To stick with Fedora Core 6 or to install Fedora 14 KDE? That is the question…
At issue is my 4-year-old Athlon X2 5200+ machine that I’ve just been able to “revive” after 2+ years of inactivity. It’s by no means the top-of-the-line CPU today, but it’s still much, much faster than what I’ve been using - its older sibling Athlon64 3700+. The X2 box also has a better graphics card and a bigger hard disk (250 GB vs. 100 GB). No question that I am going to use this one from now on.
The question is, what do I do with the OS?
The machine currently has Fedora Core 6. Granted it was the latest Fedora distro when I put it together, three and a half years is a long time in the computer world. The current stable version of Fedora is 14. Should I take the latest and the (possibly) greatest? Or stick with FC 6 at least for now?
The tech geek in me says go with Fedora 14 KDE or Kubuntu 10.10 (Maverick). They both have KDE 4.5, the latest version of KDE available. They are capable of running Google Chrome, too. FC 6 is too old for Chrome. Heck it won’t even run Firefox 3!
On the other hand, FC 6 works just fine for pretty much everything I do at home. With the proper tools I built for it, I can now build, run and debug all the software I work on. I can play back WMV and MP3 files using Amarok and Kaffeine with no problem. I can check mail and browse the web using the existing mail client and browser.
The same cannot be said about those latest distros. I upgraded Kubuntu from 8.04 to 10.04 on my old Athlon64 box a month or so ago. That broke WMV playback on Kaffeine. I now have to use the new KDE program called Dragon Player, which, to be honest, isn’t half as mature or as robust as Kaffeine. KDE 4 is still half-baked in my opinion too. Many of what I can do with KDE 3 - including the customizable context menu and key assignments - are either unavailable or very hard to do on KDE 4. Looks like KDE is providing fewer and fewer user-customisable options. Definitely the wrong direction, I’d say.
Right now, I am still weighing in my options. I downloaded the Fedora 14 KDE image for trial. It’s a live CD so I don’t have to install it to give it a shot. If it works reasonably well, I may decide to go with it. Let’s see. :-)
I would die for the day when I’ll have no worries or anxieties. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case for quite some time.
One thing is resolved, and another come in as if it were waiting at the door. I try to cope with them one by one, but it gets hard when they come in a group all at once.
The morning workout helps, but it can do so much. :-(
And another day filled with worries and anxieties begins…
