Fedora Core 9 KDE

I thought I had published this one, but when I visited the blog to see which all distros I had written about, I realized I had forgotten to publish it. It might have a few corrections in it, probably that's why I didn't post it. I will subsequently make the corrections.

Distribution name:

Fedora Core 9 KDE

Version:

9

Desktop Environment:

KDE 4

Kernel:

2.6.25-14

Instruction size:

64 Bit

Live boot:

The FC9 KDE live boot doesn't give you anything to complain, and considering that this is the KDE version of an OS which uses GNOME as its native desktop environment, this is really impressive ;) The first time I loaded the X did crash once and it did hang a bit. But that may because of the lack of RAM. I had 512mb of RAM and have now upgraded to 1.5GB. All drives were detected and they were being mounted on clicking on them. Though I prefer a double click for this purpose. A detailed description of my first live boot can be found here.

Installation:

The installation of FC9 KDE was one of  the most pleasant experiences. It took about the same time it would take to copy about 2-3GB of data onto the hard-disk, which was really awesome. The installation steps were also really quick to come along. Even the formatter screen didn't take more than a second to load. After installing systems that take ages to install, it was really great to have a system that doesn't take long to install.

Boot issue:

The installation prompts you to ask where you would like to install the grub, and that is where I opted for it to install it on the drive I had installed the operating system, rather than messing around and rewriting the MBR. There were no problems relating to booting and everything seems to be in order.

Screen resolution:

The default screen resolution was 1280x960/60Hz, and the graphics card drivers were already installed. Or at least I wasn’t prompted to install any. Though the drivers didn’t really belong to NVIDIA. One thing I didn’t like about FC9 KDE was that when I tried to changing the resolution, I was prompted to restart X in order for the new settings to be implemented. Restarting X didn’t take as long as it usually takes, but since I had not logged out before restarting X, it reset all the changes to the settings I had made in that session.

Hardware detection:

Hardware detection seemed fine. Nothing seemed to cause any problem. After writing so much against the OS under the other headings, I think they should get an extra point for not messing up anything here.

Mounting:

All my drives were correctly detected, and like most other operating systems, they aren’t mounted at the start of the session. Also it asks for the root password for mounting each and every drive, so I suggest, it would be better to always log in using the root account.

Network:

Though the system was set to take in the address using the DHCP, which it did take, there were problems with the internet. I had to disable and then enable the network to get the internet to work. Despite that, I was prompted that the system could not contact the update site.

Browser:

Like I have said before, I love my browser. I don’t care who comes out with it, but as long as it is fast and good, I don’t mind who’s made it, Mozilla, Microsoft, or anybody else could have come up with it for all I cared. Since this is a KDE desktop, no points for guessing, it comes equipped with Konquerer. I did speak about my opinion of the browser here, but I am going to write more about it none the less. The first thing you notice is that the javascripts don’t work. Fiddling around with the settings shows that the options has been enabled, yet there seems to be a problem with JS. Tabbed browsing has become a standard, and Konquerer wouldn’t disappoint you with that respect. Closing the tabs though doesn’t utilize the middle click standard. Middle click on a tab and you are greeted with a Protocol not supported message. It has problems when it comes to displaying text boxes and buttons, even the font size is all messed up. There is also a problem with the CSS compatibility, as they seem to have set up their own standards. Even Wikipedia doesn’t load properly, and looks like a wiki page does when you save it. The rendering of pages is slow and the browser hangs when too many tabs are opened. (Without the system running out of memory) If you intend to use the operating system, do look for an alternative browser.

Themes:

I have always liked the default Fedora theme a lot which seems to have changed little over time. The GRUB menu had its standard image and the splash screen was nice too. I love the colour blue, especially the darker shades of it, so I really liked the default theme. Definitely beats the colour brown any day ;) The other themes that come in the package were IMO not as classy, but you can always get a new theme from the net.

Look and feel:

The overall looks were decent, even though there wasn’t any desktop effect application that came with it. The one thing I didn’t like was the single click feature. There is always too much confusion over how to select and how to open a file. But I suppose most KDE user would be used to it. The desktop has a small button at the top right corner that allows you to add widgets to your desktop, which I really liked. I like an analog watch going tic tic on my desktop. All the icons on the desktop are also in fact widgets linking to your files. This makes things a bit tricky. There was also an option to automatically change wallpapers after a fixed time that you set. Some people might like this features, though I am the kind of guy who could use a wallpaper for as long as the OS lasts. FC9 KDE makes use of the Dolphin file browser, which was another thing I am not a fan of.

Desktop:

The desktop looks good, but only after you reduce the size of the panel. The default panel size is huge, and it makes the desktop looks ugly. Try to reduce the panel size and you will notice that the rendering of the panel gets all messed up. Mind you, don’t restart X or you will lose the recently made changes to the settings. It would be better if you logged out and then restarted X for whatever purpose you need to do so. Also, the tiny size for the panel makes the panel look as though it has been chopped off, because the fedora image and time is cut off. So small seems to be the only viable default option. Also, the widgets as icons thing don’t work for me.

Menus:

Hmm... The menus, let’s see. The one thing I liked was that the menu size was variable, and could be changed by simply dragging, but mind you, don’t be surprised to see the menus automatically resize themselves. After all, KDE 4.0 is just the beginning as they say. And it is definitely not free from bugs. The shutdown procedure also needs a little tweaking. You click on shutdown and you are given the regular options off restarting, logging off, blah, blah, blah in the menu itself. Once you choose one of em, this window pops up asking you yet again as to what you’d like to do (shutdown, restart, log off...). Though the window popping up looked really nice, the redundant question was really irritating.

Software selection:

Needless to say, the KDE version comes with the standard Ksoftwares. There was KWrite, which broke words in between when the line ended, and then there was the office suite consisting of KWord, KSpread, KPresenter, and loads of other KStuff. FC9 KDE didn’t have any photo editor, like GIMP. It came just with a paint application apart from an image view and a useless screen ruler. The internet section was much better equipped, having every application I could think of ever wanting to use, and lots more. It had a feedreader, an FTP mail client, a download manager, a news reader, a remote desktop connection manager, a torrent client, an IRQ client, an instant messenger, etc, etc. There was also an application for configuring the firewall and SE Linux.

Codecs:

FC9 KDE like most other distros came without any proprietary codecs, but unlike most other distros, it didn’t even provide a one click option for downloading codecs. I tried looking for codecs, but to no avail. It came equipped with Kaffiene Media Player, and Juk Media Player which crashed when I tried playing a song. If I’d have used the distribution, I think VLC player would have been a must.

Packages:

By the time I reached the point where I had to check out the package manager, I was really frustrated with the distro. I looked around for the package manager but could not find it anywhere. Nor was there an option to get software from a repository, that could be located easily. So I simply shutdown my system and got rid of the OS as soon as I could.

Performance:

The memory usage of the OS was a little erratic, sometimes there was less than 200mb of free memory (out of 1.5GB) , while other times it barely used 300mb of it. Though I really liked the KDE info center that they have incorporated.

Codecs:

Like most distros, FC9 KDE comes only with the open codecs, and unlike other distros, it did not offer any simply way of getting these codecs either. Since I did not intend to use the OS for long, I did not install any codecs/player.

Packages:

Like I said the OS did not appeal to me so I didn’t use it much or install any package. I couldn’t spot any application to link to any repository either. Though I am sure it sports the rpm. You’d have to check it out for yourself.

Stuff I missed out:

There isn’t anything good I have to say about this distro under this heading. There is this static like noise in the speakers sometimes while minimizing/maximising windows sometimes. Boy, there is something definitely wrong with the sound drivers. Also, I am not such a big fan of dolphin, the file browser/explorer.

My impression:

I apologise for not having anything good for the OS but it seriously doesn’t deserve much credit. I know a lot of hard work goes in to make such operating systems, and it is probably the K desktop environment that ruined things for the distribution. This is probably one of my least favourite distro.

Final words:

If you are one of those users who doesn’t give a shit about the desktop environment and works solely on the terminal, this might be the distro for you, apart from that I think only KDE lovers might be impressed by the system. I am sure things can only improve from here for KDE.

PS: The test system had an AMD64 Athlon (2800+) mounted on an Asus K8S-MX motherboard, with 1.5GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce Fx5200 (AGP) with 256MB of memory.