Greetings,
I've installed FC5 in the same week it was released (as usual), after using FC5test on one of my systems. After almost a month I'd like to share my impressions, not as a rant, but as sign of warning regarding release quality.
There are a lot of regressions from FC4. First, the replicable ones: * webdav in nautilus is very slow, unusable for daily usage (made bug, no reply) * TV tuner no longer working (made bug, seems like udev issue after some research, no reply) * totem subtitles no longer work properly (lots of "???" instead of letters) * on a 256mb RAM system GNOME it's hardly usable due to swapping with more than 2 applications opened (firefox and another small one, no ooo). Only minimal services (network, xfs..) are started automatically.
These wouldn't have been much of a problem, but there are also several un-replicable issues: * window borders disappear sometimes and then all GNOME freezes. It's possible to go to console with alt+Fn and kill some processes, but no effect. X must be killed and restarted. * once any application trying to output sound (including play on command line) hanged (must use kill -9). Rebooting fixed it. * starting udev gives sometimes "wait timeout. Switching to background [failed]". Due to this, network start failed and bluetooth hanged. Rebooting fixed it. * mplayer complains sometimes that XVideo can't be opened. I know mplayer isn't part of fedora, but the problem is with X. Restarting X makes it work.
To conclude, there are many issues impacting user productivity and also a worrying trend "reboot and it should work" (sounds familiar?) I know Fedora is very fast moving and we should expect bugs, but the FC5 release feels like rawhide. Is this intended and daily users should better look to RHEL? (Lack of Fedora Extras for RHEL prevents me to switch right now, the licensing it's not an issue)
Do you have any advices for developers? I don't see any real-world solutions (unlike "developers should be more careful when writing code" or make test cases for every function with every use case possible), but still, the number of bugs is growing.
Anyway, thanks for FC5 and the important technical developments which were included :)
On 4/14/06, Marius Andreiana mandreiana.lists@gmail.com wrote:
- TV tuner no longer working (made bug, seems like udev issue after some
research, no reply)
what video driver?
-jef
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 15:39 -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 4/14/06, Marius Andreiana mandreiana.lists@gmail.com wrote:
- TV tuner no longer working (made bug, seems like udev issue after some
research, no reply)
what video driver?
(this would be best moved to fedora-list as it doesn't belong here) i810, motherboard chipset i845GL
Bug with more details about the tv tuner (separate PCI card) : https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=187650
Weird, not lsmod|grep bttv doesn't give anything, it used to show the bttv modules loaded automatically.
Le vendredi 14 avril 2006 à 23:01 +0300, Marius Andreiana a écrit :
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 15:39 -0400, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On 4/14/06, Marius Andreiana mandreiana.lists@gmail.com wrote:
- TV tuner no longer working (made bug, seems like udev issue after some
research, no reply)
what video driver?
(this would be best moved to fedora-list as it doesn't belong here) i810, motherboard chipset i845GL
Bug with more details about the tv tuner (separate PCI card) : https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=187650
Weird, not lsmod|grep bttv doesn't give anything, it used to show the bttv modules loaded automatically.
v4l has been changing at a fast rate upstream lately, with some old stuff being phased out, and other restructured, so it's perfectly possible udev has not caught up yet.
You're paying all the years v4l was developed mainly in an external CVS. Hopefully it'll soon become a boring kernel subsystem like networking. But there is some pain ahead this year
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 22:17 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
v4l has been changing at a fast rate upstream lately, with some old stuff being phased out, and other restructured, so it's perfectly possible udev has not caught up yet.
You're paying all the years v4l was developed mainly in an external CVS. Hopefully it'll soon become a boring kernel subsystem like networking. But there is some pain ahead this year
Would have been nice to have this in release notes, so users which really want TV stick to FC4 and users which choose to upgrade ignore their tv tuners (I will now).
I've updated the bug with this info, moved to udev and put severity from normal to low.
Thanks,
On 4/14/06, Marius Andreiana mandreiana.lists@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 22:17 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
v4l has been changing at a fast rate upstream lately, with some old stuff being phased out, and other restructured, so it's perfectly possible udev has not caught up yet.
You're paying all the years v4l was developed mainly in an external CVS. Hopefully it'll soon become a boring kernel subsystem like networking. But there is some pain ahead this year
Would have been nice to have this in release notes, so users which really want TV stick to FC4 and users which choose to upgrade ignore their tv tuners (I will now).
I've updated the bug with this info, moved to udev and put severity from normal to low.
Thanks,
Marius Andreiana
Just to let you know all is not lost, my tv card works (almost) as well as in FC4 and didn't require any confiugration.
-- As a boy I jumped through Windows, as a man I play with Penguins.
On Sat, 2006-04-15 at 00:12 +0300, Marius Andreiana wrote:
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 22:17 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
v4l has been changing at a fast rate upstream lately, with some old stuff being phased out, and other restructured, so it's perfectly possible udev has not caught up yet.
You're paying all the years v4l was developed mainly in an external CVS. Hopefully it'll soon become a boring kernel subsystem like networking. But there is some pain ahead this year
Would have been nice to have this in release notes, so users which really want TV stick to FC4 and users which choose to upgrade ignore their tv tuners (I will now).
The release notes process was (and will continue to be) open and community-driven. If you have a particular interest, I would encourage you to get involved in the process. A single "beat" (subject matter area) does not take very much time or effort to run and has a huge impact on thousands of users. The release notes for FC5 were -- I think -- one of the most successful ever, thanks to the work of editor Bob Jensen and dozens of Fedora contributors.
We do issue errata after the official release, so just because there's nothing in the "static" distro version about your favorite issue doesn't mean we can't add it later to the web-based updates. We look forward to your participation.
Le samedi 15 avril 2006 à 00:12 +0300, Marius Andreiana a écrit :
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 22:17 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
v4l has been changing at a fast rate upstream lately, with some old stuff being phased out, and other restructured, so it's perfectly possible udev has not caught up yet.
You're paying all the years v4l was developed mainly in an external CVS. Hopefully it'll soon become a boring kernel subsystem like networking. But there is some pain ahead this year
Would have been nice to have this in release notes, so users which really want TV stick to FC4 and users which choose to upgrade ignore their tv tuners (I will now).
This is really more a kernel matter than a Fedora matter. And Linus has repeatedly wirtten about "big v4l patches" in his changelogs these past months
On 4/14/06, Marius Andreiana mandreiana.lists@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings,
I've installed FC5 in the same week it was released (as usual), after using FC5test on one of my systems. After almost a month I'd like to share my impressions, not as a rant, but as sign of warning regarding release quality.
There are a lot of regressions from FC4. First, the replicable ones:
- webdav in nautilus is very slow, unusable for daily usage (made bug,
no reply)
- TV tuner no longer working (made bug, seems like udev issue after some
research, no reply)
- totem subtitles no longer work properly (lots of "???" instead of
letters)
- on a 256mb RAM system GNOME it's hardly usable due to swapping with
more than 2 applications opened (firefox and another small one, no ooo). Only minimal services (network, xfs..) are started automatically.
These wouldn't have been much of a problem, but there are also several un-replicable issues:
- window borders disappear sometimes and then all GNOME freezes. It's
possible to go to console with alt+Fn and kill some processes, but no effect. X must be killed and restarted.
- once any application trying to output sound (including play on command
line) hanged (must use kill -9). Rebooting fixed it.
- starting udev gives sometimes "wait timeout. Switching to background
[failed]". Due to this, network start failed and bluetooth hanged. Rebooting fixed it.
- mplayer complains sometimes that XVideo can't be opened. I know
mplayer isn't part of fedora, but the problem is with X. Restarting X makes it work.
To conclude, there are many issues impacting user productivity and also a worrying trend "reboot and it should work" (sounds familiar?) I know Fedora is very fast moving and we should expect bugs, but the FC5 release feels like rawhide. Is this intended and daily users should better look to RHEL? (Lack of Fedora Extras for RHEL prevents me to switch right now, the licensing it's not an issue)
Do you have any advices for developers? I don't see any real-world solutions (unlike "developers should be more careful when writing code" or make test cases for every function with every use case possible), but still, the number of bugs is growing.
Anyway, thanks for FC5 and the important technical developments which were included :)
-- Marius Andreiana
Pity. I'm sorry to hear that. Things workd perfectly (almost) with me for
FC5 and KDE. Ironically the other day a poster called KDE a second class citizen in Fedora. I think I am doing more with my desktop in FC5 than in FC4.
The only issues I am having is with my wificard and the madwifi drivers from livna.
I hope you gets your issues resolved.
-- As a boy I jumped through Windows, as a man I play with Penguins.
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 22:37 +0300, Marius Andreiana wrote:
I know Fedora is very fast moving and we should expect bugs, but the FC5 release feels like rawhide.
You clearly haven't used rawhide.
But in all seriousness, the number of bugs that popped up post test3, *during* the code freeze, was rather unsettling. I didn't even have time to get things bugzilled before release.
Dnia 14-04-2006, pią o godzinie 22:37 +0300, Marius Andreiana napisał(a):
- window borders disappear sometimes and then all GNOME freezes. It's
possible to go to console with alt+Fn and kill some processes, but no effect. X must be killed and restarted.
This happened every time I tried to minimize XMMS without WM decorations. Try: rpm -Fvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/testing/5/i3... I don't know what's stopping it from being pushed to updates (non-testing), works for me (at the moment ;)) and the crashes are gone.
- once any application trying to output sound (including play on command
line) hanged (must use kill -9). Rebooting fixed it.
XMMS suspected again :) Every time any program is playing something with OSS emulation (most likely the Flash plugin or mplayerplug-in with its default setting (hint to Anvil or someone other from livna)) and XMMS wants to play using ALSA device "default", something weird happens - XMMS correctly (or not - where's dmix when we need it?) reports it cannot play, but then locks ALSA "default" - hanging every other program until I close XMMS. In my case, I wouldn't even notice because I use hw:0,1 in XMMS anyhow, but there are people using "default" and someone let me know.
So, the first thing is fixed in updates-testing and the other, well, for me it's not only XMMS' fault - blocking of whole ALSA (e.g. sox -t alsa default - that's what `play` runs) when there's one OSS ABI program playing (sox -t ossdsp /dev/dsp on another vt) - even if my sound card has hardware mixing - is wrong.
Lam
On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 23:58 +0200, Leszek Matok wrote:
Dnia 14-04-2006, pią o godzinie 22:37 +0300, Marius Andreiana napisał(a):
- window borders disappear sometimes and then all GNOME freezes. It's
possible to go to console with alt+Fn and kill some processes, but no effect. X must be killed and restarted.
This happened every time I tried to minimize XMMS without WM decorations. Try: rpm -Fvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/testing/5/i3... I don't know what's stopping it from being pushed to updates (non-testing), works for me (at the moment ;)) and the crashes are gone.
I do use XMMS. I'll update metacity, thanks for the hint!
On 4/14/06, Marius Andreiana mandreiana.lists@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings,
I've installed FC5 in the same week it was released (as usual), after using FC5test on one of my systems. After almost a month I'd like to share my impressions, not as a rant, but as sign of warning regarding release quality.
There are a lot of regressions from FC4. First, the replicable ones:
- webdav in nautilus is very slow, unusable for daily usage (made bug,
no reply)
- TV tuner no longer working (made bug, seems like udev issue after some
research, no reply)
Not getting a reply has been my experience with Fedora Extras. As soon as I have time I'm going to see if I can help out with some of the packages that I've found poorly maintained. It's hard to tell if a package is being poorly maintained, or if the maintainer has gone into stealth mode to resurface at a later date with all kinds of work done. Question: How to find out if an Extras package is being worked on, and if further work is being done on it (such as adding SELInux policy, upgrading version, etc...)?
Benjy
- totem subtitles no longer work properly (lots of "???" instead of
letters)
- on a 256mb RAM system GNOME it's hardly usable due to swapping with
more than 2 applications opened (firefox and another small one, no ooo). Only minimal services (network, xfs..) are started automatically.
These wouldn't have been much of a problem, but there are also several un-replicable issues:
- window borders disappear sometimes and then all GNOME freezes. It's
possible to go to console with alt+Fn and kill some processes, but no effect. X must be killed and restarted.
- once any application trying to output sound (including play on command
line) hanged (must use kill -9). Rebooting fixed it.
- starting udev gives sometimes "wait timeout. Switching to background
[failed]". Due to this, network start failed and bluetooth hanged. Rebooting fixed it.
- mplayer complains sometimes that XVideo can't be opened. I know
mplayer isn't part of fedora, but the problem is with X. Restarting X makes it work.
To conclude, there are many issues impacting user productivity and also a worrying trend "reboot and it should work" (sounds familiar?) I know Fedora is very fast moving and we should expect bugs, but the FC5 release feels like rawhide. Is this intended and daily users should better look to RHEL? (Lack of Fedora Extras for RHEL prevents me to switch right now, the licensing it's not an issue)
Do you have any advices for developers? I don't see any real-world solutions (unlike "developers should be more careful when writing code" or make test cases for every function with every use case possible), but still, the number of bugs is growing.
Anyway, thanks for FC5 and the important technical developments which were included :)
-- Marius Andreiana
-- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
On Fri, 14 Apr 2006, Marius Andreiana wrote:
Greetings,
I've installed FC5 in the same week it was released (as usual), after using FC5test on one of my systems. After almost a month I'd like to share my impressions, not as a rant, but as sign of warning regarding release quality.
There are a lot of regressions from FC4. First, the replicable ones:
- on a 256mb RAM system GNOME it's hardly usable due to swapping with
more than 2 applications opened (firefox and another small one, no ooo). Only minimal services (network, xfs..) are started automatically.
Mm.. GNOME in FC5 was supposed to use *less* memory than in previous versions. Have you looked at where exactly does the memory go to - is it really GNOME or something else, like Firefox? (I have a feeling that FF 1.5 is somewhat slower than 1.0.x but that's merely a gut feeling, not measured)
I've been planning to update my old T21 with 256M memory to FC5 in hopes of making it work faster, not slower :-/
- Panu -
On Sat, 2006-04-15 at 00:39 -0700, Panu Matilainen wrote:
On Fri, 14 Apr 2006, Marius Andreiana wrote:
Greetings,
- on a 256mb RAM system GNOME it's hardly usable due to swapping with
more than 2 applications opened (firefox and another small one, no ooo). Only minimal services (network, xfs..) are started automatically.
Mm.. GNOME in FC5 was supposed to use *less* memory than in previous versions. Have you looked at where exactly does the memory go to - is it really GNOME or something else, like Firefox?
after GNOME login, with gnome-terminal and gedit started: $ free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 248168 239816 8352 0 8012 108060 -/+ buffers/cache: 123744 124424 Swap: 514072 0 514072
The top apps listed in GNOME system monitor (clearer than "top" for me) sorted by Resident Memory are: nautilus (16.5m), gnome-panel, mixer-applet (14.8m!), gedit, gnome-system-monitor, gnome-terminal (12.7mb, a single tab), wnck-applet, nm-applet, gnome-session, clock-applet (9.6mb!), metacity (9.2mb).
Started firefox (28mb in g-system-monitor) $ free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 248168 240804 7364 0 7320 87576 -/+ buffers/cache: 145908 102260 Swap: 514072 0 514072
Started totem on a video file: 54.6mb ! swap usage >0 now: $ free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 248168 243360 4808 0 156 48968 -/+ buffers/cache: 194236 53932 Swap: 514072 120 513952
So it looks like totem does have a problem, but some of the applications listed shows quite a high memory usage too, is it normal?
Thanks, Marius
devel@lists.stg.fedoraproject.org