Comments on Linux Update: Proposed Fedora 8 Features

So far, I like what I see in Fedora 8! What I have...

2008-06-16T19:33:00.000-04:00

So far, I like what I see in Fedora 8! What I have not seen that I would like to see is:

1) 3D desktop, and

2) a 'Configure Your System' (such as is found in PCLOS and other such distros), and

3) WiFi support (I have a Belkin USB WiFi and Fedora does not detect it, whereas PCLOS and Ubuntu (so far I've yet to try other distros on it)

I am debating on installing Fedora 8 - I am using the Live CD to evaluate Fedora.

Good job (so far), people, on Fedora 8!!! ;)

QBall

"This first feature is to bling up the boot sequen...

2007-11-16T17:00:00.000-05:00

"This first feature is to bling up the boot sequence. Currently the boot sequence is a mix of text and graphical modes and doesn't look as professional as some of the other competing OS's logins. (Mac OSX, Windows, Ubuntu) This features calls for the hiding of some current boot up graphics such as the GRUB menu and ensuring that there is only one mode switch between text and graphical boot."

I seriously I think this is a stupid reason!! really who cares about bling blinging a boot up scene just to make it look attractive. I think the text boot up mode looks more geekish and true linux-ish compare to a fancy colorful boot screen trying to copy winblow and ubuntu.

Worrying about useless features like this and trying to make it look more like winblows is a turn off. stop trying to make linux look more winblowish/ubuntu-ish,
Let linux be linux, the way its always suppose to be.

A french review :http://www.tux-planet.fr/blog/?20...

2007-11-08T12:55:00.000-05:00

A french review :

http://www.tux-planet.fr/blog/?2007/11/08/203-fedora-8

id like to see some wireless support, right now im...

2007-11-07T19:11:00.000-05:00

id like to see some wireless support, right now im stuck with vista on my new laptop because i cant find any drivers for my broadcom wireless card in f7

I'm just bought a new laptop and I was not able to...

2007-11-01T11:42:00.000-04:00

I'm just bought a new laptop and I was not able to install fedora because of "No found device" issue, like this
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?p=886846#post886846

I hope that this will be fixed in fedora 8.

I hope that all new feature will be available for fluxbox (I realized that
network manager was only for gnome desktop
manager)

Massimo

P.S.: Actually I was downloading the ubuntu distro after the problem with "no driver found", but then I realized that
the 7th November there will be available F8 .. and .. moreover ... it's my birthday, so I decide to just wait and see what kind of present I'm going to obtain

there was an issue making faster the shut-down in ...

2007-10-22T01:47:00.000-04:00

there was an issue making faster the shut-down in Fedora 7 development which unfortunately finaly was not included into the distro. And perhaps some others. Don't you think these tasks once started could be also solved, though one distro later then scheduled?

Just a quick note on how to get gnome personal fol...

2007-10-18T09:35:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note on how to get gnome personal folder for screensaver and make it work! If you edit the file /usr/share/applications/screensavers/personal-slideshow.desktop file and change the execute slideshow entry to point to your folder containing the pictures you wish it to use recursively, then it does work (under Centos 5) i.e. change
Exec=slideshow --location=Pictures
to
Exec=slideshow--location=/home/!me!/mypics
where !me! is your user!
Thanks though - as without this blog, I probably would never have found it and got it working....

Really, though I am just a kid annoyed by windows,...

2007-10-15T19:02:00.000-04:00

Really, though I am just a kid annoyed by windows, Fedora 8 could have an easier way to connect the internet to your computer.

I was very glad to see that dialup is fixed. The ...

2007-10-15T10:55:00.000-04:00

I was very glad to see that dialup is fixed. The previous 7 version wouldn't work with a basic USR 56K external modem, I loaded the machine with 8 live beta3 and it worked like a charm.

I am a big fan of fedora not only because it works...

2007-10-11T02:16:00.000-04:00

I am a big fan of fedora not only because it works great, but it also gives me new and great things to use.
I recently used blackbox with fedora. it works great and my system transformed to a superfast computer.
also i used VMware server with fedora .it is good.
No bugs encountered except for Xen which i am unable to start
also kde is great.
Eagerly waiting for fedora 8.

Please work on fixing the bugs in evolution. I w...

2007-10-09T09:46:00.000-04:00

Please work on fixing the bugs in evolution. I work at a large company with many people using different versions of Linux. The people I talk to have similar problems with evolution crashing. For Linux to be accept in a workplace setting we need a reliable email reader using exchange. Several times a day evolution crashes and I must restart it. I can't wait to see Fedora 8 with KDE 4.

Please work on fixing the bugs in evolution. I w...

2007-10-09T09:45:00.000-04:00

Please add HBA support from Emulex & Qlogic - This...

2007-09-25T14:58:00.000-04:00

Please add HBA support from Emulex & Qlogic - This is a huge issue - having to compile separate kernels becomes time consuming especially if your trying to build/manage a 200+ linux shop - development purposes. Would prefer to stick with Fedora.

I just hope that the old firewire stack (raw1394, ...

2007-08-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

I just hope that the old firewire stack (raw1394, etc) be included in Fedora 8.

I'd like to see Alpine included with Fedora 8. It'...

2007-08-08T22:26:00.000-04:00

I'd like to see Alpine included with Fedora 8. It's the new Pine, but with an open-source license, and lots of improvements.

what about KDE issue????fedora 7 is a first editio...

2007-08-05T22:20:00.000-04:00

what about KDE issue????

fedora 7 is a first edition Im running with fc repo packages not an unofficial ones :)))... its a slite improvement however the problem still exists!!! integration and tuning of different desktops....
ubuntu solve that problem by the way they designed the software: basic-system+ubuntu-desktop+kubuntu-desktop+xubuntu-desktop

the question is fc would follow the ubuntu way or find antoher???... the worse is still developing only gnome oriented distro as it was since the beginig...

kde simply lacks some fedora deeply featured packages...

I hope suspend/resume works again and maybe faster...

2007-07-29T08:02:00.000-04:00

I hope suspend/resume works again and maybe faster init (runit perhaps?).

I totally agree with farlander on the movie/screen...

2007-07-27T19:21:00.000-04:00

I totally agree with farlander on the movie/screensaver issue.
There should be a easy way to disable everything that could make the screen go blank. It is embarrassing when you hold a presentation and the beamer goes dark and somebody tells you that they cant see what your talking about.

NetworkManager is great, but there is still room for improvement. Sometimes it is not done with connecting to a wireless network, you also need to connect to a vpn and change proxy settings before you're really "online". this could be done automatically and should be imho.

And the services started by default should be changed but afaik this is known by everyone and probably on the list already.

Farlander, I completely quote your message!

2007-07-26T18:58:00.000-04:00

Farlander, I completely quote your message!

In reference to a previous post “propose a "NEW" f...

2007-07-26T09:24:00.000-04:00

In reference to a previous post “propose a "NEW" feature: Fix the things that are wrong in Fedora 7 FIRST!”
There are a vast number of “most annoying bugs”, “features” and general problems that have existed for years, yet never get solved.
To be fair – I have used Fedora 7, but have gone back to CentOS 5. There was too little in Fedora 7 that I could use verses CentOS 5. (Read that as eagerly waiting to see if Fedora 8 is worthwhile)
Some of the issues mentioned might already be covered in the most recent updates to Fedora 7 and they might already be planned for Fedora 8. However, these items being so old in all RH products, I think the following list is still valid.
A very very brief list of these things:

Gnome:
1) Documention is sub standard by any definition. The Gnome manual is “Google”.
2) When I select places from the tool bar, I have home folder, desktop (not needed), Book marked folders, computer, dvd creator, network servers (even though I have none), Connect to server (again, none), search for files and finally, recent documents.
I have never found how to change the number of documents listed. More important, it is not obvious how to remove the “recent documents” listing and NOT have them cached.
The only GUI tool we have for these settings is gconf-editor. If it is in there, I have never found it – it too is poorly documented.
3) gconftool-2 is a good command line tool. However, the documentation on it is nothing less than wretched. Even with Google.
4) The screen saver picture directory: Now this one has a huge number of complaints about it. From the screen saver GUI you can select a picture folder, but there is no way to specify where that folder is. Actually, it will not even tell you where the default folder is. Eventually a determined user will figure out is is ~/.Pictures. A very determined Google hunter might possibly figure out that the directory is specified in the file:
/usr/share/applications/screensavers/personal-slideshow.desktop
Buried in that file you can find the default directory for the pictures. Even so, the main complaint is that there is NO way to recursively pull images from that location.
This leaves the user to make his own hack to populate the directory with the files he wants.
This complaint goes back years and there is no excuse for it – none.

Nautilus:
To give a little credit, sometimes bad Nautilus behavior does get corrected. With FC5, if you deleted a directory that had the focus, Nautilus would slam shut. Very annoying when you were 10 levels deep moving files or directories. For FC6 that was corrected and now at least it does not slam shut and the focus moves to the trash in that case. But it took how many years to fix that?
1) Tree View: Some places it is called tree view, others Browser view. Very confusing for new users. This is a usability issue. This is especially true because the default on all Red Hat products is to use a view that is a graphical equal to “ls”.
Command line guys (traditional Unix / Linux users), might like this default view. However, back in the days of Dos, the majority of users despised the output of “Dir”. Eventually an add on product called “Xtree” came to the market. It was SO WELL accepted and so much better, it became the standard view – a tree view. Over 90% of computer users understand the Tree View, the vast majority of those find the view Red Hat uses as a default to be abhorrent.
The least that can be done is make it easy for new users to get a view they understand.
Think Usability. Don't mix terminology, make the tree view easy for new users to find.
2) Hidden files and Folders. The selection says “Show hidden files”, but what you actually get is show hidden folders or files that begin with “.” . Only if you go into the settings can you also turn on show hidden backup files WITH hidden files.
This is an issue because things like Gedit make ~ backup files by default. If you don't see them and you are not aware of what applications are making these, they accumulate all over the system over time. They also tend to get stuffed into tar files when you tar up a directory.
Using Find, I have cleaned out hundreds of Meg of useless backup files.
For usability, there should be an entry in preferences for “Show backup files”.
3) Thumbnails: Now here is one you can find a massive amount of complaints on.
Nautilus NEVER removes a thumbnail file. As such, it saves them even from movable media and it continues to make copies as files and directories get moved around. On a file server, this is a non-issue. On a desktop with tens or like mine, hundreds of thousands of images, this grows to Gigabytes. They never get purged, there is NO setting to delete thumbnails when the application closes.
3a) What most bitterly complain about is that there is no option to select the size of the thumbnail. And NO, 150% zoom for a blurry picture is NOT a solution.
Off hand, I forgot the default size for thumbnails (128?). With an 800x600 resolution, the default is not bad. Up at 1280 x 1024 and moving towards 1600x1200, those thumbnails get smaller all the time. This is a serious usability problem and many have complained about it for years.

Screen goes blank watching a movie:
Fedora and Ubuntu forums have this complaint. It is not the screen saver kicking in, it is the monitor shutting off. In brief, the solution that works all depends on the Video card and driver combination in use. As you mix and match the cards and drivers, the solution that works changes. For some, setting DPMS False in the xorg.conf file will work. For others, even if you set that, when you query the settings with xset, it is back on! To correct the bad behavior of shutting off your monitor when watching a movie many have to resort to making an .xinitrc.sh file and add that to the startup applications (after the init scripts have run).
xset -dpms
xset s 0
xset s noblank
In that file, the above commands are usually enough to force the screen to remain on.
Using Gnome power management and setting the display sleep to never – does not work.
Another hack that works for some (depending on the combination again), is to go into gconf-editor, find the monitor sleep settings and change the number to 7200 seconds (2 hours) or as mine is set, 99999 seconds. When Gnome power manager sets it to never, it is set to zero and that does nothing, it gets ignored.
But the above just illustrate the hacks to make it work. Gnome need to be smart enough to know a movie is playing – and do not shut off the monitor.
If you are going to have power saving / monitoring in Gnome, it should work – and for many it does not.

Feature, Encrypted /Root. Whole disk encryption.
One might think this is a priority for Red Hat. They already claim to work with the NSA in developing SELinux for security. US Government mandate is that all Government laptops have full disk encryption – laptops get lost and stolen. Without this feature, Red Hat misses the world largest customer...
This feature has been working in one form or another since May 2004 !!!
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=124789
Even so, mkinitrd has still not incorporated the patch. Anyone that wants to use this feature still has to get the source, patch it, build the rpm, then make a new initrd.
Since this is still not done after 3 years – there is of course no check box in Disk Druid to make a default Encrypted system.
I.E. Non encrypted /boot, encrypted swap (with password for laptop users wanting hibernate, random password for desktops), encrypted /root – preferably setup as an LVM. (Using dmcrypt and device mapper anyway)
The final touch – have Disk Druid ask where you want to store the LUKS key – on the disk or on a removable device.

All the tools are available – where is the coordinated product to keep our data safe from physical theft?

The above is a very brief list of ancient issues, there are many more.
There are many of us, that when we see a new feature like “Big Board”, we do not want that on our desk top any more than we want “Big Bird” on our desktop. If it can be turned off – we will just suffer in silence knowing more useless code and bloat is built in. And we will just keep shaking our heads in disbelief that talent and resources can be expended on that when there are so many old issues outstanding.

Fedora needs a “Bug Triage” edition.

First fix a buggy yum-updatesd (filled in bugzilla...

2007-07-25T04:01:00.000-04:00

First fix a buggy yum-updatesd (filled in bugzilla) ... then think about F8.

I too would like to see the actual Sun JDK/JRE in ...

2007-07-24T18:51:00.000-04:00

I too would like to see the actual Sun JDK/JRE in Fedora 8.

I just wanted to ask if we'll be seeing Compiz Fusion with corresponding Fusion Icon & Settings Manager to handle desktop effects?

I've been using Compiz Fusion git packages courtesy of kagesenshi with Fedora 7 and over the past few weeks I've found them just as stable as F7's Compiz. I've also found performance to be a little bit better with Fusion.

What also could be optimized is the startup menu (...

2007-07-23T19:28:00.000-04:00

What also could be optimized is the startup menu (Applications, System).
Sometimes it just takes too long for the icons besides the menu entries to be loaded. This could be a bit smoother.

As for "real" OpenJDK Java, Sun apparently forgot ...

2007-07-23T13:34:00.000-04:00

As for "real" OpenJDK Java, Sun apparently forgot to change the license comments in some of the files, but until they officially remove the "SUN PROPRIETARY" from those problem files IcedTea is only being distributed as source. Discussions and instructions at openjdk.distro-packaging.devel

"the updater" is absolutely correct: it's not the ...

2007-07-22T10:35:00.000-04:00

"the updater" is absolutely correct: it's not the distro that makes for bloat, but the desktop environment. Also, the number of services started during system boot contributes to slowness. Many of these can be turned off and are unnecessary. For older machines, Xfce4 is a great mix of functionality and speed.

The core GNU/Linux operating system, with no services running except essential ones, is basically the same from distro to distro. The added features and user tools that are added by the designers are what contributes to the size and system requirements of a given distro. It's a design trade-off: go for user friendliness or performance. Most modern hardware can handle anything thrown at it, but older hardware is perfectly useful with Linux: just choose the right number of services starting and a lightweight desktop.