There is no doubt about that. People have underestimated the complexity of what I'd call a true voice recognition system for decades.
I have a copy of Fedora 10, maybe i will try it and upgrade it to 13.
I think you'll be a lot happier with it if you download the ISO of 13 and load that, rather than upgrade. When you get ready to do it, ping me and I'll send you a list of some packages that will make dealing with multimedia stuff lots easier.
Thanks, but before i got your reply, i went ahead and tried to install Fedora 10 on the same HD as the one with PCLOS, but the partitioner twice failed to resize the 20GB HD, though only 3GB is used. So i added another drive and installed Fed 10 on that, but the Kpackagekit upgrade froze for over an a hour (and in later attempts) at Oxygen icon themes (no arch) everytime i tried it. I found the offending themes but there was no right click or any option to exclude them. Then the download package list also froze, though Internet is working (nothing fancy about the DSL connection).
The configuration ability looks good (i like the classic “start” menu, though i could not right click on things and add to panel or desktop).
So maybe i will download and burn 13.
I downloaded and installed the KDE version of Fedora 13, on this Sony RA840G (2.8ghz cpu, 3gb ram) PC, but to be honest it has been rather buggy so far. Below is what happened, the best i recall.
I found and ran the KPackageKit updates, and while it was still doing so it gave me a 3-4 sec. system tray popup that it was done and i needed to restart, but the message disappeared before i could read it all. I did restart, and ran the Software update again, and the same thing happened, but this time i ignored it and installed all the updates.
As Fed 13 does not include either Firefox or OpenOfice (critical for me) by default, I ran KPackageKit again and found and installed Firefox, but OpenOffice is all spilt up into different modules, mostly language ones, so i only installed the actual word processor. I then went back and found java, but KPackageKit hung for a long time, and would not close.
I had to log off and on again, and then tried to install new wallpaper, but while some installed, one was not listed along with the installed ones. Installing it again required overwriting the previous jnp, but it still was not listed. I went on the web and found one that i used with this monitor under XP and installed that, but it was very blurry from what i could see. During this procedure Plamsa crashed, and i sent an error report, though it said i would have had to install more things in order to for it to be of much use.
Later, as i could find no Desktop icon in the Taskbar, i had to minimize Windows in order to see the desktop, and inadvertently clicked on the ? button on a Konqueror window, which ended up freezing the whole system, except i could shut down KPackageKit, but nothing else on the Taskbar worked, and i could not even right click and choose Leave. Using the PC power button did bring up the shutdown options however, and i choose Restart. It did so, but after login i only got a blinking dash in the top left which went on for over a minute before i physically shutdown and reboot.
I later was able to install Java for OpenOffice, but Flash would not install in Firefox, so i searched and found instructions here (http://www.fedorafaq.org/#flash) which required running commands which worked, though it said at the last, “WARNING: I can’t open dir /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins-wrapped”.
However, sound does not work, either through the integrated mobo or through the Logitec USB phones. Kinfocenter says “Audio is not enabled in config,” and Kmix, which is the only thing i found that might offer GUI configuration, fails to load whenever i try to do so.
I did find System Settings, of which there is two, the more extensive one being under Settings>System Settings in the Classic menu, which was very useful, but I also could not change the clock from UTC to EST, which i option i missed on this last install.
Also, while i do see “Computer” under the KickOff Menu (but not in Classic), i do not see the whole drive which Fed is installed on (just Root in Dolphin), KDiskFree does work, but if very basic, not with a Windows type right click and properties and its many options. Nor does Fed detect and show a USB device which is plugged after Fed loads (and Kwik disk also crashes on loading). An icon to show the desktop would also be useful.
So that is my experience thus far, and it has been a learning one, so i thank God for that.