Catharsis - slowly my FC4 world crumbles around me

[Arthur Pemberton]

My two cents
Dave Gutteridge wrote:

>
> Thank you for your responses. It's nice to get a little support, both 
> technical and in the form of a little encouragement.
> Some specific responses.
>
>> Was this as clean install?
>>  
>>
> I would define it as "clean", yes. I did not upgrade of take over any 
> older versions of Linux. I created a new partition and installed 
> fresh. The machine dual boots with WinXP, which I hate and would like 
> to stop using. But can I...?

You can if you're not big into games or pro multimedia

>
>> You can mount them but cannot copy from them!!?
>>  
>>
> So it would seem. Experimentation has taught me that I can put a 
> CD-ROM in and it will read fine. And I can burn both DVDs and CD-ROMs. 
> But, if I put a DVD in any of my internal drives, it spins and spins 
> and usually just gets stuck in there. Sometimes I have to force an 
> eject by inserting a pin into the small manual eject hole. Other times 
> it comes up, but if I copy things, it goes super slow (the copy window 
> says over an hour to copy) and then fail.
> The external driver always mounts DVDs just fine. But it has the same 
> slow down then die problem if I actually try to copy data from it.

When was the last time you did a `yum update` (to update the entire OS) 
if not, get to a terminal and type in 'yum -y update'

>
>>
>> config-system-packages? Very strange. What error are you getting?
>>  
>>
> Someone else on this thread said that config-system-package shouldn't 
> work after the first install. And other people said it's just fine. In 
> any case, I'm not sure if we're talking about config-system-packages. 
> I'm talking about the Add/Remove Packages that is available in the 
> Desktop menu, and has a GUI. Surely *that* should work after the first 
> install. Otherwise why have a GUI for it?

This thing didn't work for me in FC2 or FC3. I didn't even bother in 
FC4. If you want a gui to manage your packages, I suggest you install 
Yumex. To do so, as root run `yum install yumex`

>
>> Does the sound card otherwise work?
>>  
>>
> I have an external USB Kenwood stereo system that works great. I can 
> play MP3s, AVIs in Xine, and system sounds come up fine. The only 
> place I have noticed sound not happening is when something gets 
> launched from Firefox, mainly Flash.

What desktop environment are you using?

>
>> Which app?
>>  
>>
> Gnome Pilot.  I have to admit, I didn't have high hopes for getting my 
> Palm Pilot to work under Linux, so I didn't crack my head against this 
> problem too long. I'm more concerned about getting my DVD drives 
> working and my Tablet configured.
>
>> How did you add ntfs support?
>>  
>>
> http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/fedora4.html
> Worked great when I first installed, and for the first few reboots. In 
> fact, it was the one RPM that went completely problem free and as the 
> installation instructions said it would.
> And then one day I notice the NTFS partition didn't mount, and no 
> longer auto-mounts at boot, despite me not having configured anything...
>
>>
>> What were you running before?  How about trying a multi-boot environment
>> with a more stable version such as FC3 or CentOS4, and leave the FC4
>> stuff to age a bit before giving up entirely.
>>  
>>
> In another thread I was lead to understand that there was "no 
> downgrade path" to FC3. I would assume that switching to any other 
> Linux distro at this point would mean wiping things out and a new 
> fresh install. This may sound like I'm just whining, but at this point 
> if I have to wipe things out, back them up, and do the whole thing 
> over again, I think I'll probably just give the partition back over to 
> Windows. I mean, I'm really rooting for Linux here, but I'm not sure 
> if I'm rooting for it enough to keep installing the OS until I get it 
> right. Is that unreasonable of me?
>
Like something or not, you have to know when to give it up. Even then I 
can't actively support a switch to Windows. But if all these problems 
are making you really unproductive, you might as well stick with Windows 
till FC5, or try a paid for desktop ditro.

>> That is an oxymoron.  Hard core computer users are not deterred by new
>> software distributions.  They live for the challenge of breaking in a
>> new distro.
>>  
>>
> I think you misread me. That's exactly what I mean. I am *not* a hard 
> core computer user. I'm sort of "medium-core". So therefore I do not 
> want to break in new distros. I'm contemplating throwing in the towel 
> and leaving the new distros for people who have cores that are more 
> hard than mine.
>
As I suggested, if you're taking that much of a beating, try a distro 
specifically made for users like yourself.

>> On the other hand, a rational computer user would install FC3.  There
>> is less anguish.  You benefit from the suffering of other early
>> adopters.  And with the delayed release of FC5 there is the added
>> bonus of getting Fedora Core software support for a longer time span
>> than any of the releases to date.
>>
> This is the part that threw me. I don't get this system of numbering 
> for FC releases. People talk about this like it's normal or something, 
> and maybe it is and it's the way software companies like Adobe and MS 
> that are doing it wrong, but I would have thought that version 4 would 
> replace and be better than version 3, which would be better than 
> version 2... By "better" I just mean bugs and issues in the previous 
> release are fixed, and if there are new bugs, they are a part of new 
> features. If FC4 had the words "beta" or something to indicate that it 
> was *less* stable than FC3, I would have gone with FC3. How was I 
> supposed to know that FC4 was the least stable version? As I wrote 
> this, I rechecked the web site, and I didn't see anything that clearly 
> states "this is less stable than FC3". It seems to indicate that FC4 
> is a wonderful thing and it's the one you want if you're making a 
> fresh install of FC.
>
Well you kinda did. I suggest you read Fedora's mission statement 
http://fedora.redhat.com

> Dave
>