[KLUG Members] Trouble Installing Fedora 4 (Red Hat Linux)

[adam at morrison-ind.com]

> Thanks for all the advice!  I may try a different flavor of Linux.  
> Since the original split Red Hat had between Fedora Core (Free 
> version) and Enterprise (Commercial version) many people are having 
> install problems.

I think the real problems arrived with FC4.  I'm the participant in a coupe of
software projects and FC4 is not a very nice distro from the packaging
perspective.  They've made some rather radical decisions with what the 
include,
how things are compiled (gcc4), etc...  It is very bleeding-edge, which 
is fine
if you want bleeding edge - but for day to day use I don't think that is what
most people want.

> It was easier when you could buy a computer off the shelf and trade 
> Linux for Windows, but now all the shelf confusers have Proprietery 
> code that kills the confuser if you try to put Linux on it.  Sounds 
> like another Microsoft trick to force people to stay with them.

Actually I personally think things have gotten better.  In my Toshiba laptop
everything, including internal wireless, just works.  In installs perfectly on
our recently purchased Dell workstations (GLX series?).

> Anyway, I'll see about a different version of Linux and try it.  
> Graphics will work with Linux.  But, it's called Mesa instead of 
> OpenGL, although all the commands are exactly the same.  You just 
> have to be careful with the drivers you build.  I would hate to use 
> Windows.  It's not stable enough for Computer Science.

I really recommend SuSe, and you can download SuSe 10 now.  I installed it
yesterday on an IBM x305 and it all just worked (with XEN paravirtualization
even!  which lets you play around easily).