts Fedora in a bad light, which also puts Linux in general in a bad light because Fedora is a popular distro.
Is Fedora bleeding edge? Absolutely! I understand that Fedora is bleeding edge. After all, I have used it since it was first introduced. (Although I did skip out on about half of the releases). Whether Fedora is bleeding edge or not makes no difference – the installer should be the one thing that works better than anything else.
Here are the policies I live by when reviewing distributions:
1.) There are no excuses for regressions
If something works in the current release, it should work in the next. There is no reason in a Linux distribution to take a step backwards. Especially considering all the nice guys and gals in the community that spend countless hours testing this stuff and asking nothing in return. Bleeding edge is fine with me, but if it doesn’t work -at all- then leave it out and perfect it more before including it. I can understand breakage in a bleeding edge distro, but certainly not something that is broken to the point it has no function at all.
2.) Impossible installation scenarios are an automatic zero score.
When I test a distro I don’t try doing anything unreasonable. I do not dual boot, I wipe a hard drive completely and do a full install. I use very general hardware as much as possible. If the installation fails, I try to make it work by changing the default options. The reason for the automatic zero score is that the installer should be the one thing that is tested more than anything else. After all, if you can’t install it, what good is it? I am more forgiving of other bugs but certainly not something that completely prevents its use. If you were out to buy a concept car that may have some imperfections, would you still buy it if it didn’t even start?
3.) General audiences are favored
I can make just about anything work with enough effort. I could have made Fedora 11 work if I tried even harder than I did. Should I have to? Absolutely not! While I try to cater to advanced audiences, I have to include everyone of all user levels. The very basic core components of the distribution should at least function.
4.) Reputation is Key
I cannot recommend something to my audience that is broken. Think about it. If I promoted Fedora and a beginner read my review and couldn’t use it, what would they think of my site? Would they trust my reviews going forward?
I hope everyone understands my role as a blogger and reviewer. I cannot recommend products that are broken as bad as Fedora 11 is. If I promoted things that were completely broken no one would trust my reviews. I call it like I see it, and people that read blogs want honesty. I also cannot assume that all of my readers can compile the kernel or fix advanced issues. I want my site to be for everyone. Besides, if Fedora 11 fails me when I put myself into the shoes of the average reader, Fedora 11 has failed my readers too. Bleeding edge or not, it is what it is and it’s classification cannot change reality. Fedora 11 does not work. It may work for some, and it may work if the DVD is used, but no one (including me) should have to jump through hoops to make something work. We all love Linux too much to accept such low quality.
I hope that puts into light where I stand with reviews and going forward. I appreciate all of you and I want everyone to understand I review products for the people, and I cannot in good conscience recommend anything less than the best to my readers.
I think you’ve pointed what the problem really is by stating ‘the DVD will probably work…’ and ‘there is no reason why the Live CD should not work.’
There’s often a gap between what is and what should be. A major distro such Fedora should at least attempt to close that gap. It hasn’t.
“1.) There are no excuses for regressions
If something works in the current release, it should work in the next.”
A lot of what you say makes sense, but this I disagree with. If you go with this approach you wind up with a Microsoft operating system, which has about five previous operating systems embedded in it just so someone’s 30 year old DOS point of sale system keeps running. And this leads to all sorts of other problems.
As I wrote, the reason for regressions in anaconda’s storage handling is that the storage handling code was rewritten. We went into that with our eyes open, we _knew_ it would cause regressions. But it was still the best thing to do. We couldn’t keep limping along with the old code forever as it was causing significant problems with other work. We could have had the ‘new’ anaconda and the ‘old’ anaconda co-exist for longer, but that would have made everything slower because we’d have had to split the development team and have half of them spend time maintaining code which was destined for the trash can, and in the end this approach can only go so far because you just won’t find all the problems until you have real widespread use of the code. We only have so many paid testers with so many systems to test on, and all of those were working before we sent the new anaconda out to the wider world. As you said, one of the trade-offs of getting software for free is that you wind up being a tester for it. This is new code – the only way we’re going to get the bugs out of it is to find out what they are first.
It’s the same deal as the new code in the Intel driver, which is causing pain across multiple distributions. It needs to get rewritten so it’ll work better. That causes regressions. It’s not a good thing, but sometimes it has to happen if you want clean code with up-to-date features.
Fedora is not a single package. Like any distribution, it is made up of many parts put together. Some parts are very stable and tested such as apache, and some are new such as beta version of firefox.
All software projects (or additional new features to projects) start as new, unstable and buggy, and over time become older, stable and more bug-free. It is impossible to have new and bug-free. In addition, linux distributions have various goals, such as be a good desktop, or be a good server, or be stable, or be extra user friendly, or be extra flexible.
The general trend, aim, goal and purpose of Fedora is to put together (or develop itself) the newer, more unstable, buggy, latest versions of desktop and server software together into a release. This follows Fedora’s belief that putting out to the world the newer more-buggy software (plus stable bits too such as gnome) all on one CD/DVD, is the best way to drive forward the development of that newer software so real-world testing occurs and so bugs are reported and bugs are fixed. During the lifetime of a Fedora release such as 11, many updates and new versions of software packages will be pushed out as updates to Fedora, even big jumps such as new versions of the kernel, or Gimp 2.4 to Gimp 2.6 (Fedora won’t update Gnome as that would be too much of a jump). This gets rapid release of new software out to the world (but might temporaily break things until a new update comes out a few days later). Please note that Fedora’s policy is to push all development, bug reports and fixes upstream to original software projects. This means that all other linux distro’s directly benefit from the development, extra testing and bug-fixing that Fedora drives.
If you want a nice, stable distro, please download and use the stable version of Debian (this is the goal of Debian stable, older software with less features but much more stable and less bugs). For extra new-user-friendliness, use Ubuntu. Ubuntu’s goal is different to Fedora and Debian. Ubuntu wants to make a distro that is great for new linux users, so wants slightly older software so the worst bugs have already been fixed. Ubuntu positions itself between Fedora and Debian stable on the general software stability curve. For instance, latest Ubuntu included Firefox 3.0 and OpenOffice 3.0 and Fedora 11 includes Firefox 3.5 beta and OpenOffice 3.1. Some of that is due to the timing of the distro release, but you get the general idea. Ubuntu also focuses on lots of new-user help and easy graphical features. Fedora does not compete with Ubuntu or other disto’s as the goals/aims of each are different.
Fedora will continue to ride at the forefront of all new open-source software. Please note that Fedora does not include closed-source software (Fedora can’t fix bugs), or patented software (that leads into long-term traps and problems).
So if you use Ubuntu or many other distributions, say thank-you to Fedora for many new and debugged features that Fedora/Red Hat has developed with some pain (parts or all of NetworkManager, kernel, xorg, dbus, DeviceKit, hal, PulseAudio, evince, AIGLX, KVM, SElinux, see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RedHatContributions for a bigger list). Many of these new features later end up in other distro’s. Fedora will accept your thanks graciously, will hope that you enjoy the features, and also hope that your distro will also put bug fixes and features upstream so that all Linux distro’s will benefit.
If you are new to Linux or want stable (but older and less featured) software, please use or recommend Ubuntu, Debian or other distro’s that concentrate on more stability. Fedora’s more newer, unstable software focus is more suited to people that can do a bit of trouble-shooting when occasional problems arise (such as this installation problem of Fedora 11 – go read comments in Fedoraforum.org for solutions). Fedora is great for developers, experimentalists, and the more Linux experienced that want to see the latest features.
It would be helpful to explain these points if you are reviewing Fedora, so that general readers understand more about the Linux world, and to give the impression that you are a knowledgeable reviewer. Regressions do occur and are a part of the real world in spite of best intentions. They will be noted and fixed. A bug-report is much more useful than flame. General audiences are obviously the biggest, but knowledge, education and solutions work better to these people. Reviewer reputation is decreased if explanations, education, knowledge and solutions are not provided. Part of a good review would be to suggest that Fedora is not the best (saying exactly why) for most in a general audience (suggest Ubuntu instead), and try Fedora in the future when Linux experience is gained.
@Stew:
Thank you for your comment. I do agree with you for the most part, but something as big as the installer is too large of a problem even for a bleeding edge distro. Installation problems go well above and beyond the scope of bleeding edge. As I said, I can understand breakage in such a distro, but not something as mission critical as installation. Besides, a Live CD install scheme is nothing new or bleeding edge in and of itself. Fedora has been doing this for a while now. There is a difference between beta quality and bleeding edge quality. Beta versions will often have bugs in the installer. Bleeding edge or main releases should not.
By the way, all distributions have installer bugs. No, really – they do. Believe me on this one.
It’s just a question of how many.
It’s also not quite as simple as saying ‘a standard install should work’, because a standard install doesn’t hit the same codepaths on all systems. This area (storage code) is a good example. What drive controller is in this standard install? What drives? How many? How big? What’s the existing partition layout on these drives? Any of the above items can be variables in a ‘standard install’. Consequently, a ‘standard install’ might work on many systems, but not on others…and the ones where it fails may not be reproducible without the same hardware / previous data layout.
Not everyone agrees.
http://on-disk.com/cms/index.php?wiki=Review-Fedora_11_page5
Maybe it is an issue created while burning the media.
Best regards
Unfortunately, the installer is the one piece of software on a distro that can never be updated to fix problems in it, as Fedora needs to be installed before updates can be received. That is why an installer should ideally be bug-free.
But also unfortunately, the old Anaconda (the Fedora installer) had some major limitations in disk storage options. So a new storage system was written for Anaconda that provided far more options and flexibility for the future. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AnacondaStorageRewrite
Obviously as much testing as possible went into it as possible, and the reason for the whole of the Fedora release being delayed twice (2 weeks) was to fix bugs in this bit of Anaconda. But Fedora can’t wait forever (how many weeks should it wait?, there is only 26 weeks between Fedora versions), and so it released as it was. Bugs have shown up in this code, and nothing can be done about it except write notes on the Fedora website detailing workarounds and limitations, and fix the bugs for Fedora 12.
This is a logical reason for regressions occurring. A piece of software has some fundamental limitations (too hard to modify existing code), and so new software is written to replace it (new = bugs) and provide increased options/functionality. But you can only include one version of the software (old or new) such as installer, kernel or others. Regressions occur, bugs are noted, bugs are fixed and so it goes on.
Balanced reasons and explanations are useful information.
wow.. same problem with me..
but i think maybe the problem comes from the vitualbox (i install on it)
but when i read in ur blog, humm
i impress by that problem
Great article, so I do not feel unhappy not to speak out as I did have all of them.
I found best way is, to manually create the partitions for the installer to fix the problem \Device not created\ . However when the system is up, I can easily crash Network manager by right click, edit connection and type something, then click Cancel. And the kernel is too buggy for my SB16 Sound Blaster card so I recompile using vanilla 2.6.29.4 kernel which works great.
I still keep it for a while, it is good looking, and pretty responsive though. And I can live with these bugs
I tested Fedora 2 and its anaconda installer was bad it erased my windows98, I tested Moblin with anaconda it erased my extended partitions and used the space. Fedora 11′s anaconda release works with it wanting to use the entire drive very well, however thats not how I want to use it. My other distro Kanotix is maintained by one developer and he uses one man to make his installers, grub2
is standard now, it amazes me that with such a spartan team they are able to make a distro that just works and without having issues like removing partitions. I give credit to the Fedora developers for doing a re-write on the installer perhaps future releases will have less problems. The distro itself seems to be very nice and I can give a thumbs up for the functionality
of the desktop it seems more responsive than Ubuntu.I will continue to use it
in virtualbox until the installer can work as it should.
I installed Fedora 11 on (4) systems, INTEL i686, AMD64x2, AMD32, AMD32 and used ext3 (I never use the fist release of new file systems).
No issues.
Pleasantly surprised.
Runs faster.
Graphics are better.
I have been using RedHat since 4.x and Fedora since it came out. I can’t ever remember having any trouble installing (with the exception of machines that had too little RAM, or bad hardware) ….
I beg to disagree with you, Adam. Regressions happen all the time even in the best of distros. However, we are talking here of an installer application that doesn’t work the way we expect. Such a vital component deserves serious attention and care from the devs if they care at all about their reputation.
As for Windows, which I have jettisioned, I found its installer excruciatingly slow but at least it worked.
It got serious attention and care – Anaconda has a multi-person full-time paid development team who spent most of the f11 cycle fixing bugs in it. It’s just that this is a seriously tricky codebase to work with, and some bugs just don’t get exposed until you hit a wider public (i.e. release time, as many people won’t test pre-releases). We could have delayed for two years to fix ‘everything’ and still seen new bugs when we released. Here’s a number for you: 355 bugs filed on anaconda in Rawhide since Jan 1st, 2009 were fixed (closed as RAWHIDE, ERRATA, CURRENTRELEASE or NEXTRELEASE, all of which indicate fixed – yes, our bug process is odd). Here’s the list – https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&classification=Fedora&product=Fedora&component=anaconda&version=rawhide&bug_status=CLOSED&resolution=CURRENTRELEASE&resolution=RAWHIDE&resolution=ERRATA&resolution=NEXTRELEASE&chfieldfrom=2009-01-01&chfieldto=Now .
sorry, 332 – I missed a field:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&classification=Fedora&product=Fedora&component=anaconda&version=rawhide&bug_status=CLOSED&resolution=CURRENTRELEASE&resolution=RAWHIDE&resolution=ERRATA&resolution=NEXTRELEASE&chfieldfrom=2009-01-01&chfieldto=Now&chfield=Bug%20creation
If users cannot even get round to installing it, how can they report whatever bugs there may be in the distro? It’s like selling a pop cola that you can’t taste because the bloody cap on the bottle refuses to cooperate. Ten bugs or a thousand, Fedora should have held back once again the release of the new version.
Well, you’d usually have something else installed on your system. When Anaconda fails, it usually gives you a dialog with the traceback and a button to save a copy of it.
As I said, we can’t hold back a release for bugs we don’t know about. Most of the bugs people are encountering are ones that had _not been reported_ prior to the release of F11.
I ran into the same installer problems trying to install it on my hard drive. I ended up booting a sysrescue disk and found that it wouldn’t read the partition table either (fedora had completely corrupted it). So I wiped out the mbr with dd and repartitioned using sysrescue (ext3 for /boot and ext4 for /) then rebooted with the fedora disk and installed to these existing partitions. It was a hassle but I wanted to try fedora on this laptop since I was never able to get suspend/resume working on it in either gentoo or arch.
That’s also my problem…. and until now, any methods that i applied was not applicable to install fed11. that sucks… but i’m hoping to test and run it on my machine…
I don”t buy the “bleeding edge” as an excuse for releasing a version that causes so much frustration during the install. Sure, I completely understand the whole testing mentality and fully agree that Fedora should release “testing” versions. Call them 10.998 or 10.999 or whatever. BUT, when its released as a version “11″ (or 12 or 13) the basics should actually WORK!
I have managed to get it to install after much screwing around and wasted time and once its installed it is a nice release but the method I was forced to use gave me a system that was only usable for seeing what the actual release looked like. Otherwise it was worthless because the partitioning layout I was forced to use was compromised at best.
In my opinion, unless Fedora releases an updated version 11 with an installer that actually (wait for it)…….WORKS, (gasp!) this release only serves to give a tantalizing but frustrating glimpse of what Linux “could” be. It will be relegated to its position in Software/OS history as a major flop much as Windows Vista is now recognized to be.