On Tue, 4 May 2004 18:21:33 -0500 (CDT), Benjamin J. Weiss wrote > Just wanted to share a quick review on my attempt to replace Windows > on my desktop at home. > > Below are the things I do with the computer and how well they > translated to Fedora: > > 1) Email. I had some problems getting Evolution 1.4 to talk nicely > with my RH 9 email server via imaps and smtp-auth over tls. I'm > still working through that, but I got email working by allowing > relay from the desktop box. My wife is getting used to the > interface, but it's no big deal for her, so that's a plus. > > 2) Digital Camera. My wife has two digital cameras: > - Kodak DX 3500. gtkam worked just fine, saw the camera and I > could see all of the pics. The software's not as easy to use as the > windows software that came with the camera, but I think I can get > Kim to use it. > > - Olympus C-750 UltraZoom. I couldn't get gtkam to initialize the > camera, no matter what camera I selected. The autoselect kept > finding it as a C-2040Z, which would have been fine if it could have > initialized the camera. I suppose I'd have to use one of those card > readers, but I don't know if any of them read Olympus xD cards. > This one's a deal-killer for my wife. I'll have to dual boot if I > can't get this one working. Updating to a newer version of gtkam should help with that. > 3) Office suite. We've been using Open Office at home for about a > year now on Windows, so the switch to Fedora was a no-brainer. > > 4) Games. My wife loves tux racer. :) She wishes we could get > frogger, but tux racer is okay with her. I haven't tried installing > Neverwinter Nights on Fedora yet, but I hear that it works just fine, > so games shouldn't be a problem. Yeap, NWN does run quite nicely on FC1. BUT, you will need 3D hardware acceleration for it to work properly. > 5) Video. I couldn't even get my video off of my Canon Optura 20 > camcorder and onto the computer with dvgrab. I've left a message on > the dvgrab message board and haven't heard back these last few days. > I found a couple of messages in archives that hint that ieee1394 > isn't working properly yet in linux, so that may be why I had the > problems. I could control the camera, but just not capture the > video over the firewire port. Go figure. I may try again when I > get the new motherboard installed. I don't think it's the board, > though, since this works flawlessly in Win2K. I found that Kino works nicely in capturing video from my Canon Camcorder via it's firewire port (IEEE1394). And allows you to do some editing as well. > I found a couple of video editing applications that look like they > might be pretty cool, though I don't know if they'll replace DVDLab. > However, since I can't even get my video, there's no way to tell. > This one's a deal-killer for me, as that's one of the major reasons > I've upgraded my PC, so that I could do home video. > > Bottom line: Fedora is almost there for my personal needs. Great > look, good experience, but not all of the apps I need are working > yet. For now, I may have to look at purchasing XP to take advantage > of the SATA ports on the new motherboard. > > Hope this helps somebody out there. > > Ben Wolf -- Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)
