Derek Hildreth’s Blog

Fedora 10 Release Candidate [Screenshot Gallery]

Here’s a screenshot tour of the Fedora 10 Release Candidate (or Preview Release) running within a VirtualBox VM.  The countdown begins!  21 Days left as of this entry…  Enjoy!

Other useful links:

Release Notes: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f10preview…
Feature List: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/FeatureList
Mirrors: http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/10-Preview/
Artwork: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes

Fedora, Dear… I Want a Divorce.

Dear Fedora,

It pains me to say this, but there is somebody else and I want a divorce.  In case you’re wondering, she’s somebody who I’ve been with before.  In fact, I left her for you six months ago, but she has stolen my heart again with her sweet, brown skin and easy-going personality.  With her, I don’t have to fight anymore.  If I want a cup of Java, she’ll just get me one.  You always brought me Iced-Tea and no matter how hard I tried, you would never get me a Java.  She’s good with Flashing things around too.  You were alright after I talked with you for hours trying to convince you that Flashing some video on your tube was okay.  Remember how hard we fought when it came to what type of music we should listen to?  Don’t forget the arguments over which videos we could watch when Grandma sent them to us?  You simply didn’t want to watch them, but I was really interested in what she had to show us.  I still don’t see what was the matter with it.  She’s different.  She’s always interested in watching or listening to what I want to.  She even lets me watch myself in the Mirror!  I didn’t even have to ask.  She has also given me a lot of bling-bling to keep my eyes happy.  You gave me some once, but then you took it away for no reason.  I argued with you about it for a few days, but never resolved the issue with you.  You gals do have something in common though:  you both liked to take me to dinner buffets.  She does it better though.  She takes me to the fancier ones where I can line up and eat anything I could possibly imagine.  You always limited me in what I could take, and honestly, I need more than what you can give me.

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The Linux Release Schedule Calendar

I have created a calendar which makes it easy to visually track the release dates of the most anticipated FOSS in the Linux community.  Below, is that calendar.  I update this calendar when I happen across an active roadmap for just about any major FOSS project that gets me excited.  So, if you know of a project that is not listed on this calendar, please let me know in the comments so that I can update the calendar accordingly.  Bookmark this page and use it as a reference to track important release dates of Linux projects.  I will try to keep it as up-to-date as possible.  Also, if there is anybody willing to participate and contribute, please leave a comment stating your ambition to help and I’ll add the privileges.

This Month:

This Week:

The Agenda:

Fedora 9 Sulphur Beta Smells a Little

So, I took a leap and decided to install Fedora 9 yesterday hoping to reap the benefits of Gnome 2.22 and the latest and greatest in general. What I found though is a mess of bugs. I understand that this is only a release for the early adopters, but I figured it would be a little more polished than this.  And by “this” I mean that upon install on my laptop, the:

• backlight was off (fixed after updates).
• multimedia keys don’t function (fixed after updates).
• webcam doesn’t work with cheese.
• package manager freaked out on sight of 300+ updates on fresh install and hung itself (after a restart, things were okay again).
• package manager wouldn’t uninstall anything.
• package manager spits out an error message when clicking on any category.
• desktop effects worked at first, but then were destroyed by the updates.
• backup/restore feature in evolution is worthless (maybe not Fedora’s fault).
• flash player doesn’t really play any flash.
• “restore from trash” feature that’s supposed to be included in Gnome 2.22 isn’t anywhere to be found.

It’s not an exhaustive list of the little things I noticed, but I just wasn’t expecting to run into any hurdles for some reason (even though it’s beta software). I guess I should have known better.

But, it’s not all bad. I’m more of a “half-full” kinda guy and so I would like to go over the things that give me a reason to keep it on my desktop:

• Clock and Weather have been merged together [Gnome].

• PackageKit is extremely simple.  I click “apply updates” and I only see that it’s doing it’s thing.  I can choose to go in and see what it’s going to install as well (for those users who are curious).

• The famous “Locations” map is pretty slick looking [Gnome].

• Finally, a more detailed description of what’s happening during file transfers [Gnome].

• Avant Window Navigator and it’s extras are easy to install through Add/Remove Programs.

• Mouse preferences are extensive (but no simple “disable click on tap” function yet for us laptop users).

• As always, the default theme for Fedora is nice.

There are a lot more features than that, but those are some highlights that I wanted to share. I hope you enjoyed the mini-review!

Fedora 9: An Artwork Review

Mairin Duffy has outdone herself this round with the artwork she has dedicated to the Fedora 9 project. She, with help from others, has come up with a theme based around the nickname of the release: Sulfur. With a green-tinted block of sulfur and some relaxing waves, the Fedora 9 theme is shaping up to be very nice. The overall scheme of the theme has changed to darker colors since Fedora 8, which seems to be going right along with the trend I’ve been seeing lately. Personally, I enjoy the “darker” colors, but only to an extent. I don’t want to feel like I’m in a pit of depression whenever I login.

In Artwork Round 3, she has made a change to the black/gray/yellow colors from Artwork Round 2 (see image to right) to darker blues and yellows (see image to left). I’m actually disappointed in that decision, but she’s the artist and I’ll let her do her thing. If it were me, I would have kept the grays instead of going with the blues. Undoubtedly, I would still choose this design over any of the others submitted.

There is one other item that I’m concerned about with the artwork this round. That is, it’s themed around a piece of sulfur. I hope that this doesn’t confuse the newcomers into thinking that it’s more than just a nickname. That’s all it is, a nickname. The main focus of Fedora shouldn’t be a block of sulfur, it should probably be just “Fedora - Infinity, Freedom, and Voice“. But, that’s just my humble opinion.