Fedora 11 Alpha 64-bit on Macbook Pro 4,1

Yesterday Fedora has Released 'Alpha' version of its upcoming Operating System code named 'Leonidas' (Version 11).

Though i already have Fedora 11 from rawhide, i had installed the Alpha version from the DVD.

NOTE: Pre-Final releases are not recommended for daily usage, be warned.

Installation Process

Touchpad

During installation you notice that the 'touchpad' doesn't work. You need to plug in a USB Mouse and proceed with the installation

The whole installation process worked seamlessly

Post Installation

Audio

This still isn't being detected correctly, i had to follow my earlier hack to get this working

create the following file.

 nareshv@nareshv:~ $ cat /etc/modprobe.d/audio
options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3

2. Ndiswrapper 1.54 version

There seem to be some problem with the 'rpmfusion' repository, so i had to compile ndiswrapper 1.54 myself. During the compilation you might see errors like this

 nareshv@nareshv:/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54 $ gmake
make -C driver
make[1]: Entering directory `/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver'
make -C /usr/src/kernels/2.6.29-0.66.rc3.fc11.x86_64 M=/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.29-0.66.rc3.fc11.x86_64'
  LD      /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/built-in.o
  MKEXPORT /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/crt_exports.h
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/crt.o
  MKEXPORT /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/hal_exports.h
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/hal.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/iw_ndis.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/loader.o
  MKEXPORT /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ndis_exports.h
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ndis.o
/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ndis.c: In function ‘NdisSystemProcessorCount’:
/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ndis.c:2627: warning: overflow in implicit constant conversion
  MKEXPORT /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ntoskernel_exports.h
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ntoskernel.o
  MKEXPORT /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ntoskernel_io_exports.h
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/ntoskernel_io.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/pe_linker.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/pnp.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/proc.o
  MKEXPORT /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/rtl_exports.h
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/rtl.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/wrapmem.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/wrapndis.o
/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/wrapndis.c:1747:3: error: invalid preprocessing directive #.
make[3]: *** [/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver/wrapndis.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [_module_/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.29-0.66.rc3.fc11.x86_64'
make[1]: *** [modules] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54/driver'
gmake: *** [all] Error 2
 nareshv@nareshv:/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54 $

In order to get rid of that error, i had done a minor hack.

 nareshv@nareshv:/tmp/ndiswrapper-1.54 $ vim driver/wrapndis.c

1744 >___.ndo_set_mac_address = ndis_set_mac_address,
1745 >___.ndo_get_stats = ndis_get_stats,
1746 /*#ifdef CONFIG_NET_POLL_CONTROLLER
1747 >___.poll_controller = ndis_poll_controller;
1748 #endif*/
1749 };
1750 #endif

Just comment the lines from 1746 to 1748. The compilation will work just fine.

3. KDE-4.2

Kde-4.2 is included in the latest release, which is very good in terms of rendering, when compared to the earlier versions.

You might still see some screen corruption in the system tray, which the kde team has yet to fix.

4. Pommed-1.25 for apple keyboard special keys

You need to install pommed-1.25 version, in order to run with 2.6.29 kernel

Nvidia Drivers

You no longer need to do any hacks like -IgnoreABI in order to work with xorg-1.6, Nvidia driver 180.25 has support to work with latest xorg.

Few Gotchas

sudo commands

You notice a big delay till the command is executed, when you run any sudo commands, not sure whats the problem here is.

GDM and Preferred Desktop

No matter which desktop you choose, GDM tries to reset your preferred desktop to "GNOME". For me i was choosing KDE all the time, but whenever i reboot, the default desktop is getting reset to "GNOME"

There are many other features which you can find at the release notes