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Fedora 7 (Test 4) on Virtual PC 2007

Two months after my Fedora Core 6 install, I am giving the last test version of Fedora 7 a go.

"Don't you mean Fedora Core 7?"

Nope.  The Fedora folks have finally removed the distiction between Fedora Core and Fedora Extras (which I never entirely understood).  That should make it easier to add non-standard packages into the install...

The first obvious change is the splash screen on the initial boot screen.  I'm not sure what the clouds and balloon represent, but it looks somewhat nice.

Although I ran into weird graphical problems with Fedora Core 6 (due to the fact that it defaults to 24-bit color, which is not supported by Virtual PC 2007), I had to install in text mode.  Did Fedora 7 improve in this realm?

Nope... Anaconda starts, detects the correct video card, and then attempts to fire off the X Server.  At that point, HD activity ceases, CD activity ceases, and I am left with a completely black screen.

<sigh...> That sucks.

Hitting Ctrl+Alt+F1 drops me to the text mode installer, and I am able to continue installing (in text mode).  I tell you what... I am getting nostalgic for my OpenSuse install.  Graphics worked from beginning to end.  I selected the "Desktop" install, and 794 packages are on their way.  Good thing the Bean Scripting Framework is being installed!  I don't know where I'd be without it ;)

Rebooting after the install completes, and I am greeted with... you guessed it... more screwed up graphics!  Fedora really is my favorite distro (when running on hardware), but this install experience is pretty frustrating.

Alright... finished booting and video was still messed up.  I could see in the background that I was supposed to provide some sort of input, but I could not see what.  Hitting "Enter" repeatedly did not get me very far. 

I left for a while, came back, and could see a login prompt.  I logged in as root, and tried my SED trick to change the xorg.conf file to 16 bit color.  I then typed startx to fire up the X Server, and...

nothing.

black screen.

Looks like something within X11 needs to be fixed before Fedora 7 RTMs.  Right now it is not useable.  Ubuntu had its own blocking bug (an unmoveable mouse) during my install last week.

<sigh...> Enough experimentation for one night.  Off to bed...  Any recommendations on my next install?  I could go with Gentoo (although that tends to be a multi-hour-experience).  OpenSuse works great, Ubuntu 6 worked with workarounds (but I don't like the UI), Fedora Core 6 works with workarounds...

I'm ready for my next challenge!

Posted: Thursday, May 03, 2007 7:08 AM by smearp

Comments

phyler said:

Sean, why don't you test Solaris 10?  Very similar to Linux.  Or find some other obscure OS.  

I'm enjoying reading your experiences with the different OS's and what it takes to get them going with Virtual PC.

# May 3, 2007 10:22 AM

smearp said:

Good question... I tried installing Solaris a year ago or so, and IIRC, the install didn't complete successfully.  I'll download it tonight!

# May 3, 2007 1:00 PM

rsalama said:

I just tried Fedora 7 release, and the problem you noted with the screwed graphics is still there. Anyone have any luck with this distro?

thanks

# June 1, 2007 2:53 PM

bbowler86 said:

Have you gotten Fedora7 to work on VMWare? If so I'd be interested in hearing your experience with that? I am trying to find a virtualization software to run FedoraCore 7 on in the classroom.

# June 8, 2007 10:53 AM

Norochj said:

I don't know if you ever got it working or now, but this little trick works for both Fedora Core 6 and Fedora 7.  When you get to the boot menu, add to the command line 'vesa' and it will work under Virtual PC.  Also, when you are setting up in graphical mode, add that to the extra command line option.  Unfortunately, you will probably run into the next problem (that happened with the updated kernel in version 6) your mouse probably won't work.  Still trying to fix that problem.

# June 22, 2007 6:53 PM

faustino.com.pt said:

I had a hard time finding how to boot on text mode. Giving boot parameter "vga=771" solved the problem with the screwed graphics.

As for a clock problem I was also having, giving the boot parameters "clock=pit nosmp noapic nolapic" solved the problem.

Hope this helps!!

# June 28, 2007 12:52 PM

BobNoSurname said:

I changed the color depth from 24 to 16, as per a few comments & tried the vga=771 boot parameters, but still had the blank-screen issue reported on running startx (I am using Vista as a host m/c though).  Found a comment somewhere that recommended Virtual-Box (http://www.virtualbox.org/), as opposed to Virtual PC, so risked that - and the graphical Fedora type-thing (I'm new to this Linux stuff) worked first time for me.

# August 24, 2007 4:21 PM

careyhung said:

After I installed Fedora 7 on VPC 2007, I've faced the same problem as above, since the screen is stuffed, I've remote connect to my VPC Fedora from my local PC with SSH or telnet. By trying to setup the system or start X, I found out that it has an error said "Data incomplete in file /etc/X11/xorg.conf Undefined Moniter "Moniter0" referenced by Screen "Screen0"

Maybe this is the main problem why the screen dosen't show up right. Any one got any idea how to config the "Monitor0" ???

# August 27, 2007 11:00 AM

careyhung said:

After Monitor Problem, I've facing another problem as bellow:

X: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//s3_drv.so: undefined symbol: RamDacInit

XIO:  fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"

any one have and idea how to setup video driver???

# August 27, 2007 11:18 AM

The Sean Blog said:

Fedora 9 was released last week, which you can download here: http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora.html

# May 18, 2008 11:10 PM

Cloudmaster said:

I'd like to thank BobNoSurname for mentioning Virtualbox, I've just had a couple of attempts at getting Fedora 9 installed on Virtual PC 2007, now installing in graphical mode on Virtualbox with no apparent problems B-)

# June 7, 2008 10:14 AM
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