Fedora 10 was released yesterday (25/Nove/2008). So I downloaded the DVD iso image into my system hard disk. Then I copied the vmlinuz and initrd into the then /boot directory and updated entries for this kernel and initrd in the grub.conf.

Rebooted the machine and selected this kernel to start the F10 installation. Installer asked the source of installation, I gave the path where I saved the DVD iso image. As well as the installer required the install.img file location to be also mentioned. I thought the installer would use the local DVD iso image for installation.

After selecting the partition layout and installer said that the installation required ethernet connection and it tried to connect to fedora mirror sites to get the repository information. Oops, why can’t it use the local DVD image itself? It took some 10-15 minutes to get the repository information. And then it started downloading each packages from network. Imagine the network speed of 384kbps and installing 1384 packages. Even after 15 minutes it had installed only 10 packages. So I need to cancel the installation.

Fedora installer had a nice feature of specifying the local DVD iso image to use as the source of installation. Have they removed this feature from F10 (or I don’t know how to use that feature?).

I need to either burn the DVD or use local NFS based installation to avoid this slow network based install.

I moved to Fedora 9 a couple of weeks ago. I use KDE4 as my desktop.

I am happy with F9 & KDE4.

But there are some issues:

• NetworkManager – Same problem of connecting to wireless networks – It asks me the wireless key 5-6 times to connect. I don’t know how to fix this.
• Plasma – Most of the time when I log out KDE, plasma workspace crashes. But there is no harm. All your session details are saved.
• Desktop Effects – Hmmm, I can’t make the KDE desktop effects work on my Thinkpad T42p. I don’t use any properitery driver. Most of the time system hangs when I enable desktop effects. But don’t stop. When you reboot next time (ie after enabling desktop effects) it works. The lesson is if you want to enable desktop effects(KDE) you need to a reboot
• Fonts – Fonts are not that much pleasant when compared to Fedora 8 KDE.

Ok, enough complaints. What do I like in F9?

• Fast XStartup – Really fast!
• Firefox 3 – Good session management, download resume.
• KDE4

Another problem I have seen with flash plugin in Firefox is that there is no sound. You need to install libflashsupport. Thanks to this blog

As a Fedora fan, I am eagerly waiting for the F9 release, but now Fedora Wiki says that F9 release is delayed by two weeks (F9 final release on May 13).

I am very much interested in the following features in F9

• Ext4
• Firefox 3
• Fast XStartup
• KDE4
• NetworkManager with Mobile Broadband support

I assume it means that I can use NetworkManager to connect to my Airtel GPRS network without much hassles.

I am personally not happy with NetworkManager in F8. I was happy with knetworkmanager, but from F8 I think even KDE uses Gnome NetworkManager. Connecting to encrypted wirelesss network from NetworkManager is a pain, particulary if you do suspend to RAM/Disk. knetworkmanager used to work as a charm. So when connecting to wireless I usually stop NetworkManager and use scripts to connect to wireless access points. This method works always for me.

I expect KDE4 in F9 will use knetworkmanager(with mobile phone ppp feature) instead of gnome NetworkManager.

I observed another bad thing in Fedora is that even if you don’t select gnome desktop, some of gnome desktop packages are installed. Its not possible to do only KDE install in Fedora. I wish if F9 could do a KDE alone spin.

I connected to internet using my Nokia N72 handset from my Fedora by activating Airtel Mobile Office.

Here is a small howto

• From your mobile (Symbian OS) select the menu “Settings | Tools | Packet Data” and make sure access point is “airtelgprs.com”

• Identify your mobile’s bluetooth address by running

$ hcitool scan Scanning … 00:1A:16:D1:xx:xx asdf

• First pair the mobile you want to use (Otherwise it won’t work)

• Find out which channel supports Dial up feature in your mobile phone by running and search for entry like

$ hciconfig browse <addr> Service Name: Dial-Up Networking Service RecHandle: 0×1000f Service Class ID List: “Dialup Networking” (0×1103) Protocol Descriptor List: “L2CAP” (0×0100) “RFCOMM” (0×0003) Channel: 3 ^^^^ Language Base Attr List: code_ISO639: 0×454e encoding: 0×6a base_offset: 0×100 Profile Descriptor List: “Dialup Networking” (0×1103)

• Create rfcomm device by

  $ rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 <address> <channel>

• Just run wvdialconf to create default modem settings and update the settings as follows or use the following settings for /etc/wvdial.conf

  [Dialer Defaults] Init1 = ATZ Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0 stupid mode = 1 Modem Type = Bluetooth Modem = /dev/rfcomm0 Baud = 115200 New PPPD = yes ISDN = 0 Phone = *99***1# Username = a Password = b

• Now run wvdial to initiate connection

Note

You can also try kppp with the same settings.

Troubleshooting

• pppd daemon terminates unexpectedly

  • Check whether the accesspoint is properly set to airtelgprs.com

• rfcomm(x) connection refused

  • Pair the mobile with the laptop/computer