F10 at work and dissapointed with Amarok

Some good news, for those who care, I have successfully updated my work computer from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10. I was really worried about this update for a number of reasons, but mainly due to the ATI video card. For those in the know, ATI linux support is mediocre at best, and they usually require you to do a hand stand to get it to work (literaly). The last time I upgraded this machine, it didn't work, and I had to downgrade the Xorg from the 9 repo to the 8 repo. Ughh, it was ugly, so you can feel my aprehension.


This time, however, it went pretty smoothly. There was some little tricks that I had to pull, but the famous leigh123 of the fedorafurom has a most excellent guide for the ATI install. I have a couple of additions to it though:

(1) Make sure you update the kernel, kernel-devel, kernel-headers before running the guide. It may still work, but you won't get the nice hardware acceleration

(2) If it doesn't work on the first try, uninstall the ati and fglrx packages in the guide, and start again. It is likely has to do with a kernel module build error and should work on the next go.

(3) Yes, you have to create a new initrd. Just do it, otherwise the kernel module won't build automatically.

Now for my bitch and moan of the day. With F10 comes the new Amarok. Amarok was a most excellent music player for linux. It handles libraries, podcast, and internet radio with little overhead. But now, with the update, comes Amarok 2.0, and I must say, it sucks. Like really sucks. It crashes all the time. It doesn't import your old settings. There is less functionality. This update has actually gone backwards, and I would suggest leaving Amarok behind.

Instead, check out the newest RythmBox. It is everything Amarok used to be and is actually smoother and better.