[Nottingham] My fedora 9 experience (vent/rant included)

[Camilo Mesias]

> I wouldn't be so presumptuous to tell you what you should be using, but maybe
> if Fedora is infuriating you so much you should try another distro?

That's good advice.

I've been a user of Fedora since the RedHat days. We also use Centos
at work. I am often frustrated by things that change in Fedora, there
have been many small things and some major ones. Since the whole
family use Fedora (5 linux machines to one Windows one), something as
simple as printing not working is a major problem. My impression is
that Fedora is bleeding edge and the price for seeing new stuff so
early is having to learn new and different ways to do things. From a
personal point of view that knowledge is something that comes in handy
at work, so it's worth the pain. If I wanted stuff to just work I
could have bought a five Macs.

SElinux seems to have huge potential but at the moment my impression
is that there isn't enough raw effort put in to make it useful. I've
heard policykit might improve things. But currently the process of
enabling a new service on a Fedora server (eg. NFS) involves setting
up a service, then allowing it through the firewall, and allowing it
access through SElinux. It won't have the 'wow' factor until there is
a way for admins to centrally turn on a service and have all the
attendant security mechanisms updated too. Doing this securely is a
daunting task.

As for this holding back adoption of Linux, I don't think it's an
issue. There will always be an audience for something like Fedora, and
there are Ubuntu / other distros for the rest... not to mention the
various fringe distros that find their way onto the new class of small
cheap laptops. There Linux is part of an appliance, and that's your
answer. Newbies and non-techies will buy into the appliance market and
not worry about the workings. The low price is what will win over
these people!

-Cam