Fedora 8, the best to date – and various random life stuff

by davidnielsen

Ah, finally got rid of all the network cables. Fedora 8 is now installed on every machine and as of todays update the intel chipset on the laptop works using WPA again. I decided to build the Zonbu machine into a server along with the 750GB USB harddrive so I’m in the process of putting Fedora 8 on that as well.

Also got bluetooth to work between to my laptop and my Sony Ericsson piece of crap phone (I preordered an OpenMoko phone, hopefully it will be nicer – at least it will run an OS that doesn’t crash every 5 seconds). I still have to figure out a way to sync up my address book between Contacts and the phone so that I don’t do a Jono Bacon and lose all my phone numbers everytime the phone breaks or goes AWOL.

Still on the todo list is getting kvm based virtualization running on the laptop so I can have a test install of Fedora 9 going on the road to show to people while retaining a stable environment for actual work.

Banged a bit on Banshee and Podsleuth, caused a few crashes. Decided to repackage ndesk-dbus and friends to make the process of building Banshee SVN a touch nicer. This attempt worked out surprisingly well, considering the hassle I had the last time.

Updated the MonoDevelop package and put it in bugzilla, I really need to poke Paul to get a Mono SIG up and running.

Bought a 500 gig drive for my friend Brian to celebrate his decision to return to college, then I talked him into upgrading to Fedora 8 – Attempted a yum upgrade but that failed in a most entertaining manner, it is unsupported for a reason people, in the end we decided to just do a netinstall instead. So another satified customer, which is always good.

My stereo died today, and it was only 12 years old – they just don’t make technology like they used to, so I ordered a TerraTec USB soundcard and a 5.1 speaker solution. TerraTec seems to be well supported, sadly the store didn’t have it in stock so it was delayed for a week. Then followed by the disappointment of being told that the importer had issues with their shipment so it could be expected to arrive… on the 7th of December. Not sure I want to go without proper sound for that long so I might look for another USB soundcard to replace it, also need to research what cabling is needed to use the digital connectors – neither company was keen on informing me if the cable was included nor which standard they use, silly me thought there was only one.

The more I use Fedora 8 the more I like it, everything seems to work better, feels more stable and the boot is significantly faster this time around. Plenty of fine feature addition but my favorite has to be IcedTea, even if it does not solve my number one use for Java namely netbanking as my bank feels the need to check for the Sun or Microsoft implementation and not actual compliance to the standard. Many applauds to the community for this fine release, I’m looking forward to seeing what is in store for me in Fedora 9.

And as people can tell, I’m back on my medication, I’m feeling much better now – ready for action again, getting excited about rejoining the Fedora ranks. Also the doctors put me on some systemic treatment for my MRSA, which was timely given that the CDC just announced that this thing kills more people than AIDS now, hopefully my nearly year long battle will be over in a 2 weeks or so.