First Impressions
 Test Box Hardware:
AMD64 Dual Core 3Ghz CPU, 2GB Memory (RAM)
internal SATA hard drive, DVD/CD drive (60x CD speed)
nVidia 6800 built in Video Card, 19" Flat Screen LCD (not widescreen)
The LiveCD: We normally recommend a Live version for new users to any distribution. This gives them the chance to see it, and see how well it works on their computer's hardware before deciding if they want to install it. The disc image (image on the left) was created from the official Fedora Artwork. It was intended as a CD insert, but I liked it so much I opted to adopt it (with a few modifications) for the discs we (On-Disk.com) are using in production, as opposed to the solid blue disc graphics provided by Fedora for use in screen printing.
The release of Fedora 11 was pushed back twice. Any time a release is delayed the end results can go one of two ways.
- The few odds and ends are cleaned up and the final product is very good.
- the decision is made that it's as good as it's going to get for the time being and is pushed out the door as-is.
Needless to say I cringed when the release was pushed back, and then pushed back again. Fedora is spectacular at bringing new technologies into the main-stream, but some times the performance of a new release can suffer because of it. My rule-of-thumb concerning Fedora as of late has been to wait a few months after the release to install it, then perform all the updates which can help smooth out the wrinkles.
Installing
I inserted the CD and booted to the desktop. I did notice that some of the tricks learned with the notoriously slow booting Fedora 10 release were used to speed up the process. Consequentially it's not as beautiful as some previous versions with the race to the finish lines across the bottom, but far faster. In fact I was quite pleasantly surprised at the Live CD boot speed.
At the desktop I poked around in the menu and found the normal applications pre-installed. I didn't bother to play with anything just yet, but opted to install (using the "Install to hard Drive icon on the desktop as seen above) . The installation was very straight forward, and really as easy as it gets. All that was really required was to enter a root password, other than that just clicking the option to continue was all that was required.
My first surprise here was when it said "copying LiveCD:". I learned last year that it's far faster to copy from the compressed file system to the drive directly than to copy individual files. Playing with GUFI, my own Live in-house distribution, I was able to get the install time down to under 3 minutes. I saw some of this same concept being used here with Fedora 11 and it actually only took slightly over 3 minutes to complete the install. I figured it took maybe 3 minutes to boot from the CD and enter the info before committing to the install. From there it prompted to restart, where the next surprise was hiding.
The restart was so fast I half-way expected something had went wrong. Then, I was prompted for the new user information, after which it left me on the desktop.
In all, the complete install, including booting from the CD, and restarting after installing, took less than 10 minutes. Heck, it took me that long just to type in the product code correctly the last time I installed Microsoft Windows on a computer.
Slightly amused, and assuming I just wasn't paying very close attention, I did a full shutdown and restarted the computer. From the boot prompt it took either 15 or 16 seconds. I did it again and yes, it only took 16 seconds to reach the login. I really liked this more efficient approach. Sure a beautiful boot progress screen can captivate a new user, but after seeing it a few times I'm pretty sure just about everyone would opt for the 16 second boot any day of the week.
OK, perhaps I should have read the features list BEFORE installing Fedora 11, but heck, I'm a professional and shouldn't need to right?...so I took a peek and right there at the very top of the features list was "20 Second Startup - Make Fedora boot and shut down faster. The goal is to be at the login screen in 20 seconds and then to be as fast as possible after the login (gnome-session)." OK, I'm feeling a bit foolish and impressed at the same time. Foolish because I haven't kept up at all with development for the new release, and impressed that (1) a 20 second boot was an actual goal that I'm sure was not easy to live up to, and (2) that they actually did it with a few seconds to spare (at least on this test machine. I'm sure mileage will vary somewhat from PC to PC). But then again it is Fedora, so why should I be surprised?
Next: Exploring Fedora 11
- Introduction
- First Impressions
- Exploring Fedora 11 and Post Install Setup
- Exploring Portability
- Conclusion
Fedora 11 Review by Todd Robinson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://on-disk.com/contact_us.php.
    
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