[TriLUG] Fedora Core 2 Test 1 (FC2t1) initial impressions

[Magnus Hedemark]

Target machine was a 1.1GHz Celeron, 256MB RAM, Adaptec AHA-2940UW with an 
18GB IBM SCSI drive.  I already had a pretty good feel for how well 
Windows 2000,  Red Hat Linux 9 and then later RHEL and its various clones 
ran on it.  I was never terribly impressed with the performance of this 
machine before as a desktop.

I grabbed the ISO images from the DuLUG torrent (remember, please keep 
your BT client running after you get what you want to help others out).  
Installation was easy.  My only nit was I didn't like how the progress bar 
was moved to the bottom of the GUI in Anaconda and seems to give less 
verbose information about progress.

Booting up was mostly uneventful.  I got some errors when services were 
starting like trying to apply a software patch to the CPU, some 
IDE-centric stuff (on a SCSI system), etc.  The sound card was detected 
but the test sound was completely silent.

But these are minor issues, and to be expected from a first test release 
of a distribution with a brand new major kernel version.  All things 
considered, this is an excellent first attempt at a 2.6 kernel desktop OS.

Sadly, the Workstation install option does *not* include KDE.  There is 
still this very Gnome-centric attitude about Fedora, likely heavily 
influenced by Red Hat.  I was able to manually add KDE when I was given 
the option later in anaconda to customize the package selection.

When I logged in for the first time, my jaw dropped.  This old Celeron box 
was downright quick, and the login time (keep in mind this is the *first* 
login, which usually take longer!) felt a lot faster than my 2.4GHz P4 at 
work that is running one of the RHEL clones (and previously ran Red Hat 
Linux 9).

I decided to give it a trial by fire.  I clicked on the Mozilla icon.  
Surely this would give me an opportunity to go to the fridge and grab a 
cold drink.  No way!  Mozilla fired right up!  And, again, this was the 
*first* time I ran it which should take longer as it is creating a bunch 
of files and directories on the disk to store preferences and such.

Evolution crashed with a SEGFAULT the first time I connected to my IMAP 
server downstairs.  The guys in #trilug were able to point me to spot's 
RPM's for a newer build of Evo (I think it was jbroome if I'm not 
mistaken).  The RPM's installed ok but gave some complaints on the way.  
Evo then started up alright and grabbed my mail.  I still couldn't get it 
to connect to the TriLUG mail server.

Even OOo (OpenOffice.org) seemed to be a lot quicker.  This is a major 
accomplishment since, IMHO, OOo was far too slow to be of any use to me in 
previous releases.

This distribution is still rough around the edges, but the performance 
improvements are nothing short of stunning.  If you have a spare machine 
around, it's very much worth trying this out. I think you'll enjoy the new 
life it can breath into slower CPU's.

--Magnus