December 17, 2004

Redhat Fedora Core 3 - Definitely worth skipping - Review

Fedora Core 3 is not a pretty release for Redhat. The original distribution is very buggy and if you install everything - you are looking at hundreds of megs of new downloads to fix it.

Once you get it working and download all the fixes it seems to work fine. If you are already running FC2 - I'd skip this version unless there's something in it you really want - and I can't find anything that justifies the pain.

The most painfull part of the process is the broken UDEV which is now part of the bootup process. UDEV somehow dynamically creates and deletes devices as they are hotplugged in - a good idea in theory - but only when it actually works. So your /dev directory is no longer under your control. Once they get the bugs out of UDEV I'm sure it will be nice. But FC3 is definitely out there on the bleeding edge as compared to FC2 which I considered to be a stable install.

UDEV is inserted into yor initrd by mkinitrd and if the system fails to work you end up with premission denied errors on devices like /dev/null causing services to fail to load. The UDEV shipping on the CD is a very buggy version and it needs to be upgraded immediately if not sooner.

If you install KDE without GNOME it will still set the desktop to GNOME and you end up in some bizzare default graphics shell hell. If this happens you need to edit the /etc/sysconfig/desktop file and change GNOME to KDE.

Fedora Core 3 still barely supports the reiser file system and treats it like a bastard stepchild. It also deletes my linuxconf install and changes my xinetd setting to disable it. I like linuxconf and for some reason RedHat is actively supressing it. It's almost as bad as if Microsoft upgrades were to remove Netscape.

On the up side - yum is improved - and xosview is now fixed. There's a bunch of new SELinux stuff but I'm still too chicken to even go there. Linux will probably never have the security of what Novell Netware had 15 years ago - Netware was done right. The new lean graphics shell is interesting but I have a big computer so KDE is just fine for me.

My suggestion to the Fedora Core team is to release a Fedora Core 3a version that has the fixes in it. That would save people from installing a broken version of Fedora and then having to fix it. If you want to upgrade anyway - expect some pain and suffering.

Posted by marc at 09:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fahrenheit 9-/11 distribution - so what happened?

Below is an article about an interview I did for The Independent as I was distributing Fahrenheit 9/11 before the election. People were wondering about copyrights and if I was going to get sued. But like I said - it would never happen - and it didn't.

As it turn out it was like I said. Michael Moore said I could distribute it for free on the Internet and he meant it. At no time have I been contacted in any way about my distribution. Not even a polite request to take it down.

It just goes to show you the Michael Moore is a man of his word and he was being generous and I thank him for his generocity.

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Marc Perkel is spending US$2000 in the hope of ensuring the result of next week’s presidential election.

Not by buying expensive TV adverts (something that would cost much more than US$2000) but by offering Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 for free download from his site, in the hope that watching it will encourage people to vote against George W. Bush.

And at least half of his hope has been fulfilled: thousands of people have downloaded the film from his site, in a format that can be watched on a computer.

Yet despite offering a box-office hit backed by heavyweight producers such as Harvey Weinstein, available for free over the Net, Mr Perkel, of San Bruno in California, does not fear being sued, as one would normally expect.

Instead, he insists that “Michael Moore wants me to distribute this” - although he also admits Mr Moore has not spoken to him specifically.

The US$2000 is the cost of one month’s high-speed internet access to his web site where the digital versions of the film are stored - and if download numbers are any guide, he has found a receptive audience.

Since he put the films online, more than 300,000 people have downloaded them, in full or in part.

The film has become famous for its criticism of President Bush’s handling of the threat from terrorists before September 2001, and for his policies afterwards.

That inspired Mr Perkel to make a digital copy of the film, and offer it for free so others would see it: “This election is extremely important to the future of the planet,” he told The Independent.

“If I can make a difference, it’s worth US$2000 to make that happen.

According to my [site] logs - which I don’t trust because I don’t think it can distinguish failed attempts - it has been downloaded 337,756 times.

But I don’t count downloads - I count votes.

How many voters are converted [by seeing the film] or how many people are motivated to actually vote? That’s the score that counts to me.

I am trying to prevent World War 3 and possibly the fall of civilisation."What’s more, Mr Perkel says he has the tacit backing of Mr Moore for his venture.

“Michael Moore has made public statements encouraging people to download it and to distribute it over the internet for free.

At no time have I seen any public statements from a copyright holder to the contrary,” Mr Perkel told the Independent.

Indeed, Mr Moore said in July: “I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labour.

I would oppose that."The distributors of the film in the US, Lion’s Gate, had no comment yesterday on Mr Perkel’s actions.

Mr Perkel commented: “Even if I were sued, which I really don’t think will happen, I am extremely legal savvy and I am not [rich].

And I would [demand the appearance of] Michael Moore as a defendant for misleading me into believing I had permission to distribute it.

So - under these conditions - a copyright suit won’t happen."

Posted by marc at 07:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 15, 2004

Islam executes children for being forced to have sex

The force children to have sex and then they execute them for thier crime. To Islamics sex is a higher crime than murder. This is what happens when religion controls the government. This could be what America's future looks like if we don't get back to reality.

Here's the Story

Posted by marc at 04:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 14, 2004

I'm tired of Red State vs. Blue States

I'm tired of people talking about red states and blue states as if everyone in red states voted for Bush and everyone in Blue states voted for Kerry. States didn't vote - people do. So those who feel like boycotting red states are a silly as those who like all black people are all alike. It's almost racist. A Kerry voter in Georga is no different that a Kerry voter in California. It's individuals - not states - who made the choice.

Posted by marc at 08:04 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack