I've been working with Linux since 2.0 hit its teens. Though I'm normally a
bit of a control freak, and prefer the command line to a fancy GUI, I've
been looking for a good, reliable distribution to put on my work laptop.
Because of requirements set out from the start, that narrowed my search down
to openSUSE and Fedora. I've putzed with oS 10.2 and 10.3 betas, and though
10.2 was quite solid, there are aspects of Fedora that fit my needs much
better. So, embarking on my first attempt to get a full-on distribution
(i.e. not assembling everything by hand) installed, I've settled on F8.
(In other words, I'm anally retentive and technically competent, but looking
for something that Just Works^TM for the first time).
The hardware I'm using: a Lenovo T60, type 2008-C3U:
<http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPath.do?quickPathEntry=2008C3U>
And as I expect to be doing a fair bit of virtualization, I'm using the Xen
kernel:
-----
# uname -a
Linux dgerow.example.net 2.6.21-2940.fc8xen #1 SMP Thu Sep 13 19:37:33 EDT 2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
#
-----
In my quest to get F8 on, I've run into a few problems. Here they are:
1) The DVD ISO won't burn. This seems to be limited to Matshita DVD
burners, the ones used by IBM ThinkPads. I can't be any more specific than
that, but no matter the media used, when burning either the F7, F8T1, or
F8T2 ISOs, the burn *always* fails between 50% and 75% completion. And no,
there are no real error messages, just, "Error". This happens both in k3b
and whatever burner is bundled with Gnome, on multiple machines.
2) udev in F8 (T1 and T2) doesn't like my Audigy 2 ZS Notebook. If I have
it plugged in when booting, it just freezes the machine when loading udev.
If I plug it in after booting, the machine just locks up. I have no real
error messages to submit. Note that the card works just fine in oS 10.2
and 10.3, but I never tested it under F7.
3) No wireless in T2. It worked in T1, and in oS 10.2 and 10.3. It's an
Intel IPW3945 controller, and is detected by the system (it's loaded iwl3945
itself), but wlan0 is never created:
-----
# lspci -v -s 03:00.0
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Unknown device 1010
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22
Memory at edf00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [d0] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [e0] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0
# dmesg | grep iwl
iwl3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 0.0.25kd
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
iwl3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
# rpm -qa | grep -i iwl
iwl4965-firmware-4.44.1.18-2
iwl3945-firmware-2.14.1.5-2
#
----
This worked in F8T1 until I updated. I can't say specifically which update
killed it, but it's definitely not working anymore in F8T2.
4) I can't install with a custom partition scheme. I had F8T1 installed ,
and wanted to format and install on top of it, while keeping my (encrypted)
/home free. Every time I did that, as soon as I told anaconda to accept my
custom LVM layout, it would crash. I had to repartition the whole drive to
install T2.
5) No suspend-to-ram or hibernate. This actually hasn't worked in any OS
I've had on this machine, save XP and FreeBSD. oS 10.2 had software suspend
which worked (unsurprisingly), but a true S3 suspend has never worked for
me. I've never really looked into what it would take to get hibernation
working.
6) Audio wonkiness. I'm hesitant to put this on, because the project is
bringing in pulseaudio, so I expect there's going to be some rockiness.
(Especially since I'm using mplayer from livna.) But an F8T1 install
updated six days ago worked with some effort, yet an updated F8T2 install
(as of this morning) won't let me open the ALSA device, following the same
steps. This I'm willing to accept as PEBKAC, but I'm hoping someone may
have some input on this.
These issues aside, I have to say, I'm quite impressed with the way this all
actually does Just Work^TM. Though the bumps are there, they're all for
minor issues (aside from the wireless, which is a royal PITA), and the whole
functional GUI not only looks nice, but /is/ functional. (Now I just need
for that ATI driver to show up, so I can actually do dual-head.)
I'll be looking at getting myself a Bugzilla account soon -- yay! Yet
Another Bugzilla Account! -- to file these things proper-like.
- Damian
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