[plug] Part of Redhats New Iniative

[Craig Ringer]

> Fedore could potentially be one of the better things that has for Linux. 
> The right amount of corporate
> backing coupled with volunteer work (for a relatively large user base) 
> could be a very good mix. Although Ximian has done basically the same 
> thing already. It's gone pretty well too as far as I can see.

It's looking interesting so far. Signal-to-noise on the Fedora list is 
pretty good for a worldwide list - the "my computer won't turn on" users 
don't seem to have found it yet. Unlike, say, xfree86<at>xfee86.org, 
which needs a broadcast every 10 minutes saying RTFM. Or maybe PEBKAC.

> That last paragraph came maybe 2-3 years too late, Linux has been big 
> for quite a while now. So I'll shut up now and stay on the topic. How 
> much stuff has RedHat added to their distribution that new developers 
> would have to delve through? 

Probably the #1 biggie is the inclusion of support for apt and yum 
repositories in up2date. It also won't be hard to just drop apt or yum 
onto the system if RHN irritates you. With local mirrors -
(Ben?) - that'd eliminate what I see as the #1 source of pain when using RH.

Otherwise ... I haven't seen a feature list, nor any "huge" 
announcements on the list, but I only came in post-beta-1. The installer 
sounds like it's changing for the better - trying to do less work when 
CD-booted, and more under the post-install environment. Saves on 
duplicate work and is generally nice. The goal (for later) seems to be 
to have a CD install that's a bit like the MS installers - quick, 
simple, just partitions, copies critical files, writes the MBR, and 
reboots for the rest. If you want to know why that's a good thing, have 
a read over the fedora-test archives, where it's been discussed at length.

> I've always been under the impression that 
> RH has a lot of custom stuff all the way through, in form of patches to 
> a lot of programs. I haven't touched Red Hat in a while though. Just 
> wondering how accessible Fedora will be to developers.

Hard to say so far, most of the list traffic is testing and 
bug-squashing. OTOH, the RH folks are quite active and helpful, they 
seem willing to spend a bit of time to explain something where that's 
useful, etc.

You can _not_ expect things like MP3 support, as it's a RH corporate 
decision to avoid known patent-encumbered technology (in so far as it's 
practical with software patents). Still, that's what 3rd party apt 
repositories are for - something like 'apt-get install fedora-nonfree' 
to get mp3 support, ntfs support, etc would only take the creation of a 
meta-package.

When it comes to RH-customised libraries etc, that's an issue. I haven't 
seen much discussion of it on fedora-test but I know for a fact that the 
RH version of qt tends to cause problems with other apps - Scribus is a 
good example. The kernel is less of an issue, since it's pretty trivial 
to drop in a vanilla kernel. Maybe this stuff will be covered later, 
it's early days yet. I certainly haven't seen a post from Trolltech 
saying "OK, since you're listening to developer input more, how about 
you FIX QT!".

Craig Ringer

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