[Klug-general] FC4

[Karl Lattimer]

Just for your information.

Fedora core 4 is out, and I have it installed. It took a while to make a
broken NRPMS gnome 2.10 merge completely with a FC Gnome but I've got
there in the end.

clearlooks is the default theme, it looks great and works very well. SO
the new stuff that I find interesting.

Gnome-vfs now uses a nice ipod icon for my ipod. This isn't essential
but its cool.

The task list now flashes *gently* when an application needs attention.
I think it would be nice if gnome incorporated festival and had a voice
announce it after a minute or two.

FC4 comes with a stable-beta of openoffice.org 2.0, we now have
openoffice base out of the box and I must say its quite an impressive
database client.

We also see eclipse in this release, eclipse is an interactive
development environment for c/c++/java/python it handles java as well as
netbeans and c/c++ as well as borland. Anyway, eclipse is cool and
should definitely get checked out.

Out of the box i give FC4 a 6/10

It can play real streams, avi's and other video but it has some issues
with mp3/dvd as is always the case with fc4. The desktop is complete,
easy to install/upgrade, i've done two upgrades and one install. The
first box upgraded went smooth as hell, but if you're an nrpms
subscriber some of gnome breaks on upgrade. Install is same old
anaconda, it just works!

Games are OK, you've got ppracer instead of tuxracer, probably some
copyright thing over the name, development is now continuing under the
name ppracer.

FC4 has virtualisation and clustering out of the box, which means its a
no1 choice for servers. source.redhat.com/cluster may explain a bit
more. In brief if you have a hundred workstations in an office you
create logical volumes of all their drives. Does longhorn do this? NO!
Is longhorn out? NO! Will longhorn ever be done? Not before another two
fedora cores and one OSX!

It appears Fedora's new freedom is helping too, with redhat's cluster
code in the same box as mysql 4.1 and eclipse. Surprisingly, they still
don't want to tackle DVD copyright or mp3 patent issues or get their
hands on mono, however they are supporting avalon and soon indigo which
microsoft have just pulled the rug out under.

I think microsoft is responding to what they've seen in FC4 and want to
throw their weight around. I think its time for the community to just
have an "I don't care" attitude about microsoft in situations like this,
always remember beware of g(r)eeks baring gifts! Microsoft giveth and
microsoft taketh away etc. etc...

We now see jakarta (i think thats right) and a bunch of other web server
tools, which are all generally good.

Freshrpms and dag rpms will make this thing a little more palatable but
right now its bleeding edge without the freedom (as in the pub).

Hope some of you at least jump on and install it.

Karl,