Fedora 17: Beefier Than Ubuntu 12.04 LTS?

[AdamW]

Fedora also has a newer kernel, newer Xorg, etc. So of course it's going to have the latest features and be the fastest.

But for once I can't use Fedora on my desktop, because I spent like 8 hours trying to fix installing Fedora in UEFI+GPT mode on my Ivy Bridge desktop, to no avail. I even tried to get some folks in #fedora to help, but everyone completely ignored my query.

Basically, I have a hardware RAID controller joining together two 4TB hard drives into an 8TB array (striped). The first three partitions are (in this order) EFI System Partition, Reserved Windows partition, and NTFS partition for Windows. Then immediately following that is another EFI System Partition, then my Linux root filesystem (ext4), then /home, then /. I tried installing Fedora 17 in this configuration and I get the "minimal BASH-like editing" prompt from GRUB, and the version of GRUB appears to be GRUB1 (wtf?). When I changed to Ubuntu 12.04, using the same partition setup but wiping out the partitions, it works like a charm. My BIOS lets me choose the boot order of the OSes and shows Windows and Ubuntu separately so I can prioritize them in the list. And I can pick one on the fly during boot-up by pressing F8.

So I'm going to act like a little baby and say that Fedora 17 sucks (for me on my current hardware; I'm a huge fan of it otherwise) because it wasn't tested with UEFI+GPT setups and appears to fail epically where Ubuntu succeeds.

You can say that if you like, but you'd be wrong:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC4_Install

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC3_Install

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC2_Install

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC1_Install

Check the 'EFI' column. We actually test quite extensively with EFI.

The use of grub-legacy is intentional; it's less broken with EFI than grub2 is. I don't know what the problem you hit is; I'd need more data. At least the grub config and the efibootmgr entries, and ideally the anaconda logs. But it's certainly not true to say F17 isn't tested with UEFI, because it was, quite heavily. There's an issue with your specific setup, not with UEFI support in general.

[allquixotic]

You can say that if you like, but you'd be wrong:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC4_Install

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC3_Install

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC2_Install

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_17_Final_RC1_Install

Check the 'EFI' column. We actually test quite extensively with EFI.

The use of grub-legacy is intentional; it's less broken with EFI than grub2 is. I don't know what the problem you hit is; I'd need more data. At least the grub config and the efibootmgr entries, and ideally the anaconda logs. But it's certainly not true to say F17 isn't tested with UEFI, because it was, quite heavily. There's an issue with your specific setup, not with UEFI support in general.

I think you missed the little bolded words that I included in parentheses: for me and on my current hardware. Obviously you read them because you quoted them. Of course there's an issue with my specific setup. So how am I wrong? Am I wrong that there is an issue with my hardware? I don't think so. Unless the "minimal BASH-like editing..." prompt is the intended functionality after a putatively successful install....?

I may be wrong that you guys don't test, but I'm not wrong that it sucks for my configuration. And evidently grub2 actually works correctly for my hardware (whereas grub-legacy does not) because Ubuntu Precise's grub2 works fine.

Anyway, the pissing match is COMPLETELY unproductive and I realize that, so I'll stop now. Let's just fix the problem, okay? I'll provide you the info you need to reproduce the problem, as long as it doesn't require something crazy like buying a serial console (usually issues I encounter of this nature end up with someone asking me to buy a serial console so I can read some low-level log somewhere).

I can provide the grub config, if you tell me the location of where it should be on disk. Here's some preliminary data

Motherboard: ASUS PZ77-V
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K
RAM: 32 GB DDR3-1600
RAID Controller: Adaptec 6405E (9005:028b)
Graphics: Ivy Bridge
HDDs: 2 x 6GB/s 4TB Seagate HDDs

Disk layout: RAID-0
GPT partition layout
Part0: 100MB EFI SYSTEM PARTITION
Part1: ~100MB Windows hidden volume
Part2: ~4TB NTFS volume
Part3: 1GB EFI SYSTEM PARTITION
Part4: 5GB /boot ext4
Part5: 1TB / ext4
Part6: Remainder of space /home ext4

I heard that the grub.conf file moves around if you're booting on EFI versus BIOS. Is it in /boot/efi/ ? If so, where exactly is it supposed to be?

Also let me know where anaconda logs are and where I can find them.

Also this is with a successful install of Ubuntu 12.04 with grub2; the leftover Fedora entry is from installing Fedora to the Windows EFI SYSTEM PARTITION (Part0 above) but I first tried installing Fedora to its own EFI SYSTEM PARTITION (Part3 above) to no avail.

# efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0003
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0002,0000,0006,0001
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager	HD(1,800,32000,2b018c3c-616e-447d-8609-313f65511664)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................
Boot0001* Hard Drive 	BIOS(2,0,00)AMGOAMNO........q.A.S.R.-.6.4.0.5.E. .R.A.I.D. .C.t.l.r. .#.0.........................rN.D+..,.\...........B..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.A.S.R.-.6.4.0.5.E. .R.A.I.D. .C.t.l.r. .#.0......AMBOAMNO........o.S.T.3.1.5.0.0.3.4.1.A.S....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . . . . . . . . . .V.9.1.S.P.7.V.2......AMBO
Boot0002* Fedora	HD(1,800,32000,2b018c3c-616e-447d-8609-313f65511664)File(\EFI\redhat\grub.efi)
Boot0003* ubuntu	HD(1,800,32000,2b018c3c-616e-447d-8609-313f65511664)File(\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi)
Boot0006* ubuntu	HD(1,800,32000,2b018c3c-616e-447d-8609-313f65511664)File(EFI\Ubuntu\grubx64.efi)

EDIT: I'm 2 for 3 on the things you requested. I did wipe my Fedora / partition in favor of Ubuntu but the grub.conf installed by Fedora is still in my /boot/efi on the Windows partition that I didn't nuke:

# pwd
/boot/efi/EFI/redhat
root@vk4rms:/boot/efi/EFI/redhat# cat grub.conf
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file.
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition. This means that all kernel and
#          initrd paths are relative to /boot, eg.
#          root (hd1,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sdb5
#          initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
boot=/dev/sdb1
device (hd1,4) HD(1,800,32000,2b018c3c-616e-447d-8609-313f65511664)
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,4)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (3.3.4-5.fc17.x86_64)
	root (hd1,4)
	kernel /vmlinuz-3.3.4-5.fc17.x86_64 rd.md=0 rd.dm=0  KEYTABLE=us root=/dev/mapper/vg_vk4rms-lvroot rd.lvm.lv=vg_vk4rms/lvroot rd.luks=0 ro SYSFONT=True LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rhgb quiet
	initrd /initramfs-3.3.4-5.fc17.x86_64.img

[AdamW]

You qualified your statement that 'Fedora 17 sucks' with those exceptions, but you didn't qualify your theory as to why. You didn't say 'they didn't test Fedora on my system' (obviously that would be an odd thing to say), you just made an unqualified assertion that "it wasn't tested with UEFI+GPT setups". This is not true. I agree that side of things is unproductive; I just want to explain what particular statement I took exception to.

Anyhow...if I had to guess it may be something to do with the multiple EFI system partitions and the small size of the one Windows created, but I'm not sure. We didn't test EFI dual-boot AFAIK. I can't see anything wrong in the two things you posted, unfortunately...did anaconda give any errors when installing, or did it seem to think everything had gone OK? If you wiped the install, we can't see the logs, unfortunately.

[liam]

So many 'buntus are NOT the one Ubuntu/ Unity. I use other derivations: Mint 12.04 & Xubuntu. If Pinguy ever considers 12.04 stable, I might return to either Ultimate or Pinguy.

I disagree with Canonical on so many things. Thunar is the best file manager IMO - so many "rename file" choices unavailable in all other similar products. Opera browser is by far THE best web browser, which Canonical totally ignores.

The biggest SNAFU is that Canonical loads junk fonts onto my English-only systems.; USA Imperialism (Thai, Lao, Cambodian, Korean, Vietnamese). Most 'buntus ignore Unetbootin, EXT4, Google Chrome, You Tube, etc.

The worst part of USA-imperialism is their crazy anti-scientific systems: INCHES, "Letter-sized" paper. So ethnocentric. No other nation exists on planet Earth except the pre-metric USA.

Canonical is based in South Africa, so no USA.
Britain, and perhaps the Commonwealth, uses Imperial units as well as the US, but I certainly won't argue that we need to change to metric. To be fair though, most countries, excluding China/Japan, IIRC, use the arabic numerals. So Britain/USA is not alone in their intransigence

[gilboa]

Edit: And perhaps the stat about usage I care the most about is the OS stats from OpenBenchmarking.org: http://openbenchmarking.org/s/OS since most PTS users are Phoronix readers. So yes, most of the people likely reading the content are using Ubuntu.

OK, I understand the point.
In Phoronix' context, PTS *is* indeed a credible source of usage information.

*However*, keep in mind that this is a chicken and an egg situation: The longer Phoronix is -perceived- as Ubuntu centric, the more Ubuntu users will be visit contribute to it at the expense of other distributions.
Further more, giving Ubuntu the front sit regardless of their performance is doing disservice to both Ubuntu and the Linux eco system in general, especially given the importance of Phoronix as a major news source.

- Gilboa

[drago01]

Fedora 17 is using the Linux 3.3 kernel while Ubuntu 12.04 is on Linux 3.2.

Well not quite true ... 3.4 has been released as an update.
You probably should do "yum update" before testing otherwise you are testing a very unrealistic situation (users that never update).

[phil]

compare apples with apples

1. When comparing Fedora with Ubuntu I feel that SELinux should be installed to Ubuntu and set to enforcing. I understand that Apparmour is used but it neither resides on the filesystem or has anywhere near as much capability as SELinux. It would be great if apples were compared with apples.

note1: There was a slight speed increase noticed in benchmarks when SELinux was disabled on Fedora.
note2: SELinux should always be set to enforcing. If this causes problems with day to day tasks, please file a bug report
note3: Speed should never be chosen above security imo, especially since GNU/Linux is primarily a service delivery platform and secondarily a desktop OS. This may change in the future but every effort should be made to maintain the dominance on the server level.

2. Popularity doesn't mean that something's good. People, please look through the marketting ploys and analyse things for what they are, what they contribute and what they do for upholding the core principles of software freedom.

[devius]

note1: There was a slight speed increase noticed in benchmarks when SELinux was disabled on Fedora.
note2: SELinux should always be set to enforcing. If this causes problems with day to day tasks, please file a bug report
note3: Speed should never be chosen above security imo, especially since GNU/Linux is primarily a service delivery platform and secondarily a desktop OS. This may change in the future but every effort should be made to maintain the dominance on the server level.

2. Popularity doesn't mean that something's good. People, please look through the marketting ploys and analyse things for what they are, what they contribute and what they do for upholding the core principles of software freedom.

Best. Post. Ever.

Really, SELinux is quite useful and it's not that hard to configure. Well, if you have a tendency for doing sysadmin stuff and like to fiddle with command line programs and configuration files. But, yes, lots of times the advice to fix any problems that come up with Fedora is "turn SELinux off" when it's not that hard to add a rule to the security policy to allow doing what you need.

Completely agree with point 2, but it's very very hard for most people to escape the marketing ploys: "If they say it's good and everybody I know uses it then it has to be good!"

[Hamish Wilson]

I disagree with Canonical on so many things. Thunar is the best file manager IMO - so many "rename file" choices unavailable in all other similar products.

I use Xfce as my main desktop but I could not disagree more - for my money Thunar is awful. No search functionality, no tab support, no connect to server functionality for ssh or samba shares, and it lacks proper desktop handling at the momment (and xfdesktop still has faults, at least in 4.8). Even pcmanfm is better IMO.

But I just learned it does have a toolbar mode - so I am a bit more happy with it now. But not by much. It is still the thing I think is holding Xfce back the most.

[gilboa]

... no connect to server functionality for ssh or samba shares

SSH/SMB/etc mounts are supported since 4.8-release.
Make sure you install the required gvfs dependencies.

- Gilboa