Struggling with Pre-Releases

In case anyone should get the impression from my blog, and others, that dealing with pre-release software (variously called Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate or Preview) is all smooth sailing, here are a couple of examples to the contrary. I am working on setting up a new desktop system (actually a nettop system, more on that tomorrow), and I have had some interesting experiences as a result.

I have been trying to load Fedora 11 (Leonidas) since the first Beta release came out at the end of March. I have never been able to load it on any of my laptops or netbooks. Granted, I haven't tried all that hard, but at the least the Live CD has either crashed or refused to continue at some point every time. Yesterday, however, I installed it on the new desktop system with no trouble at all.

Likewise, I have tried to install the openSuSE 11.2 Milestone releases, and I haven't even been able to get the Live CD to boot on any of the laptops - it gets to the point where it tries to start the display, and it just hangs in a loop. I assumed this was due to the "special" display adapters in the notebooks. However, when I tried to install it on the new desktop, which has a plain old Intel 945 chip set, it still did the same thing! Very strange... So, I am now burning the openSuSE 11.2 Milestone 2 to DVD, and I'll try that instead of the Live CD.

The moral of the story is, as the developers always say with the pre-release software, try it at your own risk, don't try it on a "production" system that you depend on, don't be surprised if/when something doesn't work, whether minor or major.

jw 4/6/2009