Talk:Fedora Core

History Section?

Red Hat has a history section, perhaps someone could provide more insight (and move the spin off perhaps to this section instead of keeping it in the header?) does the selection of the name 'Fedora' relate in anyway to how Red Hat was selected? (From Red Hat "Red Hat's name came from the manual of the beta version, which contained a request for the return of Marc Ewing's characteristic red and white-striped fedora, should anyone find it.")

Fedora 7 and Article Name

Seeing as the name of the next release will be Fedora 7, what is in the future for the name of this article? There are several possibilities:

Keep article Fedora Core and include Fedora 7 and subsequent on it.

Rename article to Fedora (or similar), including Fedora Core 1-6 and Fedora 7.

Redirect Fedora Core to new article.

Have both Fedora Core and Fedora articles, and link between them.

Other options? Community opinions and admin advice?

Remember to keep disambiguation of Fedora in mind... Freedomlinux 21:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest:

• Rename article to Fedora (Linux distribution) and include Fedora Core 1-6 and Fedora 7.
• Redirect Fedora Core to new article.
• Update the Fedora disambiguation
• In the first sentance of the newly-named article, include something along the lines of "Fedora (previously called Fedora Core)...."

Also, currently, the article seems a bit too focused on the _current_ release. I suggest we adopt a format similar to Mac OS X and include seperate sections for each new release that detail the relevant changes made (ie: GNOME/KDE versions, inclusion of mono, compiz, pirut, etc...). Note that not every reader may be looking for information on the latest release. -- Gskuse 21:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• I second that. Rather ironic if one scrolls down a bit on this page and reads "Move to Fedora Core"vLaDsINgEr 03:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Gskuse about creating a Fedora (Linux distribution) article and I'm going to make a few demo versions in my Sandbox; see what everyone thinks about the idea and if it's good we'll make it happen --Lwarf 09:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I've nearly finishted the basic of the artical in my Sandbox; so should we create the Fedora (Linux distribution) artical? --Lwarf 12:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to have information about each release, we should probably flesh that out a bit more before including it in the page. Gskuse 19:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Going ok with the Demo Artical. Does anyone know what versions of GNOME & KDE where shipped with Fedora Core 1? --Lwarf 11:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm nearly finished your improvents Gskuse I'm having a bit of troble finding out which version of KDE was shipped with Fedora Core 1 but apart from that it's going ok, take a look at it if you like I'd be greatful for any feedback. Also I've found a site with useful info/screen shots about/of the early distros take a look at it Happy Editing --Lwarf 10:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at this - looks like it shipped with 3.1.4. RichF 18:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks RichF. Ok I've added in the KDE version number; which completes your recommendations Gskuse. I'm going to do final copy edit and then it should be ready for inspection. Long Live Tux --Lwarf 00:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok I've finished the copyedit and waiting final approval to create the new artical.--Lwarf 09:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Criticism section

Most other Linux distributions have a criticism in their wiki entry. Could someone add a similar section this article, outlining the perceived pros and cons of Fedora Core?

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I couldn't agree more. Also, there's no mention at all here of Fedora's real purpose: it is the test bed for the next generation Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This is acknowledged everywhere except in this slightly banal wiki entry. RHEL4, for example, is basically a mature, bug-fixed FC3. There's nothing wrong with this idea of course, but people should be clear about what they are getting.

Whatever Fedora fans might say, new releases of FC are anything but "stable" in point of fact: the first release of FC4 for example, when it first came out, was a complete mess. Xorg-x11 (and other things) were hopelessly broken, to the point that it was readily apparent that much would simply not work without a full yum update (too bad if you have a 56K connection, or no connection). A disaster. Never install (as I did) an early cycle Fedora release. Wait, say, at least a few months until it matures and they do some bug fixing. This isn't rock-solid Debian or Slackware: this is an experimental distribution which aims to test out - on the sometimes unsuspecting public - new features and software before considering these for inclusion in RHEL. Users should understand that frequent yum updates are a necessity with new fedora releases: FC is on a very short development cycle. Fedora veterans are well aware of this and are prepared to deal with it, but they are not the average new linux user. In many respects the Fedora " philosophy", such as it is, is the direct opposite of that of Slackware or Debian Stable, which aim at a slow, careful development cycle.

Critics also say that Fedora's choice of latest-version packages and libraries, which can bring unforeseen problems, is sometimes capricious and poorly thought through. This is particularly true of the use of gcc4 in FC4, under which some older code is said to not compile. This leads some on the web to advise replacing gcc4 with an earlier version.

The instability, unreliability and rapid cycle of the free Fedora Core is obviously a major factor in the fast rise of free RHEL "clones" such as CentOS and White Box Linux. CentOS is byte-identical to RHEL. These clones are built (quite legally) from RHEL rpms. If you need a reliable system, you need the stability of RHEL, but it's not free. So install CentOS instead.

Fedora is great for those who like to live "on the edge" of development and who need late version software more than they need reliability. This means it is simply not true that Fedora is suitable as a desktop system for the average Mr Newbie user or indeed anyone intolerant of Fedora bugs. These users, quite rightly, are best advised to install eg Ubuntu (or perhaps Debian Sarge using GenieOS's installer), Suse10 or RHEL/CentOS. These provide a desktop-ready system with proven stability.

- WDef 27Jan06

This applies to most free versions where a commercial offer of Linux is made though (the 'just a test bed' thing), so I don't see why the wiki should make a big deal out of it because RedHat was the exception before becoming like the others. 212.219.39.100 10:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

My mom uses Fedora. a thing 06:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Move to Fedora Core

Umm ... Fedora Core is the official name. Should we move this there? [ alerante 20:44, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC) ]

• I think so... according to this, Fedora Core is the distro name. Since no-one else has responded, go ahead and move it -- or I'll do it, if you prefer. Motor 15:01, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bleah... that didn't go well. Since "Fedora Core" is currently a redirect to "Fedora Linux", I wanted to swap the two pages while preserving their histories. The idea was to follow these steps:

1. Move "Fedora Core" to "Fedora Linux Swap"
2. Move "Fedora Linux" to "Fedora Core"
3. Move "Fedora Linux Swap" to "Fedora Linux"
4. Edit "Fedora Linux" to be a redirect to "Fedora Core"

But at step 2, it continued to claim that "Fedora Core" exists... despite me moving it to "Fedora Linux Swap". I don't think I made a mistake (I wrote down the steps to be done beforehand)... anyone know how to do this. BTW: I put it back the way it was. Motor 16:23, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

• Could we have a sysop delete Fedora Core so we can move it? [ alerante 15:37, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC) ]
  • I've asked on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, so we'll see what happens. Motor 00:48, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
    • Never mind. The move is done. [ alerante | “” 18:52, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC) ]

New image needed

Please replace Fedora-Core-2.png with an image with some decent language, this gives a bad impression of not only Fedora but also Wikipedia. Sridev 01:07, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Fedora Core running GNOME" Isn't that KDE? 14:07 2 nov 2005

No. Fedora Core by default installs GNOME; KDE is optional, last I remember. æle ✆ 00:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, by default it does. But if you compare KDE and GNOME, it looks like "Fedora Core running GNOME" isn't true.. 20:22 CET 8 nov 2005

I totally agree. I've been using both Gnome and KDE, and on the Image:Fedora1.jpg it is Fedora running KDE. --Boivie 22:02, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

That's definitely Nautilus in the background, and in FC1 Bluecurve on KDE had the title aligned left and problems with the background abruptly ending behind the title. It's GNOME. æle ✆ 01:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I've rectified the entire problem: it's a screenshot of Fedora Core 4, obviously running something very close to the GNOME default. æle ✆ 01:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia runs on Fedora Core

I guess it deserves to be mentioned in this article that Wikipedia software runs on Fedora Core [1]. Would someone suggest a wording? roozbeh 23:16, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

• "The servers that run Wikipedia are mostly powered by Fedora Core." Or something to that effect Jman 09:04, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Kernel Source

Should it be mentioned that Fedora 2 was the last version to include the kernel source in the installation disk?

• I think not, as it is included on one of the SRPMS installation discs. They didn't do away with the kernel source being included, they just stopped including it as a standard RPM to be installed. (Similar to how all other packages ship as binary package, and a separate source package.) Either way, this point wouldn't add anything worthwhile to the article content.

Security features

Red Hat and Fedora include unique, advanced security features. Could someone list and discuss them? I found ExecShield, SELinux, PIE, NX, FORTIFY_SOURCE, malloc control pointer checks, mudflap.

New screenshot

FC4's default look is the Clearlooks theme. Can someone take a screenshot to reflect that? (I don't run FC anymore, unfortunately.) æle ✆ 00:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Took one from fedoraproject.org. æle ✆ 01:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we need a better resolution screenshot. Can someone whoe uses Fedora Core 4 make a screenshot? Adomas 23:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The people behind it

This article needs a section about the lead developers of Fedora and the general contribution and release process. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Release Engineering and Maintenance

What are the details between RedHat, Fedora and the Linux kernel. The numbered release refers to a numbered kernel release, but there are patches and possibly bug fixes that cause deviation. I suppose Fedora and RedHat undertake to maintain the branched kernel release. How is FC/RHEL numbered between releases? Ozga 19:40, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, Fedora's Kernel is numbered as follows: 2.X.Y-Z.aaaa.fc6 where X,Y, and Z are kernel.org release numbers and aaaa is the Fedora build number. When you download the kernel source rpm, it has the vanilla kernel and a series of patches included. Hope this helps --D3matt 21:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Fedora Core 5 Pros and Cons

The following are not facts but the view of an average user with less than 2 years of web
development skills and less than 8 years of real computer using skills

Pros

• Easy to use
• Easy to install programs, upgrade, and delete

Actually, that is one of the weaknesses of Fedora compared to other Linux distros:

1. You need installation CDs to upgrade to a new version (e.g. FC4->FC5).
2. Yum is veeeryyy sloooow.

Just two pointers . - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

• Works on PC and Macs

There is no Linux distribution that works really well on G5 Macs yet, in my experience. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

• Does not require you to find divers (I switched to Fedora partly because of this)
• Don't have to restart
• Force Quit (you don't need to press Ctrl Alt Delete and end task, just press X a few time more)
• Easy to setup, just asked a few questions and I got what I was looking for out of the box
• Installs right the first time (On windows I had to install MySQL 15 time because it was being stupid and when it stopped I was being stupid... please install it for me!)
• Programs start up faster (compared to Windows the same program started up faster on the same computer, with about the same span of time after installing the OS)
• More file not visual orientated (also a Con)
• Fewer virus attacks (most virus are make for windows) ... word on the street
• Free Full Programs that are good are easy to get (this was simply amazing when I first got Fedora... In Windows I could only get cheap, non-reliable programs for free
• What the Pros uses, Most Server and other companies use Unix or Linux Operating Systems (not Windows)
• Stable (I've never had a problem but I only download the stable copies not the Alpha or Beta)
• Can't really make things go bad if your logged in as a normal user.
• Open Source (Anyone can help make it better, then the board or who ever put the best in the O.S. after making sure the program is programmed correctly.
• More than one Desktop (It keeps me organized when I want to stop one thing an start another but not close out of all the windows) (Also having more than one window open bugs my dad and he would close all my programs out, even if there minimized but on Fedora he can just switch desktops like it was never there.)
• Doesn't yet get messed up, On windows everything get messed up because I want things to happen in a fraction of a sec. One time on Windows I was clicking real fast and somehow got the key ' to be Ctrl + F in all programs, even ones that were not running at the time. I don't believe in the word D-E-L-A-Y... kids these days don't have any patience.

Cons

• Large OS
• Takes along time to download
• 5 CDs if it's not on a DVD (I used 15 cds to install my fedora because Windows kept screwing up the cd making)
• Takes a while to turn on Computer (but the programs load much faster)
• More file not visual orientated (also a Pro)
• You can really messing things up if your login to the powerful ROOT
• Old fashion people may not like it because it's not Windows (My parents don't like it because it's easier to use... I'm not joking. "Things like that are not that easy" ... "Maybe on Windows! Your going to have to do it your self it you want it on Windows because I give up." )

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A lot of what you've brought up here is actually characteristic of most Linux distributions compared to Windows, so it's not really suited to this article for that reason alone, but I'm glad that you're getting some fun out of Linux. The good news is, it's getting better all the time! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Why did you post this?--//Mac Lover ^Talk_C 22:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Erm, people don't like Linux because it's easier to use? They want their OS to be difficult to use? JIP | Talk 09:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

POV no matter what you write?

Referring to this edit: [2]

I originally inserted that passage to hint at the fact that Yum simply crawls compared to other update tools. I've tried quite a few Linux distributions, and yum simply appals me on speed. Anticipating that some fanboy (yes, I think it's a good distribution, but I am also able to criticise...) would come along and accuse me of POV, I was trying to make this less POV by commenting on scripting languages generally, but again, my efforts have been thwarted. Do I need to explicitly refer to the fact that automated memory management slows things down, or would I actually get away with stating that yum is slow? I'd actually be happy to run some benchmarks in a VM comparing, say, pacman, apt-get and yum, and publish these on my blog (or website?) so that you have an external reference. Somehow that would feel like cheating the system. Please advise. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not necessarily biased to include stuff about how the python management tools in FC are slow (and I share your view of yum, at least)... but you would need a) a reliable source (no blogs, personal websites or WP:OR) and b) to explain why it is important enough to warrant a mention in an encyclopedia article about Fedora Core aimed at a general readership. You could probably find (a) with enough digging, but I don't personally think b) is justified. - Motor (talk) 10:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this really should expand into a more general discussion of what is an acceptable reference. If my website is going to be disallowed from being a source on Wikipedia simply because I contribute to the project, I'll cease to be a Wikipedian gladly, with immediate effect. Other people's websites are used as references. Just because you're doing something full time means you're more correct than everybody else? Somewhere along that train of thought, reason was lost. If printed references are what we're after, then great, let's all become publishers, editors, journalists in the print media and abandon the internet altogether.

Should we take this discussion elsewhere? E.g. Wikipedia:Citing sources?

Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

When I said "personal websites" I wasn't referring just to your particular website, but to all "personal websites". The essential point is that anyone can set up a website and fill it with claims. Without the guidelines for reliable sources, anyone else can then come to Wikipedia and cite that website as a source for all kinds of nonsense (and they frequently do.. and not enough people pull them up on it). Websites such as BBC News, NYTimes etc are all allowable, since they are fact checked. There are small exceptions for blogs run by widely acknowledged experts, or it you are quoting someone's blog in their own biography article, but generally... no personal websites/blogs. If you want more clarification I'd suggest starting at Wikipedia:Reliable sources and its associated discussion page. - Motor (talk) 11:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand. There seems to be a fundamental problem here that Wikipedia does not trust its editors. I could write a page-long thing on a talk page explaining exactly why such-and-such was so, supported by data that others might be able to corroborate if they bothered to do so, but it still wouldn't be good enough because I'm a Wikipedian rather than going after a newspaper job. Something's wrong in the State of Prussia. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I haven't misunderstood. Wikipedia collects information from reliable sources and synthesises articles. It doesn't generate new information, it just collects and catalogues the notable stuff (ideally). For that to work and have any value, the information must come from reliable sources. No-one is asking you to get a job writing for a newspaper, just make sure you get your information from a reliable source... don't grab it off any old website, and don't put in your own opinions and researches. You are correct about one thing: Wikipedia does not trust its editors, because its editor can be anyone at all... hence WP:NOR and WP:VERIFY. As I said, if you want to discuss this particular subject further, then the talk pages of the relevant policy/guideline are full of on-going discussions that I'm sure you can contribute to. - Motor (talk) 13:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I still disagree with your view, as opinions differ from data. WP:NOR to my mind was conceived to curb people putting their opinions into articles. However, if I'm citing a fact that anyone can check on their own computer, then that's different. For instance, I used the wc utility to count the packages in the two main Fedora repositories for a recent contribution to Comparison of Linux distributions. That's analysis and should be considered research in your view? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:19, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

How many packages there are in a Fedora repo is a trivial uncontroversial claim (and might even be verified from Fedora documentation)... and as such, isn't that big a deal. You want to say that the management tools are slow because they are written in a scripting language like Python. That is a rather large claim... surely you see the difference? I mean, slow compared to what? Are you sure that an app is slow because of the language it is written in, and not because it is poorly coded? Running benchmarks of different software is a pretty direct violation of WP:NOR, and if you think differently then you really need to be arguing with the WP:NOR policy itself on that discussion page. As things stand right now: if anyone tried to insert into an article the results/interpretation of benchmarks they had run, I would remove them immediately under the WP:NOR rule and be quite sure that I was doing the right thing. If you disagree with this then I suggest you take your case to the discussion page of the WP:NOR and see what the response is there. - Motor (talk) 19:40, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect. I am happy just stating that yum is slow. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Your talk page post was in response to this edit, and you said you were trying to be less biased by commenting on scripting languages generally (which did rather make it even more of an unsourced broadbrush assertion). Besides, everything I said above applies to benchmarking yum... though I dislike yum myself for many reasons. Even if you did find a reliable source to quote for the fact that yum is quite slow, I'd still think it was unnecessary to mention it here. Those sorts of things are better detailed on the yum article unless it is a big problem for Fedora. - Motor (talk) 20:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The raison d'etre of scripting languages to my mind is that they take care of memory allocation for you; all currently popular scripting languages for Unix systems do this, i.e. python, perl, php, ruby. The statement may to some extent be true of compiled languages, but there the toll is paid at compile time. I don't feel that saying that scripting languages are slower at execution time is controversial at all - I'm rather surprised you seem to think so. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

And as for whether it is a problem for Fedora, it seems that Fedora and RHEL are the only distros actually using yum (is Yellow Dog still alive?), and Fedora is pretty much unusable for me on a 1.8GHz P4 due to how long yum takes figuring out what it wants to do, and the CPU load this causes - which is in part a configuration problem (e.g. they could make an alias that includes "nicing" the process)! One used to be able to get around this by using apt-rpm, but when I last checked, this had not been ported (or packaged, if it's just a configuration thing...) to FC5 - Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

You are putting words in my mouth. First: I stand by what I said, namely that running benchmarks is original research. Second: unsourced blanket statements about scripting languages don't belong in an article about Fedora Core, neither do sourced ones really. Fourth, adding statements based on your experience on your machine in the article is definitely original research. Fifth: If Yum is so horribly broken that it spoils Fedora Core, then you shouldn't have a problem finding lots of very Wikipedia:Reliable sources that document the problem. - Motor (talk) 20:56, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Samsara, the point about Wikipedia "not trusting its editors" is actually partially true. The WP:NOR policy isn't about opinions, it's about original reporting. NOR and WP:V were originally written to keep all the many physics cranks on Usenet from posting articles to Wikipedia all about the way they believe that electricity really works, etc. So, yes, posting your benchmarks on your personal machine unfortunately counts as OR.

Now, finding a quote about yum being slow should be easy, and at the very least one could note laconically that a Google search for "linux yum slow" yields 205,000 hits. Tempshill 18:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I am aware of that fact, but the problem is that "yum" also refers to food, which can often be associated with "slow"; however, apt-get, the main alternative, has no similar association with slow, so this doesn't help much. Also, none of the top hits are from this year (2006). Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Non-current release details removed

Given below:

Fedora Core 4 (FC4, release name Stentz), the previous stable version, was released on June 13, 2005 for the i386, AMD64, and PowerPC architectures. It includes GNOME 2.10 and KDE 3.4, GCC 4.0, a gcj-compiled version of the Eclipse IDE, and version 2.6.11 of the Linux kernel.

Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

YOPER

Does anyone know of a source that backs up the inclusion of YOPER in the list of "Distributions based on Fedora Core"? I looked on the YOPER web site but couldn't see anything. RichF 21:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Odd sentence

"If we want to install something from the installation media is not possible directly, but a workaround is possible defining in the yum configuration file a installation source that points to the local mounted cdrom (file:///media/cdrom)."

I attempted to correct the grammar of the preceding sentence when I realized I have no idea what the original author meant. Anyone else want to give it a go? -- Loudsox 00:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Done - changed a few other things as well. RichF 18:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Some points...

• This article has more than 30 (!) web links, and therefore comes close to a documented link directory like dmoz. It would help the article to remove all in-text links and almost all web links. Just the most important three or four, and a link to dmoz is enough.
• In the beginning paragraphs, even before the first headline there is a guideline how to make a network installation with Fedora Core. That has nothing to to with an encyclopedia.

Also, I think the 3rd party repository section is a bit to much about the different repositories. You cannot list all of them (even in this list gstreamer, ccrma and flash are missing), so only describe what all the fuzz is about and write down the name of the most important ones - that's enough. Which specific ones exist for which case and for which version is a question for a howto, but not for such an article. What do you think? --Liquidat 17:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I made some major reorganizations, mainly:

• Getting rid of the repository section. It was basically a huge how-to more suited for Wikibooks.
• Moving the PS3 trivia into the derived distributions section, and removing specific instances of FC-powered servers (including one borderline self-reference).
• Performing a major reorganization of the other sections to improve article flow and structure it more like other articles.

If anyone thinks I went too far or that things still need some improvement, I'm open for suggestions. æ² ✆ 2006‑12‑19t01:30z

Don't you think that the part about repositories could be taken to another article?

I would put a reference inside overview to another article called "extra repositories for fedora" or something like that. There was a lot of useful information in the removed part.

That kind of information I think is better suited for Wikibooks, as it's a "how-to". æ² ✆ 2006‑12‑21t16:05z

Fedora Core 6 screen shot

At the moment the Fedora Core Screen Shot is under copyright and being used with fair use. I have found a free screen shot that looks almost the same but there's one catch, it's in french. Sould I upload it so we have a free screen shot or should I keep searching for an english free pic. If you want to see it go to [3]. Lwarf 11:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You've touched upon an interesting intersection. Actually, both screenshots are of copyrighted software and so both likely fall under fair use. The French screenshot is probably more encumbered as it includes the Firefox and Thunderbird icons, which are controlled by the Mozilla Foundation. I'd stick with the English version. Gskuse 14:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)