On 01/11/2012 10:00 PM, David A. De Graaf wrote:
Here's why Fedora 16 isn't ready for prime time.
Many of these have been BZ'd, without effect.
- I won't even discuss the gnome3 controversy. I've used xfce for
many years and am very happy with it.
Good for you.
- The worst aspect of Fedora 16 is it has made computing a stochastic
process. Instead of the rock-solid behaviour of previous releases,
Fedora 16 behaves randomly.
- On two laptops with encrypted disks, when booting, one asks for the
passphrase once; the other twice. The second request can only be
seen if rhgb is removed from the kernel boot line, and you watch the
systemd spewage carefully.
- The command 'reboot' typed in an X terminal emulator, sometimes
works; but often hangs the machine, requiring pressing reset.
What are your system specs? If you wanna criticize, do it in a
constructive manner so people can fix issues.
- Shutdown takes much too long, and often fails completely, like
reboot. This is quite annoying, especially with laptops.
- The 'df' command has been rendered nearly useless due to the
voluminous extraneous output.
df | grep sda :)
- The mount command, which was once useful, isn't any more. It's
simply unreadable.
See above.
- The systemd system has replaced the simple and easily understood
sysv init system with a jumbled mess. The output during boot is
scrambled and the terminology is grossly verbose and confusing.
It may be a tiny bit quicker to boot on a multicore machine, but the
loss of comprehensibility and reliability is much too high a price.
- The systemd alternative to editing /etc/inittab with runlevel = 3
is grotesque.
- /var/log/boot.log is empty, sometimes. When it is written, it
contains no dates.
- If 'startxfce4' is used at a console prompt to start an xfce session,
root windows have $DISPLAY undefined, and cannot run privileged
programs. Critical tabs in various windows (shutdown, nm-applet
editing, etc.) are greyed out. A workaround is to create $HOME/.xinitrc
with this cryptic line:
ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session startxfce4
and then use 'startx', as if starting gnome. :-(
- grub2 fails to correctly initialize /boot/grub2/grub.cnf when older
kernel objects are present in /boot, and alternate root partitions
exist.
- grub2 sometimes sets the default kernel to an older one; sometimes
to the newest one.
- Changing UID's to start at 1000 instead of 500 is just annoying.
- The latest kernel, 3.1.7-1.fc16.x86_64, causes skype to crash
unless it is run with strace, in which case it fails to fail.
Go figure!
- With earlier kernels, skype was merely unreliable, sometimes with no
microphone, sometimes no sound, sometimes no video. The popup that
announces an incoming call fails to appear - sometimes. Despite its
non-open status, skype is a critical utility. Some way must be found
to support it so it is reliable. Making changes to the kernel that
destroy it is not acceptable.
It is acceptable, because skype is closed source.
- Some programs fail at random, unpredictible and unrepeatable times.
Qtstalker occasionally simply stops working. It's window can be
deleted, but a zombie remains.
- Systemd doesn't know how to tell time. During boot, time is off by
4 hours, then is fixed when ntp gets going. Perhaps as a result,
sometimes, not always, X starts with a screensaver. It's random!
Check your date/time settings and your BIOS settings as well.
- The cups print system can no longer print full Legal size pages.
The print space is shifted upward and truncated.
- The /etc/rc.d/rc.local file has been deleted. It can be recreated,
but you must know to start it with #!/bin/sh and make it
executable. Why not simply retain a properly constructed dummy?
- gkrellm -s remotesys often quits without reason. Then, sometimes,
it cannot be restarted without rebooting remotesys.
More randomness.
- When xfce is restarted, the session manager restarts gkrellm windows
with the bottom section truncated - sometimes. Another randomness.
The full length can be restored by manually running the
Configuration popup and changing some item, then changing it back.
- The session manager for xfce seems unable to restart roxterm
windows, but can handle xterm's fine. Why?
- On one laptop the NumLock will sometimes turn itself on. This can
be annoying if a password must be typed.
NumLock or CapsLock?
- On one machine, the password had be typed quickly in a console. The
root password was too hard to type to meet that requirement.
However, if it was entered by cut-and-paste, it was OK.
In X, there was no problem.
?????
- On one machine (of seven) the CD drawer pops open at random times.
- An older nvidia NV18 GeForce4 MX 440 card requires the earlier
version of the nvidia driver - which is no longer supported. The
nouveau driver doesn't work nearly as well. A perfectly functional
video card is rendered disfunctional.
Disfunctional how? It doesn't work at all? Any errors? Remember that
the MX 440 is old, don't expect wonders.
- Libreoffice insists on making files inaccessible via nfs.
A workaround is to edit /usr/lib64/libreoffice/program/soffice to
comment out these two lines:
## SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING=1 ## export SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING
but this must be redone whenever a new update comes along.
- The rt2500usb driver for my DLink USB wireless transceiver won't
work reliably unless I disable power management with:
iwconfig wlan0 power off
However, trying to do this automatically in a control file,
/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/16-power
only works sometimes. Another puzzling and annoying randomness.
- A directory, ~/.gvfs, cannot be read even by root. This should be
impossible in a sane Linux system. This unacceptable behaviour can
be expunged by removing the gvfs-fuse package, which takes with it
the shotwell, totem, and totem-nautilus packages. So far, I haven't
noticed any loss of functionality.
- The microphone on one machine (but not others) wouldn't work until I
added a cryptic line to the beginning of
/etc/modprobe.d/dist-alsa.conf:
options snd-hda-intel model=auto
- Fedora 16 simply cannot be used with mythtv. It refuses to detect
any of my three TV receiver cards.
- The mythfrontend program wouldn't start on a remote machine until I,
cryptically, removed ~/.ICEAuthority. I have no idea what this is
all about.
What the **** is so cryptic about "rm -f filename" ?
- Firefox can be configured to print a header and footer to record
the URL, etc. However, the cups printers refuse to print it,
truncating this useful info.
As before, you just say "randomness" or "fails" or "refuses"
without providing any useful information.
- My son, after reviewing this list, adds some more:
Pnmixer fails to start roughly 1/3 of the time - meaning no sound -
in XFCE4. (I don't have pnmixer installed, so cannot confirm.)
- Login and logout can take a variable length of time - from roughly
one second to roughly one minute - for no apparent reason. So far
this happens only on a newly built machine.
- The problem of gkrellm not properly redrawing on restart may have
been fixed. We'll see... IT'S RANDOM!!!
--
Rares Aioanei
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