Beartooth wrote:
Again, my experience is exactly the opposite. RH-8.0 installed on all my computers, without any major problems, as did earlier RH distributions.
The kernel in RH-9.0 did not run on my SCSI-only machine, and neither has any Fedora version since.
X11 has always worked for me on all my machines, until Fedora-2, when the change to Xorg meant it no longer ran on my Sony Picturebooks. (I had to re-compile X after applying patches in the Xorg bugzilla, which for some reason were completely ignored for 6 months.)
I used to give out Redhat CDs to students, but I'd be reluctant to give out Fedora CDs, as I suspect I would be inundated with problems.
My experiences are that it is improving over RH 8 in alot of ways. The tools are what makes the difference. RH 6 worked well on my older (P90) computer. RH 7 was slower and I stopped there on that machine.
As software upgrades, some tools won't work on older hardware but that isn't just with Linux or Fedora, but also from that other major software that requires major hardware upgrades every time there is a new release.
Red Hat is following a stricter licence policy than other distributers but that is there decision. This is where yum comes in, if there was a decent frontend. With the litigation issues in the US, this makes sense. There was an article today that points to issues with Open source software and legal issues.
Whatdya mean, free software? <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/02/issues_with_open_source/>
"However open source products can, unwittingly, violate patents and the owner of the patent can legitimately sue the user of the open source. The lawyers go after the money rather than the source of the violation, which means targeting users, as SCO has. The legal risk is probably much higher in the US than elsewhere, as the US is more of a litigious society."
Red Hat, I feel is making decisions based on these risks and in your case they are not the best decisions.
Support for SCSI is interesting as I havn't had any problems with SCSI on any computer since my early slackware and Adaptec controllers in 1994.
Hey, I purchased a new computer and I couldn't get may video card to work with Fedora, even using the "manufacturs" supplied drivers. I had to change the card. I don't blame Fedora for this though.
-- Robin Laing
