Installing Fedora 12

I have been trying to install Fedora 12 since it was released.

First, I tried downloading the DVD. Got it from a mirror site in Japan, burnt it into a DVD, and then when I tried to install, while testing the media, it came back that the DVD has an error. I ran a checksum test on the downloaded ISO image file only to realise that it has errors. So back to downloading again.

This time, I used a mirror site in the US, and tested the checksum before burning the DVD. Yup, checked correct. But the media testing still came back negative when I tried to install using the DVD. I suspected there is a problem with the DVD drive on my old laptop (about 5 yrs old) and so I ended up downloading the CDs instead. Downloaded all 5 image files, tested them correct, and they all passed the media testing.

But halfway through the installation process, when I was told to change from Disc 1 to Disc 2, the DVD drive won't open. So I couldn't change discs. Argh! All that time wasted downloading so many image files and burning them and testing them.

I downloaded the LiveCD version, booted up my old laptop with that, and managed to finally install Fedora 12 using the LiveCD. Only problem is, the LiveCD is barebone minimum, so I still have to install most of the packages subsequently. I first tried using PackageKit, but that kept giving me errors. Finally resolved that by first updating the installation with yum ("yum -y update") before running PackageKit again. Right now, PackageKit is still running, trying to download all the required packages over the Internet, but it seems to be so-far-so-good, so wish me luck! I think it should be able to get everything done.

The moral of the story? While Fedora may run on old computers... your old computer may not be in the best of form (old harddisk about to crash, old DVD drive working intermittently, etc.) so don't blame the software, it could be your hardware that has the problems. Fedora has saved me before when Vista crashed on me in the past (read about it here) and at the end of the day, yes, the problem was with the hardware.