| Product Review: Fedora Linux Core II |
Tom Adelstein (Updated Aug. 9, 2004)
 According to the Red Hat website, "the Fedora Project is a Red-Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source project. It is also a proving ground for new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products. It is not a supported product of Red Hat, Inc."
For the Linux veterans, it's one of the last "free" distributions of GNU/Linux.
In spite of its description as a technology proving ground, Fedora II provides Linux users with a good Linux desktop experience. Some analysts have described it as a beta product -- a description with which I disagree. With enterprise level administration tools, policy based lock downs and an in-house update service, Fedora II could occupy a place in the enterprise.
For veteran Linux users, Fedora II will provide you with the productivity tools you need and the latest stable open-source technology. You can use the Red Hat up-to-date service for free to keep your desktop current, too.
Examination Process
We put Fedora through rigorous tests in a production environment. We installed it on three systems using two strictly as desktops and one as a workstation and server. The workload included producing commercial documentation, remote administration of six high traffic servers, a sales and secretarial desk. This allowed us to see how Fedora would perform over several days in the real world.
The workstation/server ran on a Gateway 550 Pentium III with 384 MBs of PC 100 RAM, a 3Com Ethernet card and an ATI Rage 128 AGP video card. We configured it as a samba and NFS server. We also utilized it as a print server with a Brother 1440 Laser printer and an Epson 777 color printer. Finally, we attached an UMAX 3400 scanner.
The first desktop ran an Intel Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz processor with 512 MBs of DDR 2100 RAM, Intel 845 Chipset, an onboard i845 Intel video card with 3D graphics enabled. We configured it as desktop productivity suite with heavy graphics use, word processing and desktop publishing. We enabled samba and NFS.
The second desktop desktop ran on a Gateway 550 Pentium III with 384 MBs of PC 100 Ram and similar hardware as the workstation/server. We deployed an ATI Radeon 9000 DRI video card with an Apple Studio Display, Apple Keyboard and Logitech Optical mouse with scroll wheel. We configured it as desktop productivity suite with heavy graphics use, word processing and desktop publishing. We enabled samba and NFS.
Fedora as a GNU/Linux Distribution
While some consider Fedora an enhanced version of Red Hat 9 the project goes far beyond Red Hat's last retail product. The operating system is free to download and distribute with the GNU license agreement in tact. The software is distributed strictly "as is" with no warranty. Red Hat does not provide professional support although other third-party commercial vendors do.
The project intends to produce releases of Fedora Core about 2 to 3 times a year. Red Hat engineers participate in building Fedora Core with outside participation. Each successive release allows users to upgrade their installation without having to re-install.
Desktop Components
Fedora Core II contains the following basic Linux components: - Linux Kernel 2.6.5
- X.org's X11 6.7.0
- GNOME 2.6.0
- KDE 3.2.2
- Mozilla 1.6
- Ximian Evolution 1.4.6
- OpenOffice 1.1.1
- GIMP 2.0
- koffice 1.3
- Samba 3.0.3 The Desktop Environment
The GNOME 2.6 desktop gives Fedora Core II a set of rich features. Gnome provides enhancements that make the desktop easier to use, with noticeable improvements in speed, a slightly improved and more intuitive user interface and a new help system. The desktop remains simple but appears more responsive. The project team changed the Nautilus file manager by including a spatial user interface to allow for a parametric view of files and directories.
KDE 3.2.2 provides increased performance and standards compliance over previous versions, including faster start times for applications. The desktop interface co-mingles with GNOME to provide Red Hat's branded Blue Curve desktop.
With Blue Curve, Fedora continues the theme started in Red Hat 8 to combined the better aspects of Gnome and KDE into a single desktop. Depending on the user orientation, one can start either KDE or GNOME as the login console.Standard Desktop Applications Fedora Core II provides the Mozilla 1.6 web suite including the web browser, email and composer HTML web tool. Most PC users will recognize Mozilla as the product that started when Netscape became a public project. Lately, the Mozilla FireFox browser has received attention as a replacement for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Many people would consider Mozilla one of the gems in the Linux desktop crown.
Evolution 1.4.6 comes from Novell's Ximian Division. It's a high quality Email and Calendar program with an open-source connector for Microsoft Exchange. Many people refer to Evolution as a clone of Microsoft Outlook. The Evolution Mail and Calendar client does have a similar look and feel to Outlook, but also has additional features to help manage mail and spam.
OpenOffice 1.1.1 comes from the Openoffice.org project that originated when Sun open-sourced StarOffice 5.2. The Fedora team has modified the standard release to provide a better look and feel. This is the office productivity suite that interoperates with Microsoft Office standard. Fedora sets up with StarWriter as its word processor, StarCalc as the spreadsheet equivalent to Excel, and StarOffice Impress as the equivalent of PowerPoint. Each application can export its files into a PDF format. Consider this the second jewel in the Linux desktop crown.
Fedora's Image Editor has a close resemblance to Adobe's Photoshop. It comes by the name GIMP 2.0, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Fedora included version 2.0 as the latest major stable release of this popular application. The current GIMP application has many enhancements over version 1.3 which exists in most Linux distributions.Server Software Fedora Core 2 includes the following server software: Apache 2.0.49 with PHP 4.3.4, Perl 5.8.3, Bind 9.2.3, Postfix 2.0.18, MySQL 3.23.58, PostgreSQL 7.4.2, Samba 3.0.3, and Subversion 1.0 (replacement for CVS). Linux and UNIX system administrators will recognize the names of these applications.
The Apache Web Server runs approximately 67% of the web sites globally according to Netcraft. Web developers will recognize PHP and Perl as programming languages used primarily for Web Service development. MySQL and PostgreSQL remain as popular open-source SQL databases. Postfix has replaced Sendmail in many Linux distributions as the default mail server while Bind continues to run the Internet's Domain Name Services. Fedora Core 2 includes also an implementation of SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux).
Download and install
One can download the ISO's for free, here. A 64-bit version also exists here. Download four CD ISO files for the installation discs. These include: FC2-i386-disc1.iso, FC2-i386-disc2.iso, FC2-i386-disc3.iso, and FC2-i386-disc4.iso.
Assessment and Impressions
Fedora Core II provides Linux with a quality workstation and desktop environment. It handles heavy user loads without many problems. Unlike the enterprise desktops from Red Hat, SuSE and Sun Microsystems, Fedora requires does require a watchful eye.
For example, our second desktop configured with an Apple Studio Display and an ATI Radeon 9000 DRI video card broke after a routine notice from the project to update a package. While few people will ever attempt to add an Apple Studio Display to an Intel computer, our user did not know to inspect the warning. Instead, she saw a red icon, clicked it and accepted the update. It took several hours to save her home directory, reinstall Fedora II and patch it to the level where it worked again.
Overall, the Fedora II distribution provides ease of use and a user-friendly, automated install process. We give it four and one-half stars!
A few Fedora II screenshots (click to enlarge)
Gnumeric
Bluetooth File Sharing
Task Scheduler
Volume Control
About the Author
 Tom Adelstein lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife, Yvonne, and works as a Linux and open-source software consultant locally and nationally. He's the co-author of the upcoming book Exploring the JDS Linux Desktop, published by O'Reilly and Associates. Tom has written numerous articles as a guest editor for a variety of publications on Linux technical and marketing issues. His latest venture has him working as the webmaster for JDSHelp.org.
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