LinuxLinks Review
(8/8/07)
By Kevin E. Glosser
Installation
Fedora
7 is available at no cost. There are three ways to download it,
BitTorrent, Fedora mirror sites or network install. I
used a BitTorrent client and then burned the ISO image to DVD with
GNOME's built-in burning software. Burning an ISO in GNOME is as easy
as right clicking on a file in the Nautilus file browser.
There's
no installation or
configuration required. The ability to burn CD's or DVD's has been
included in GNOME for a while, but I had to mention how much I like
it. Next up, I booted from the DVD, ran the included check utility to
test the DVD, and launched the graphical
(text
is available) component of the installer.
Anaconda
is Red Hat's installation tool. It's graphical component is
designed so even a novice user can effortlessly install the
operating system. As long the default settings are selected, it
reaches that goal nicely. Should a user decide to manually
manage
their partitions however, confusion may arise. Even those familiar with
Fedora might find themslves wondering what to choose when prompted for
partition choice. Disk Druid, a tool to partition and
format
the hard drive, handles the actual chores. However, the
installer
creates confusion by asking an ambiguous question prior to launching
it. There were four options, none of them being what I
thought was desired. I wanted to keep my existing partitions, but not
format all of them. This led to me choosing “create custom
layout”
from the list. Although this seemed contrary to what I wanted, it did
launch Disk Druid and allow me to make the choices I wanted. When I
finally
selected the partitions to format, I received a nice warning message,
however. By default, it appears the installer will create it's own
partition setup wiping the hard drive. Although, if you were to
create your own “spin” of Fedora 7, you could
change that.
You
could make the default to keep existing partitions, for example. I'll
get into “spins” and the tools that allow you to
build your
own custom version of Fedora 7 later.
The rest of the installer options were few and
fairly self
explanatory. Normally, I choose exactly the packages I want
installed. However, this time I decided to go with pretty much the
default, to see what that included. My only modifications were to add
the office and software development package categories while removing
the web server software. It took fifteen minutes for Anaconda to
navigate me through the choices and another twenty minutes for the
formatting and installation of the 1007 packages to complete. On a
newer
computer, I'd expect this to be a lot faster.
The installation went smoothly, as expected. Of
note, during
installation every single piece of hardware in my computer was
detected accurately, including my not so common monitor. I have a
19”
SONY G420 Multiscan monitor that no operating system has ever
detected correctly. Post install, everything was configured properly
and working. The only thing I didn't like about the post install
desktop was the resolution, set at a high 1920x1440. I was surprised
such a high
resolution would be chosen by the installer. I'll give Anaconda the
benefit of the doubt that it detected an unusual video card / monitor
combination. The “first
boot” utility reminded me I had enabled the firewall and
set SELinux to enforcing mode. I was asked to submit my hardware
profile to the SMOLT project, and I did. This is totally optional of
course. After creating a user account and performing a sound test,
the installation process was complete. Let's check out the desktop...
Flying
High with Fedora
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