Just a quick post to tell you that my Fedora 18 with Xfce installation on the HP Pavilion g6-2210us is doing very well indeed.
Unlike Xubuntu 13.04, Fedora 18 WILL run under Secure Boot after installation.
I’m using full disk encryption and working on a separate hard drive (not the Windows 8 drive that shipped with the laptop).
Also unlike Xubuntu 13.04, I had no trouble with sound in Skype. Yep, I already installed Skype in Fedora. And it’s working perfectly.
Like Xubuntu 13.04, overall sound levels are fine once volume is upped via the Pulse Audio Volume Control.
In addition to Skype, things I also added to Fedora 18 without incident included the RPM Fusion repositories, the Adobe Flash browser plugin, gPodder and Xchat. I also found a new kernel and installed it (you’ll see why below).
All went smoothly.
So far Xfce in Fedora looks great. It runs great. It’s super-fast.
The only problem with this laptop and its new AMD APU (CPU plus graphics) is video. The 2D video in Xfce runs with no problem. GNOME 3 is a total mess. Unity is workable but has artifacts (though there was some improvement in the final release of Ubuntu 13.04 that I saw with live media).
And what all of these systems have in common — Ubuntu and Fedora included — is that suspend doesn’t work.
The laptop does go into suspend, but there’s no waking it (i.e. resume is broken). That’s bad because I’m a huge user of suspend/resume. The new kernel I tried from Fedora’s Koji service didn’t help. Eventually Linux, X, radeon and catalyst will catch up to this HD 7000-series video chip. It just hasn’t happened yet.
But I can say right now that Fedora 18 is good enough, configurable enough with proprietary bits, and stable enough for my daily use.
This is the first time I’ve used the Yum Extender for package management, and it’s a terrific, exceedingly quick tool.
What do I miss most not running Linux? Easy, usable FTP via the file manager and text editors (I can’t believe this is so f’d up in Windows8), and easy management of my old, old iPod, which I’m shocked is pretty much impossible to do in Windows without iTunes. I’ve tried a half-dozen music-manager/podcast manager apps, and none of them in Windows can do a damn thing half well.
Getting back to Linux’s gPodder (the Windows version doesn’t do iPod) and Rhythmbox will solve all of my Windows problems. For almost everything else I have mostly free open-source apps that just happen to run on Windows.
But a pure Linux environment would make my life better and easier. That and working suspend/resume and I’ll be a most happy camper. If I were confident that a dual-boot with Windows 8 wouldn’t fail, I’d do it today.
Update: It’s been about 2 1/2 years, and I’m still running Fedora on this laptop. Now I’m on Fedora 22, so that means four in-place upgrades without it blowing up. And I should upgrade to F23 soon.
Now I don’t need the Catalyst driver. The free Radeon driver works great. I don’t even need any hacks for suspend/resume, though I did have one for quite some time. And there are no sound issues — switching between HDMI and native laptop sound is seamless with the pavu (aka PulseAudio Volume Control) application.
My experience is that with new hardware, Linux can be difficult at first, gets better in a year, and now I can say it’s very solid after two years. While that’s a nice thing for people with 2-year-old hardware (like me now), we really need to get to the point where things are pretty good out of the box and totally locked down in six months.
What constitutes totally locked down?
- Boots from ISO with no issues
- Installs with no issues, especially no EFI/UEFI problems
- Installs in dual-boot with Windows with no issues
- Boots from disk after installation with no issues and allows boot to Linux by default
- Video works perfectly with free drivers, including HDMI
- Audio works perfectly, including HDMI
- Suspend/resume works without any hacks
- CPU heat and fan usage is comparable to what hardware achieves in Windows
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