Updated to Fedora Core 4

I've just updated my primary workstation/server from Fedora Core 3 to Fedora Core 4 (FC4). It wasn't very painful as these things go, but there were a few points which I want to make about it.

Before that, however, FC4 was released on June 13, 2005. As of just now, four days later, there were 50+ updates for it. That seems like an awful lot for such a short period of time.The main part of the upgrade is easy enough: insert your DVD (or CD) when rebooting and select upgrade. Answer some easy questions, and wait. It took about an hour for my install from the hard drive. (I'll show how to upgrade from the hard drive in a later post.)

Problems with the upgrade:

• POSTGRESQL - you have to export the database from the previous version, upgrade, nuke the database directories, initialize the database, restore all the users and then (finally) and restore the database from your exported backups. This is quite a large pain in the arse, really. I don't see why PostGreSQL can't include a simple upgrade agent in the package. It's not like they're trying to squeeze it into a tiny space.
• XORG - Once again my dual screen config is nerfed and I have to go and download the xorg source (53 MB!) and recompile in the driver library from Matrox. In fairness to RedHat, this is a problem caused by old hardware and a manufacturer who won't release the G400 driver. It may even be worth upgrading my hardware over - an Nvidia 5200 or 6200 would easily provide enough dual-screen oomph for anything I'm likely to do with Linux.

Other things:

• Open Office 1.9.104 is nice looking, but very slow. It still has that irritating habit of stopping for a minute when you start typing in numbers (In Calc, anyway). At least they haven't changed the default paste behaviour like they used to every release.
• The new style: PLASTIK is awful. Even Bluecurve was better than this. Don't follow Redmond for aesthetics, guys. As for the rest of the built-in styles, Holy 1999 Batman! I've got a choice of Windows NT 4.0, Sun CDE v1.purple and six styles (out of twelve) for those with severe visual difficulties. Like blindness.
• The sound Just Works out of the box. I don't know what JWZ was whinging about.