On 2014-03-22 10:38, lee wrote:
Matthew Miller <mattdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 04:19:05PM +0100, lee wrote:
And on top of that, what is the Fedora-way of replacing gnome --- which
I find totally useless --- with fvwm, which perfectly does what I want?
It sounds like you want to do a minimal install and then add up from that.
Yes, that`s what I always did with Debian.
I do a minimal install with the Fedora DVD (haven't tried f20 and live
disk yet). Then update and install packages after. No need to install
a bunch of packages from the DVD and then have to do 1200 updates.
Seems faster. Just need to setup a repository at my home to save
bandwidth. :)
I think you will benefit from this effort in that the minimal install will
be better defined and curated.
That would be nice --- I wouldn`t even have thought that there is one if
I hadn`t read on this list that there is one, somewhere. I still don`t
know how I would start with a minimal install, though.
When you get the installer and boot it, you get a working system.
That`s a good way to go because otherwise you need a second computer
around when installing to look up things. But where is the minimal
install, and what when you don`t get a GUI?
Using the DVD, just go into the packages and deselect all the packages
that you don't need for a minimal install. I like yumex and then use
the group feature to install other applications. I use KDE, not gnome.
It`s only one example, and you can figure out how to do it. But the
point with this is that Fedora lacks flexibility. You get what you get
and then have to go through a lengthy process of getting rid of stuff
and of somehow getting to work what you need, like fvwm.
Sure, I would agree that this isn't a strong suit, particularly with the
all-or-nothing way RPM dependencies currently work.
Yes, that is one of the things I don`t like. It forces you to install
stuff you never need.
RPM is better than it used to be if the maintainers set their spec files
properly and only include what is needed. Now a lot of libraries and
parts are removed from the main packages.
YUM is the way to go as it checks the requirements and installs only
what is needed, most times.
On a side note: The installer sucks, just try to do one of the most
basic and important things with it: Partitioning.
Saying something "sucks" isn't very helpful. Not only is it needlessly
negative, it is intangible. Name a real problem and we can talk about it.
There have been a few threads about it on this list. The major problem
is partitioning.
If you use the correct method, you can partition your drives. I have
done it on most installs I have done.
The last time I used the installer, it was the one F19 comes with. It
was impossible to get the partitioning I wanted, so I had to partition
otherwise. Then it was nearly impossible to make the installer actually
use the partitions the way I wanted. And since the buttons the
installer uses are weird and misleading, you never really know what
you`re doing. I had to try over and over again to figure out how to
somehow make it use the existing partitions. If I had used it on a
computer that had data on the disks I wanted to keep, I`d have had to
physically unplug them to make sure the data doesn`t get lost --- and
that isn`t always possible.
I agree that the buttons are misleading. Click Done to get to custom
partitioning is strange. I have to do some testing to learn more. I
don't have a decent machine for setting up and running VM's.
So some simple partitioning that would be done with the Debian installer
within ten minutes took three hours. The Fedora installer does what it
want`s, not what the user wants, and it leaves the user in the dark
about what is actually going to happen.
On top of that, it doesn`t offer any choices. You cannot pick any
package at all.
This wrong. You can pick packages if you use the full DVD. I am not
sure about the Live disks though. I pick a minimal install on the DVD.
I was at a large cloud conference a while ago, and almost nobody was
using Fedora, and so I asked people why they chose the distribution
they are building their stuff on, and why they didn’t choose
Fedora. Almost universally, the response wasn’t “What I am using is
great!” — it was “Oh, I don’t care. I just picked this, and that’s
what I’m using and it’s fine.”
I`m not one of these people. Thinking like that, they don`t need a
Linux distribution; they can as well use Windoze or Macos.
Yet these people were absolutely running Linux. Just not ours.
Hm. Maybe that`s how people are.
Think of other things they use: How many times do they pick something
because it`s great? It involves more work to do that because you need
to find out what is available, what the differences are and what makes
something great for you in particular. So they don`t bother and use
something which is fine.
Look at http://fedoraproject.org/ --- it says this and that and doesn`t
say or show that Fedora is great or awesome and why.
This is an interesting aspect. It fits in with my father. He started
using Linux for a project he was involved with. It was Centos based and
it just worked. He started experimenting and I got him to try Fedora.
Last Linux he played with on his desktop was Mint which he loved.
One of our system admins moved to Ubuntu from Fedora because of broken
apps and almost impossible upgrade path at the time. I tried Fedup and
won't use it on my present machines. I can do a full install and
configuration much quicker.
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