Fedora 10: LiveCD install

     I've had an all-around good experience with Fedora. It never stumped me out of my mind, and gave me enough options so that I was satisfied. I have used CentOS, Fedora Core 6, and Fedora 8, 9, and 10.

Fedora 10: Live CD Install
     Fedora's primary download media has gone from Installable DVD, to Installable Live CD. There are a couple benefits to this-
  • Image takes less time to download. Whoever thought that going from a 4.7GB (Maximum) medium to a 700MB (Maximum) medium would improve that!
  • Smaller size on your hard drive when it is waiting to be burned.
  • Can be read by computers with a CD-Only drive.
  • Doesn't need a DVD+R drive to burn.
There are also a few downsides-
  • Less Software, A lot less software.
  • Slower to boot (Live CD's have been this way for a while.)
     While going to a LiveCD primarily can be good, I found this release of Fedora with the LiveCD to have much less software.
Graphical Interface

      Fedora 10 comes with GNOME version 2.24.1. It also comes with some beautiful new desktop artwork. Nothing else that is special here, but I find the Graphical User interface quite nice. The experience is overall fast and nice to work with.
Installation/Updates
     I was lucky, I was able to download the image within a week of release. I had about 40 updates that all downloaded within 30 minutes. Installation took about 25 minutes (With 512 MB of memory). The installer (I assume it is still anaconda) was very easy to navigate. Once out of the live CD interface, Fedora 10 was fast and ready to be used.
Software
     I was suprised by some of the software that was installed/not installed. With the LiveCD medium, you can only fit a limited number of things that the DVD would otherwise have. I found that instead of the entire OpenOffice Suite, only Abiword was installed. Under Graphics, only GIMP and gThumb were installed. Things like iok were installed. I found Intresting the changes that were made with software, but most things that you can't find installed directly after installation can be found and installed from the repositories.
Conclusion
     Fedora 10 is easy to install, update, and use. Although the software from the LiveCD is a little less than you can get off of a DVD is less, there is probably enough to satisfy a normal PC user.
     Fedora 10 pros-
  • Less of a download size than the previous DVD
  • Easy to use
  • Easy to install and update
  • Does most of what it needs to do on it's own, not much human interaction is required other than pressing a few buttons.
  • Works inside Virtualbox (Yes, I have decided to stick with SUSE and virtualize).
  • Great User Interface
and Cons-
  • Fedora 10 has a little less software than I would prefer.
  • LiveCD boot-up is slow (Like always, Not Fedora's fault.)

     Through everything, I believe Fedora 10 deserves a 4.5/5.  It is easy to use, and fast. It may not be the distribution of choice for the newest user, but if they have a decent understanding of Windows/Other PC operating System, I think they would be fine with this.

4 comments:

  1. i am currently use windows vista and i am fed up with MS...so i decided to install fedora 10 in my PC.i downloaded the live cd iso and i cant install it! and tips what i can do?

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  2. i would of thought you would need the dvd as i have the live cd and i dont have an install option i only have boot, memory test, verify and boot, and press tab to use other options

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  3. I'd absolutely LOVE to use Fedora 10. But the machine that I want it on doesn't have a DVD. So, I have to use the Live CD. It took 30 minutes just to boot. An hour ago I double clicked on the install icon on the desktop. It took 15 minutes for the Installer screen to appear. It has been an hour now since I clicked on the "next" button and nothing else has happened. (Well, the pointer has disappeared a couple of times and the light on the CD is still blinking to beat the band). During all of this time I have downloaded over half of OpenSuse 11.2.

    Ubuntu actually runs from the live CD's (all versions) and installs in under an hour. So, in my experience, the idea of the "Live CD bootup is slow" is an understatement and "not Fedora's fault" is misleading.

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