Fedora Core 13 (FC13) was announced, or released, this week. Few months ago I installed more memory on my machine so I believed I was in a position to move up to a 64bit OS. I'd already downloaded the 32 bit FC13 (no hitches this time) so feeling brave I tried again and again managed to download the entire 3.5 gB (do I start talking about 3500/8 'words' now?) in a couple of hours or so. A new hard drive was called for since I doubt Fedora or anyone else could do an upgrade package with 32 to 64 bits change in the middle. New disk installed, software installed, no problem. Booted fine. Found my twin monitor setup [without hassle from Nvidia, yipee] and generally asked what all the fuss was about. I slowly went through my list of extra packages, making a bash script as I did it this time. Frowned at the number of non yum packages I 'needed'. Next installed vmware vmplayer, then Windows 7 64 bit (kind of M$ to include both 32 and 64 bit versions when you buy it. Guess they see the world of long words as imminent too.) Next to start using it. Oops. forgotten my browser extensions, plugins etc. Ah.

First problem. No flash for Firefox, 64 bit. Yes I have the flash blocker, but I do use sites that use it sensibly. Installed Chrome.... or tried to

Second problem. Chrome won't install

# rpm -ivh google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm 
warning: google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm: \
Header V3 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 7fac5991: NOKEY
error: Failed dependencies:
	lsb >= 3.2 is needed by \
google-chrome-stable-5.0.375.55-47796.x86_64
[root@marge3 chrome]# yum info lsb
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Error: No matching Packages to list

Yet they say they have the package? Ah well. Installed Chrome on Windows. No problem. I can now read the Times for instance.

Next problem. Device drivers. I use a product called vuescan to scan photographs. My scanner is positively ancient... at least 5 years old, a Canon Canoscan 3200f. Works perfectly. Seems Canon believe this will not be used in a 64 bit environment so don't provide drivers for it. On which grounds they expect me to buy another one? I may. But I doubt it will be from Canon.

So far that's all. But then I haven't done much work on the new machine. Summary? 90% there. Do it again if I had the chance? Not before checking out .... no, I doubt I could list all the corners of the apps I use, the drivers they use etc etc. No, I'd wait a bit yet.