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Common Issues

Fedora LiveDVD is really slow

There are two very important things to keep in mind:

  1. The file system you;re using is 8GBytes of software compressed down to 3-4GBytes. It takes some processing power to uncompress what it needs from your media.
  2. The media you're using is not as fast as your hard drive. Thus, you can only go as fast as the slowest component. See chart below for comparison.

Device Speed [1] Mega Bit/s Mega Byte/s
CD Controller (1x) 1.17 Mbit/s 0.15 MB/s
CD Controller (52x) 60.9 Mbit/s 7.61 MB/s
DVD Controller (1x) 11.1 Mbit/s 1.32 MB/s
DVD Controller (16x) 177.6 Mbit/s 21.12 MB/s
USB Full Speed (USB 1.1) 12.0 Mbit/s 1.50 MB/s
USB Hi-Speed (USB 2.0) 480.0 Mbit/s 60.00 MB/s
eSATA (SATA 300) 2,400 Mbit/s [2]300.00 MB/s

So, to speed up Fedora you need to either install it on a hard drive --by clicking the 'install to hard drive' icon-- or choose a faster media. If you have a USB key, 4G or larger, you can follow these steps to make your USB key bootable with Fedora: The utility, Instructions (Note: There is Windows instructions down the page.)

Changing Boot options

Note: This is only for advanced users. Changing kernel boot options gives you full power over the kernel and how it functions, but for the new user it's also very easy to get lost.

When the DVD starts up there is a screen that says "Automatic boot in 10... 9... 8... seconds". Press any key on this screen and you are passed to the boot options screen. Now comes the tricky part. If you want to add any parameters to the boot line, hit tab. You will see a line like, "vmlinuz0 initrd=initrd0.img root= .... " This line is telling the computer to boot from vmlinuz, using initrd0.img as the boot drive, and mounting the root= drive. Sounds very confusing to the new user. But if there is anything you need to change just add it to the end. Example forcing the video drivers to vesa using "xdriver=vesa"

  • Linux Kernel Boot Options: [1]
  • Anaconda Boot Options: [2]
  • Installer Command Line: [3]

Forcing a graphics driver

When the computer starts booting there is a automatic boot screen. Just press any key and it will bring you to a menu. Hit tab. This will allow you to add commands to the boot line. To force a graphics driver --such as nv, catalyst, radeonhd, nouveau-- just enter xdriver=<driver name> and it will force the live boot DVD to configure for that graphics card.

Systems with more than 4G of ram

The DVD trial is a 32-bit setup. I choose to only build 32-bit because it's the most compatible with systems around the world. However that came at a bit of a price. The 32-bit kernel is limited to 4G of ram. However, your not stuck. If you have more than 4GBytes of ram you can boot using all of the available ram. You just have to select the PAE version of the kernel. Do this by pressing any key at the automatic boot screen and use the arrow keys on your keyboard to select it.

Note: if you install the liveDVD to your hard drive installer will automatically detect if your system needs PAE and install it.

Known Issues

The Graphical Screen Doesn't come up

If you get a black login screen it means the graphic server, for one reason or another, didn't start. Since this is a custom build re-spin of Fedora it may not include all possible display drivers on the LiveDVD. To fix this in the next build I need the logs and hardware information from your boot.

In any build after Feb 18, 2010 I've included a script which will send me all the required information to fix the problem.

  • At the login type root.
  • at the prompt type

If you have a connection to the Internet this will gather the required debug information and send it to my server. Then I can determine the problem and fix for the next build.

Nvidia Cards

Included on the DVD is the basic open-source drivers so that all basic features of the Nvidia Graphics cards will work. Nvidia makes their own drivers which have far better support, however they break support for all other types of cards, which is why they are not included on the LiveDVD. If you want to use the advanced features of the Nvidia card you will need to install fedora to your hard drive. Once there use the add/remove software to pick the appropriate version for your card.

If you need help just launch a discussion on my facebook group and I'll help get your started.

References and Footnotes

  1. Note that this is the theoretical max. Actually speeds can be much slower
  2. This is an external hard drive. The theoretical limit of the interface is 300MB/s but drives range from 60MB/s to 120MB/s and that's only for sequential read/writes
  • Known issues and common bugs with Fedora 12 [4]
  • Anaconda installer boot options [5]