Hello, my loyal reader. I wanted to pass on a piece of advice. Now, this is somewhat different for me, because if you know me well, you know I love computers, software, and especially Linux, the free, alternative operating system. I've been using it on all kinds of computers for years. I've used many different versions over time, but I've sort of settled on two distributions (like brands) for the present. Ubuntu Linux is great because it's easy to install and use, works on anything I've loaded it onto, and it's got a lot of really good software-- all free. Then there's Fedora, which used to be Red Hat, until Red Hat went commercial, and they spun off Fedora as the "testing" version of their commercial product. Fedora has an amazing array of very up-to-date software, and a great online support apparatus, such that if you run into a problem you can just go to the forums, follow a few simple steps, and the problem is usually solved.
Well, last weekend there was an update to Fedora. A major update, going from version 8 to version 9. I had been using version 8 for months, and loved it. It's fast, everything worked (video, and sound, and all the networking stuff). I eagerly checked online to see what new goodies might come with it, and whether anyone had a problem installing. Nothing I could find, so I clicked the "upgrade" button and proceeded to upgrade my machine, rebooted when it was done, and uggh... video problem. I'd seen it before, on my previous install, so I knew what to do. Set up the system so it can see some other software update sources that will allow using commercial 3rd party video drivers and then wait for the update. Well, I did that and got no happiness. I've now been waiting for almost a week, reading the support forums, and have found out that I may not have happiness anytime soon. Apparently the video drivers that are available for nvidia hardware don't support the most recent version of X-windows. What that means is even though I have a high resolution, widescreen flat LCD monitor, my new, state of the art linux desktop operating system will only drive it at a paltry 1280 x 1024 resolution. And, to make matters worse, because it's the wrong aspect ratio for my monitor, everything is squeezed wider and shorter. Ugly! Horrible! Unacceptable! And the worst thing is they (the Fedora crew) knew they didn't have nvidia (or ati, apparently) support ready, and chose to release anyway. This is a disaster. It makes Fedora Linux (and anything you run on it, like the internet!) look like ass, and makes people like myself, who love Fedora, warn people away from it, until they get the video drivers working correctly. This isn't exotic hardware-- it's mainstream! It's built into most recent laptops, and a lot of motherboards from the last couple of years. But you can't really have a great linux distribution if you can't make it work with your video hardware! It's not just inconvenient-- for many it makes it useless. Now, this isn't beta, testing software I'm talking about either. It's the release version! Damn...
So, for the time being, my recommendation is DON'T INSTALL FEDORA Version 9 UNTIL THEY'VE ADDRESSED THE VIDEO DRIVER ISSUES. It's just not worth the hassle.
Ed: And replying to a comment, I should have made it more clear, I only know for a fact this applies to people with nvidia graphics hardware. The drivers themselves are not something over which Fedora has any control, but it still makes it a very bad experience to upgrade from version 8, which worked perfectly, to version 9, which most assuredly does not.
2 comments:
Actually, this problem is entirely due to NVidia not getting out a driver. Regardless of any version numbering, the interfaces for Xorg 1.5 (a prerelease of which is in Fedora 9) have been stable for some time and it would have been perfectly reasonable for NVidia to produce a driver in time for Fedora 9 release. We don't slave our release to any non-open source software, so there was no way we would delay our release for NVidia's sake. That would be just as silly as delaying our release because there's no Internet Explorer for Fedora 9. Complaints about this problem really belong in NVidia's court, not Fedora's.
This also makes a very good argument for buying video hardware from someone who supports open source, like Intel for example. I have no financial interest in Intel, but I have Intel video hardware and never have problems with things like 3D support since their drivers are open source and the community can work with them constructively, unlike NVidia.
I do encourage you to bring this problem to NVidia.
Thanks for commenting. I have edited my post to acknowledge your point. I am aware the problem is non-free software (nvidia drivers), and I'm very much aware of-- and thankful for-- how much work and how many details go into a major version release of the Fedora distribution, but the fact of the matter is F9 was released in a way that would break the video for a significant group of their users. It took almost a week before I found any discussion whatsoever of the X update being incompatible, and I was actively looking. The forums even have an excellent post (by Leigh) about how to downgrade X to a previous version that works with the nvidia driver. What I do know is last week F8 worked great on my computer. The in-place upgrade (which I know is risky) worked. But the nvidia video drivers (neither the xorg version nor the livna version) aren't ready yet. I will let nvidia know how I feel.
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