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I downloaded and installed VirtualBox on my Windows machine last night. That part went without a hitch.

I had already downloaded the LiveCD and teh DVD.iso for Fedora 10.

I decided to do a complete install so in goes the DVD and start up VBox.

I thought things were going to go well till I saw the message that my proxessor is not an x86-64 and I need to get the i686 version of Fedora. So I put in the LiveCD and everything went smoothly after that.

Why would Fedora say I don't have an x86-64 CPU when Ubuntu says I do. I've been running 8.04 for some time now and installed 8.10 on a different machine. They all have AMD X2's in them, so what's the difference? Where does i686 fit into the streamline of processors? If the kernel recognizes my other processors as an AMD x86-64 architecture, why wouldn't the same kernel in Fedora do it?

I'm not frustrated . . . . YET . . . . .but just a bit confused.

Were you also running Ubuntu in VirtualBox, or was it running native? I suspect what you're seeing is a VirtualBox issue; in order for VirtualBox to support 64-bit guest OSes, all of the following must be true:

- Host OS must be 64-bit.

- You must run the 64-bit version of VirtualBox.

- CPU must support hardware virtualization extensions.

If any of the above are not true, the guest OS will see only a 32-bit x86 CPU.

VMware allows running 64-bit guest OSes on a wider range of host hardware and OS platforms... but unless you really need the 64-bit support, or want SMP support in the guest, I recommend just sticking with VirtualBox.

That explains it then.

I have Ubuntu 8.04 natively on one machine, running virtualbox with windows in the VM.

Now with windows on my main machine, running virtualbox with Fedora in it, I thought it should have picked up the 64bit arch no matter. I shall use this as a partial reason for a major upgrade.

I will be playing with Fedora 10 and post my nooby comments here - and soon.

What is to gain from going to Fedora from Ubuntu?

flip-mode wrote:

What is to gain from going to Fedora from Ubuntu?

I'd say that depends on your perspective. You'll mostly be using the same stuff, but potentially:

1. Larger number of official packages -- you get a lot farther in Ubuntu without adding additional repositories, whereas with Fedora you tend to need Livna, RPMforge, rpmfusion, ATrpms, etc. to have a complete system due to their more aggressive ban of "non-free" stuff and smaller set of packages they've agreed to officially maintain.
2. Larger community -- this can help with getting support or answers to common problems.
3. Less breakage -- Fedora pushes the envelope when it comes to new features and moving to new versions of stuff too aggressively IMO. They do it to the point where something major is broken in ever release (binary kernel modules, pulse audio, selinux policy, etc.). Ubuntu is less aggressive, but lately I've criticized them for doing some of the same things compared to vanilla Debian.
4. Better package system -- this is subjective, and yum has largely eliminated many of the advantages to apt, but from my perspective it is still a lot faster to apt-get install something than yum install it, and definitely faster to apt-cache search something than yum search. apt+dpkg is definitely less fragile than yum+rpm. This is slowly improving, though. One the other hand, Fedora gives support for split 32/64-bit systems with less hassle, although the need for that is less important lately.

Ultimately, though, if you're more familiar with how to administer Redhat-style systems, switching to Ubuntu will take some re-familiarizing in where configuration settings are and how stuff works.

Actually, I'm not changing anything. My Linux box is still Ubuntu. I am comparing how Fedora and the Yum repo manager acts on compatible hardware. I also find VirtualBox an almost must-have piece of software.

I joined the forums back in 2003 to get answers to Linux questions - that's when me and my brother wanted to atart learning Linux and CentOS was the Package of choice since it was the closest thing to RHEL without having to pay the exorbitant fees. Now we have switched over to Ubuntu, but I am always looking to refresh my memory as to how things work.

The synaptic repo manager that comes with Ubuntu is great, and anyone installing Fedora thinking that the same thing is already there is in for a shocker. . . . now once the YUM extender is installed, Fedora rocks. YUM has sped up over the years, but Synaptic is still faster IMHO.

I was also hoping that the Fedora crowd found a way to enable sound over HDMI (without all the work-arounds), but no camp has done it yet as a compete part of the package. I am ever hopeful that the next release will have rectified the problem and I can get rid of windows on the HTPC.

Right now I am having problems burning the new Ubuntu 8.10 DVD.iso, and using the upgrade feature in synpatic has not worked for me yet. . . .i've tried four times now.