[ale] Misc F8 Install Challenges, errors, and imperfections

[tom]

This is hopefully more of a rant of frustration than a declaiming of 
Fedora's problems.

I have installed F8 on one of my computers with reasonble success. That 
is, yes I can play DVD's, the networking works, and so forth. There are a 
few issues, such as certain games not launching from the menu with the 
ability to play sound, and I'm not sold that pulse audio is completely 
ready for the big time (but it is one hell of a good concept - just needs 
work still).

Another of my machines really needed to be updated, as it was running FC6, 
and therefor no longer supported. This second machine is a Celeron running 
at 1.8 GHz, just updated to 1 gig RAM (which checks out), an NVidia based 
card identified as a FX5200, and an older tv/radio capture card. Ran fine 
with FC6. Not so much F8.  So far I've busted the DVD playback ability 
with "Cann't find the media", the tv application (tvtime) declines to play 
the audio, I haven't found a radio application, several games decline to 
launch with sound, and there are a few self-inflicted errors to be delt 
with which need not concern us here having to do with the way I wanted to 
handle users.

After three days of fussing with this, and two or three re-installs, 
without getting a clue where to look for clues, I've tried a different 
tactic, Ubuntu 7.10. DVD still doesn't work. Somehow, the tv application 
Zapping could not be unmuted, but at least it showed that it was muted, 
which tvtime didn't.

Just for laughs, I'm giving CentOS a try quickly here. Who knows what that 
holds...

I wish I knew a hardware type around here in Charlotte that I could mooch 
off and start learning again.

</whine>

On a different note - just mark me jealous of you guys at Thursday night's 
meeting. Too far away to make it, and not the sort of thing I could 
download a video of and get much out of. Sould somebody care to post a 
slightly coherant summary and appreciation of the meeting, I suspect many 
nonparticipants will appreciate your effort.

CentOS just announced that it is ready to start suceeding and/or failing. 
Must find out...

Thanks for the bandwith use while I vented