A C Zoom

So after all my troubles trying to get Fedora 11 x86_64 kit installed and failing, I tried Kubuntu.
I prefer KDE desktop to Gnome, so went with the KDE Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty" version, Kubuntu. Ubuntu itself is Debian-based.

Took two tries, but the second try was the real thing, and within an hour the the 64-bit kit was installed, and fully working - including the DVD playback as well as audio.
Update: not that good, in the end. When I got new drives, and re-did the full install it failed to get audio working. Oh well, so these Linux distributions are not as good as Windows when it comes to multi-media support. Since I do not use audio, I am going to stick with Jaunty and will update the system again when the next release comes out.

First try:
The documentation on the Ubuntu pages is somewhat unclear. I knew I wanted LVM, and expected that the DVD iso image for desktop install would offer it. No mention is made of this on the Get Ubuntu pages. It does refer to something call "alternate" kit which is text-mode install for systems with small amounts of memory. So, went with the desktop kit. It is also not very clear that the "amd64" kit is for Core 2 Duo Intel processors also, in fact, some of the language might indicate that it is only for AMD CPUs, but that would be an incorrect reading. So, for Core 2 Duo, use amd64.

But overall, using the desktop kit was the wrong thing to do. Took an hour to install, discovered the problem with no LVM, so went back to web searches, and discovered (in not-so-easy to find places) that the alternate kit is the more powerful kit, and has much better control and many more options for the install.

Second try:

So, here are the all the issues I ran into when installing Fedora 11 on a new-ish computer.

Computer: Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2, with SATA hard-drive, and IDE CD/DVD drive, and 4G of RAM.

2009-06-20:
Given that the i386 Fedora cannot see all of 4G, I first tried the x86_64 install. The Fedora install notes also say that for Core 2 Duo processors, the 64-bit install is recommended.
Right at the outset, it failed. Booted off a DVD install kit, and got stuck where the install said "install media driver not found", and asked me to select a driver, I selected pata_amd (for IDE CD/DVD), and forcedeth (for ethernet), but no luck, it kept repeating - no driver, then select driver, with no way to break the loop. It also failed to recognize the VGA card, and performed the install in text mode.

Retried the install over the network. Now the install proceeded to completion, but when the system started, there was no X driver for the video card. Having spent 2+ hours on this, decided to shelve this approach.

2009-06-21:
Using the i386 DVD install, everything went smoothly. It had no trouble finding all drivers, did the install, and Fedora was up. It even selected the PAE kernel, so can see all 4G of RAM (most of it anyway).
This probably indicates that there is some packaging problem with the x86_64 version?

Current problem:
Cannot play DVDs, even locally created, no encryption DVDs. Have installed libdvdcss and other modules mentioned at the unofficial fedora faq. Xine reports no mpeg codec, and keeps popping up the error window, ad nauseum.

2009-06-23:
Gave up on Fedora, was taking too long to get basic stuff running, and 64-bit not working was a big problem, and discovered that it was not Linux, or the Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2 motherboard issues - Kubuntu installed with incredible ease.

Copyright law as it exists should have no validity given the technological advances of the past two decades.

Yet, we continue to apply old, inapplicable laws, resulting in quite absurd results.

A jury decided that a woman should pay $80,000 for each of the 24 songs she is accused of illegally trading over the Kazaa Internet service. [:http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10268199-93.html Total damages: $1.92 million].
This itself is completely absurd, but all you have to do is to carry this to the logical next step - she was accused by RIAA of uploading 1700 songs. So the correct award should be $136 million.

Clearly if someone broke a law, there should be some punishment. But having someone, who is most likely not very technologically adept, be accused by RIAA of high piracy, and have the RIAA win in court, shows that the jury award system is quite suspect. The law is the ass here, but will the Congress wake up and change it? No chance - from recent discussions in France and the EU, to the somewhat recent US Congress support for Mickey Mouse support laws, it is clear the all lawmakers are more inclined to listen to the rich lobbyists than to any rational reasoning. Will this absurd $1.92 million, which was really $132 million award bring some sense to the copyright laws? No hope from any law makers anywhere in the world (maybe China, India, or some other country will help here), so in the US, only the Supreme Court is the last hope, though that too is unlikely given the old, conservative heads there (just listen to Scalia protecting teenagers from words that are quite common in middle schools here, but now are illegal on broadcast TV).