Fedora 8 and a new user

[Chris Wilson]

I have had half hearted plays with Linux before, and having decided to format and re install Windows XP on my desktop PC I thought I'd have a look at how things are these days. I tried installing Ubuntu 7.10 on my old Compaq 600c and nearly became suicidal as it flagged I/O FD0 errors on loading and has defied all attempts for me to fix this, including some arcane boot up string addition (and why the hell SHOULD I have to try and fix this, a laptop sans floppy isn't a three legged chicken, now, is it...?) So I am nearly finished downloading a full DVD of Fedora 8. I am hoping this will load cleanly on both machines. My first question is, does it have a proper application installer, to seamlessly load new software like Windows has? And can I uninstall without leaving the detritus that Windows apps leave hidden in every corner? Thanks. I am hoping that this will show how much linux has come "on" since I last played a couple of years ago, but I must say, if I am totally honest, I think that it will still wrankle as an OS that's geeky, with absurd names for files, apps and a general reliance on pseudonyms and an assumption all users wish to look under the bonnet, rather than just use the software. I hope I am wrong.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Nice post Rainmaker, thanks for taking the time to offer advice. I'll have a look at Mint, I am just playing at the moment, so no big deal in wiping and trying a few variations. One thing I do NEED to get working is VNC, to allow me to view and operate my main Windows PC from my Linux enabled laptop. With Fedora 8 I can access files via a cabled network, on the Windows PC, which is called emu, but VNC fails to find this PC, which does have VNC server running. The laptop finds it and runs VNC fine under Windows though. Do I have to do something other than load VNC under Fedora 8 to make it work? Thanks again.