Here's my review of Fedora 9. I got it from a Linux magazine (forgot name), and it claimed to be updated with KDE 4.1, etc. I tried to install it on my Toshiba Satellite A55-S306. It failed miserably.

First, EDD sat for a long time trying to figure out my system upon boot. No problem on subsequent boots (see rest of review) specifying edd=off, but otherwise a nuisance.

Second, the installer diagnoses my onboard hard drive as SATA or something, using sdaX for all my partitions, etc. This is highly annoying since my laptop has been out for some time now, and is known to be IDE (as is the controller). This is the first distribution to fail to properly detect that it's IDE (i.e. hdaX).

Third, there is no way to use XFS on the root partition ("/"). This is very annoying, as you can do this using even Slackware. It's ironic when other distributions talk of how advanced and sleek they are, yet can't use XFS as the root partition. I found out why during the install process: Fedora uses GRUB. There is no way to specify which boot loader to use, which further aggravates this problem. Also, later it allows you to select an online repository (should call it a suppository by now), but only after it burns GRUB to the MBR.

Fourth, there is no way to specify a more logical time zone like US/Mountain. I went down and selected ETC/-5 because I knew that my time zone was 5 hours past "zulu" (for us military folk), but this is highly annoying. I remember Mandriva having this option, much less Slackware.

Fifth, and terminal problem: when selecting an online suppository of Fedora packages, it tries to bring the ethernet up. Shouldn't be a problem because my card used eepro100 in the past, and e100 at present, kernel modules. Nope. On a known good line (that I had been working on only a few minutes previous), it does not grab an IP address for the ethernet card. On top of this, it stalls: it's been stuck for 30 minutes on trying to get an IP. Most DHCP clients time out after a full minute, much less 10 seconds like other clients.

Sixth, the install process barfs at various random packages. At this point I will call it the media's fault (i.e. the DVD) but nonetheless it's ridiculous.

Overall, I'm totally unsatisfied. Shame on anyone who ever compares Slackware to Fedora in such a way that they claim Fedora is better than Slackware. Fedora can't even install itself properly. I realize that this may be due to the media, rough handling by a book store employee, etc, any number of factors, but it's completely ridiculous. Someone who is new to Linux would've probably used this (illogically) as their reason why Linux sucks and Windows rules, and never tried Linux again. Much less, even RH9 ("back in the day") was better than this. I can also say this knowing that the military uses RHEL for some of their custom aircraft maintenance trainers, and it is much more stable for that application. I give it a thumbs down. You want Linux? Find something else.

Is this your review or are you just posting someone else's?

If the media is stuffed, how would you expect installation to work properly?

Pretty poorly written, and a long way short of objective. And yes, I use both Fedora and Slackware.

My review. Yes, the media is borked, but it's annoying when you just got done formating / to ext3 from xfs and therefore have to wait to use your computer (and, if returning to Slackware, do quite a bit of configuration).

However, it is an objective review. It just has to work. If it can't do that, oh well. While you and I know that broken media means you have to go download and burn a new copy, for the person who just wanted to try Linux for the first time, they may have lost all their information, or at minimum have to now resize their NTFS partition(s) once again. That's not a fun experience.

EDIT: Case in point. I bought Corel Linux back in 2000. It did not work well at all with my laptop, and being totally new to Linux, I had no clue on how to get it to work properly with the LCD screen. Much less I had lost everything (Win98se) and had to totally reinstall since I was using a phone modem at that time (which isn't supported by Linux even today). I totally forgot about Linux for a while after this until I then tried RH9 and Slackware 9 (2002?). Even until a year later I didn't remember Corel Linux until I found the install media in an old box of stuff.

I'll contact Linux Pro and let them know.

On The sdX comment: The newer versions of kernels are dropping the hdX designation in favor of sdX for everything(sata, pata, etc). This is being done in a effort to streamline. One set of tools to handle all drive types, instead of different tools for different drive types. Fedora made this switch starting in F7. While there are still issues with using sdX for everything, Fedora is a development distro. Once all the issues are ironed out I would expect most distros to make the switch. I THINK RHEL6 is scheduled to use sdX.

I don'tr follow your "it just has to work comment". If the medium is faulty, and I assume you burnt it yourself, how can you blame anyone but yourself, your pc you burnt it on or whatever the cause of the fault was? Any distro with borked media will screw up.

Did you run the media test that runs by default or bypass it?

On XFS, anyone with the technical expertise to be using it probably has the knowhow to work around the install I'd have thought.

Rgds

No, if you read, this DVD came with a Linux magazine.

And I found a work-around: Mandriva 2009 Linux Free, and other distributions.

Still, fwiw, the sdX thing was new to me: never seen it on a vanilla kernel.

This was what had me confused as to where the review came from. I now see you mean "I got Fedora from a Linux magazine". I read it as I got the review from...


Rgds

For what it's worth, this problem is basically fixed. I emailed the Linux magazine it came from to report the problem.

And please don't misunderstand my angst. I apologize if I offended anyone. But the Linux community is awesome, and as such it's extremely important to me to report issues because I care about the community.

I'm not sure what value a review of an install attempt from bad media is. I have two laptops (Toshiba Eguiuum and Toshiba A210), both of which are very similar to the laptop you cited. I have F9 on the Equiuum and F10 Beta on the A210. On both laptops the install was seamless and all the hardware worked right away with no tweaking by me. Fedora 10 is nearing release candidate status and the new 2.6.27 kernel has native wireless support for many chipsets which used to require ndiswrapper prior to this kernel. My experience with Fedora goes back to FC1, on a myriad of different hardware, and have never had an experience like you have described.

I'm not demeaning your review, but I would recommend re-install using good media, then review, if you think it is important.

Bob