On Mon, 2006-02-13 at 20:23 -0600, Andy Pickens wrote: > Not to worry. Fedora isn't ready to take on MS head on. > > I decided maybe it was time to adopt Fedora as my primary OS. That was > months ago, and I'm still not there (e.g. I still can't burn a CD); now > I've had to drop it, at least until I get the Income taxes done. > > I must admit that I have no experience with recent releases of Windows > (I'm happy with Win 98), but you install MS stuff and it works, no > messing about. The sad part is that Linux based programs adapted to > Windows also are easy to install. Thunderbird and Firefox were no > problem, at all, with Windows. But it wasn't that easy with Fedora. > > Sorry ... ---- what are you sorry for? Anyone who has no experience with a version of Windows since Win98 doesn't have the slightest perspective of the comparative features of a current Fedora Core 4 and Windows XP SP2. For example, if you were to install Fedora Core 4 on a system 'intended for use with Windows 98' - say a 500 Mhz 386 with 128Mb of RAM, Windows 98 is a considerably lighter footprint and will probably run faster. Put WinXP on it and it will run like a dog. I'm not gonna knock Windows XP...it's a decent OS. Fedora Core 4 is an aggressive, time based distribution of Linux that when released, included a number of newly adopted versions of important program files which meant the original installation was less than perfect. It actually runs very well at this point if you can get all the updates installed (i.e. yum update) but those with dial-up accounts will probably have to have their system connected for the best part of a long weekend to get all the updates downloaded as there have been a ton of updates since the CD's images were released. FC-5 is likely to cause less initial installation issues (fingers crossed). Now - on to the actual issues that you raised... - CD writing. I have yet to install a Red Hat or Fedora system that didn't automatically find and configure the installed CD Writer and work from the moment of install. If you are having a problem, I would suggest that you post up what you are doing, what you expect to happen and what is happening and we can probably help. - Installation of Firefox...I presume that you are referring to version 1.5.x since 1.0.7 is installed by a typical default install of Fedora - see comments by Alexander Dalloz. Evidently the packages from Mozilla cause some problems with Fedora and though I think there is a 1.5 package in rawhide that you probably could get installed, it seems unnecessary to push things until Fedora developers can deliver a working product. Latest version obsessive behavior seems especially strange coming from someone who contents' themselves with Windows 98. - Installation of software...actually it's really easy on Fedora... yum install gnucash if you add a few repositories to yum, you get a larger selection of software packages to choose from. if you want to install things from source code (something that is exceedingly difficult to do in Windows), you only need to possess the knowledge of how to do that but frequently, installation from source only ./configure && make && make install. (You probably could even do this with Firefox but it wouldn't do all the extra things that you want such as register with package management, install itself in menus, etc.) And lastly, your judgment about whether Fedora or any other Linux distribution is ready to take on Windows ignores the purpose of Linux itself...Linux is about open source, user owned and operated. Linux is about the power of text based configuration files that you can actually open with a text editor and fix instead of reformat and re-install because the registry is corrupted. Linux is about an initial installation complete with applications, free and ready to use...not optional and extra and complete with the opportunity to repurchase the bug-fixed, upgrade at a reduced rate. Personally, I would prefer not to read your judgments about whether Fedora is ready to take on Windows because nowhere have you demonstrated the understanding that qualifies your statement. Craig
