While I settled on using Debian a long time ago, I often run other distributions on a test PC. A few days before version 8 of Fedora was released, I downloaded version 7 and tried to install it on this PC.

I use the word "tried" advisedly, for nothing I did then - nor anything I have done in the days until today - has resulted in my being able to configure a graphical interface for this beast.

The test PC has plain bog standard hardware - it has an all-in-one Gigabyte motherboard. The graphics chip is an nVIDIA GeForce 6100. The network card (again onboard) is a Realtek 8201 and the sound is provided by a Realtek ALC883 chip. The monitor I use is a Benq FP222W, an LCD which works perfectly with my own PC (running 64-bit Debian) via a KVM.

Fedora stubbornly refuses to sport a graphical interface no matter what I do - the only thing I get is an irritating message which tells me "out of range."

Before I outline what I've done to try and rectify the situation, let me point out that this PC is just eight months old. In its short lifespan, it has, at various times and for varying periods, run Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mandriva, PLLinuxOS, Windows Vista, and Slackware.

In the case of all these Linux distributions, I have had to tweak things a bit to get a GUI that uses the native resolution of the monitor - some distributions have given me 1024 x 768 through the set-up program; I've then tweaked things manually to get 1680 x 1050 which is the native resolution my monitor supports.

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In some other cases, I've got a somewhat skewed screen at 1280 x 1024 - but again manual tweaking has been possible. And in every case, I've used the open source nv driver for this graphics card (apart from Vista, of course). It's never been a problem. Until I decided to have a look at Fedora.

What is so special about the way Fedora has organised its Xorg server set-up? For the life of me, I can't figure out what it is.

Going into a non-graphical mode, I have tried to edit the xorg-conf file, using attributes from the working one I have on my Debian workstation. But this exercise has proved to be futile. The "out of range" message just does not go away. Mind you, I've never failed to get a working X configuration file in any of my experiments with Linux - except once, with Debian 2.0. That was a long, long time ago.

I've tried the Gnome live CD and the KDE Live CD issued with Fedora Core 8 and also the full DVD of this version. Prior to that, I tried version 7. But all to no avail.

In the course of these attempts. I've also noticed some of the marketing spiel that has been issued along with Fedora 8. For instance, there is the bit about Fedora being the second distribution with a live CD after Ubuntu. This is rubbish; the first live CD I used came with Slackware 7.0 in the year 2000. And comparison with the Ubuntu live CD is deceptive for the Ubuntu ones do work.

Then there's the bit about Fedora 8 allowing others to build their own Linux products using it as a foundation. Debian has allowed this for as long as I can remember - indeed, Ubuntu is built on the Debian foundation.

There are a number of other features listed: automatic detection and installation of printers, a screen background that changes colours as the day wears on (wish I could see that one), improved audio, and so on.

I'm guessing that in the rush to get these advanced features into version 8, the developers may well have forgotten that one needs basic features like a graphical desktop to enjoy most of them. Do pardon me if I happen to be wrong.