Fedora Core 1 review

So I installed Linux on my home computer last night. The distribution I used was Fedora Core 1. (This is the newest free distribution from Red Hat. They’ve renamed their free distribution to “Fedora Core.”)

I spent two days trying to create the CD-ROMs to use to install it, because I was having problems with my CD writer. But once the CDs were burnt, the installation worked almost perfectly. I can boot up without problems, unlike Red Hat 8 which I installed earlier this year. After booting, the computer was having problems getting on the network. But I switched to using a static IP address, instead of DHCP, and that worked fine. So I guess the only real problem there was with DHCP.

Setting up my printer was just as easy as in Windows — just go to the Printers control panel, pick the printer (which it found it on USB), pick the driver, print test page. I suppose setting up my sound card will be next.

The rest of the system is incredibly slick, very easy-to-use, and very cool-looking. Red Hat has done an amazing job since I last really played with Linux, about two years ago. I got a PowerPoint attachment in email from my boss today, and OpenOffice was able to show it to me without any problems. The Nautilus File Manager (similar to Windows Explorer) was written by some of the original Mac people, and it’s really really well-done. Ximian Evolution looks and feels exactly like Microsoft Outlook, except better. I can’t begin to describe how vastly improved and polished this is compared to a couple years ago.

Yet I’m writing this post from Windows, because I couldn’t remember my email server name