Fedora Core 4 woes

You bet.

I got this DVD from Digit magazine. The first three times I tried to boot from it, it couldn't find root, and there was some kernel panic.

Finally, after some random path inputs, it worked. I was afraid it might not let me upgrade from FC3 and would require a fresh install, but it worked. No package selection screen for me. Or was it? Anyway, there wasn't much to be selected anyway, because I had already installed everything I wanted from the FC3 CDs.

There was some trouble with the display, I don't remember what. I can't get into background sessions with ctrl+F1-F6 or ctrl+alt+F1-F6. It shows a blank screen, of course, but there's no CLI.

VLC, which I had finally gotten to work with FC3 (that is, 0.8.1 - there is no official release of 0.8.2 for FC3, none for FC4), broke. I am not able to find two libraries (of 3 missing) on the damn DVD. Should it not also contain the Fedora Extras repository or something?

I mean, how dumb it is to have a top of the class operating system, with a so-called fantastic update utility, and not be able to use your even dumber winmodem?

At least I got OpenOffice.org 2 Beta. Ha Ha. Now I can be completely free of Windows, until I want to send an email, or watch/tweak my DV clips. VLC 0.8.2 now uses DirectX (properly) in the Windows port. So I can watch my clips without relying on Windows Media Player. But what's the utility if I can't replicate it under Linux?

My copy of VLC 0.8.2 (Windows port) crashes when I attempt to transcode my mpeg4 v1 (oh, MS!) clips to mpeg1 - so that I can work on them with the Ulead Video Studio 6 SE Basic that came with my DV camera. Maybe I'll try to use the WinXP Movie Maker the next time: If I get that much time.

Till then, hello headbanging and screaming - here I come. Oh, by the way, I finally managed (despite the warnings) to install (with force arguments) tuxpaint-config on my PC. I can now specify the screen size in tuxpaint from a GUI, and make it default. I could have done it from the command line, or a script (if I knew how) easily.

Why did I have trouble installing tuxpaint-config? Because it relied on FLTK (pronounced FullTick - not by me). I had to configure and compile it, you see. And it couldn't find the correct path to my /usr/lib. The default was /usr/local/lib (or was it the other way round?) and under FC4, it is /usr/lib. The option to change the path is there in the README. You only have to use the global path /usr/lib option. So simple, ain't it? Why the heck can't they write code to get the path right in the first place?

If you want *everybody* to use your software, dumb down the installation enough so that *everybody* can install it right the first time. And when will we see a good GUI tool for the configure - make - make install cycle?

There's more: the FC4 installation left me with the option to boot the newer kernel and WinXP. While the older kernel was still there, the /boot partition files had gone. I tried everything including updating boot.conf (bootimage not found), reinstalling the older kernel (panic), doing some manual file copying (panic), etc. All failed.

I tried to set WinXP as default boot option through Webmin. Somehow it deleted the new kernel's title from grub.conf. I had not restarted the PC, so I was saved. Some more learning - DO NOT TRUST WEBMIN BLINDLY.

It's fun to learn, isn't it? More so, if your eyesight is still intact, and your memory doesn't fail you that often.

Can I have a Mini Mac please?