Fedora 12 is Go.

It has been officially announced that the next version of Fedora will be released on time in a week. The release date is 17th November. See RedHat announcement.

There are many new features see Fedora 12 features.

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Credit where it is Due

I have criticised Optus in the past when I had problems with my mobile broadband so it is only fair to give credit when they get it right.

As a result of the storms the other night, al least I guess it was the storms could have been a totally unrelated problem, I lost all mobile phone and broadband reception at home. I called them to report it and after describing the situation, my phone could see distant towers weakly for short periods and both being out, they agreed it was most likely a network issue. They said they had several problems in the Sydney area but our local area hadn’t been reported. They would get a tech to investigate but it could take up to 48 hours to resolve. Not something to look forward to.

Anyway less than 10 hours later I had gotten into the habit of checking my phone every so often and there was a full signal this time. I had internet and working well too.

Well done Optus.

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Netbooks

I have been interested in the idea of a netbook since they first appeared. I can see the advantage of a small portable computer especially since laptops seem to be getting larger. I remember many years ago using a 486 laptop that only ran dos but was small and light. It was the ideal travel companion. So recently I decided it was time to add to my collection of pcs.

The new unit is Kogan Agora Pro from Kogan, an Australian company. At under $500 it is the cheapest netbook available in Australia but despite that is well equipped. It has a 160gb drive and 2 gig ram as well as the standard Atom processor. Graphics are Intel 950 which support 3d, transparency etc. OS is gOS a version of Linux based on Ubuntu with a emphasis on Google.

So how good is it? It is only available online which is a bit of a concern. I like to see and touch before I buy. However there were several good reviews online so I took a risk. It arrived in a couple of days. Just a plain white box with the usual hardware but no manual. That is only available on the website. Kogan proudly state they are a paperless company. It had a Windows XP sticker even though it came with Linux, that went very quickly. My first impressions were very good, it runs well and seems well made.

I was not so impressed with the operating system though. It seemed to be an older version as it contained out of date versions of OpenOffice and Firefox. The getting started guide recommended against updating it too. Seems that causes problems with the wifi driver. To add to that it didn’t recognise my wireless broadband so I couldn’t get online.

My next move was predictable I guess. gOS was gone and Fedora replaced it. Most things worked out of the box including wifi and my wireless broadband. I was surprised how well it ran even with KDE 4.3 installed which is a bit resource intensive. Even the desktop effects worked. It didn’t take me long to have the desktop customised the way I like it. Later I added the Xfce 4.6 desktop and that runs even better. I will give Fedora’s new Moblin spin when that becomes available after the release of Fedora 12 in about a month.

I have used it around home, in meetings and when out and about. It has prove a worthwhile investment and a useful tool.

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Fedora, Mobile Broadband and Conky

It was over 12 months ago that I blogged about using my Optus mobile broadband with Fedora. I’ve noticed there have been a few searches on that subject recently so I thought it was about time I updated.

With Fedora 11

When I first plugged the 3g modem in it generated a SELinux error and I had to set SELinux to permissive to get it working. That is no longer the case with Fedora 11. Nor does it load the modem as an usb drive. It is recognised as a modem and Network Manager just handles it.

I must add that this seems to apply only to Fedora. I have tried it in Mandriva and Ubuntu derivatives like Gos and only Mint has worked.

This will improve in Fedora 12 with a new feature that will automatically set up the requirements for each provider. Looks like a great feature for those who need to change the default settings.

Working with Conky

Conky is a very useful system monitor. I have often thought of doing a post on Conky but in the interim I’ll just talk about monitoring the Mobile Broadband.

When I first  set up the Mobile Broadband I couldn’t get Conky to report on it. I tried “dmesg | grep usb” and it reported that the modem was using ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2. However none of these would report any activity. Searching around I found that these were redirecting to ppp0. I can’t remember where I found this but it has been consistent across multiple Fedora versions and computers. I can now see the current activity on the Internet connection.

If it is useful here is the code I added to my .conkyrc to get it working

${color0}INTERNET $color(${addr ppp0}) ${color0}${hr 2}$color
${color1}Down:$color  ${downspeed ppp0} KB/s${alignr}${color1}Up:$color ${upspeed ppp0} KB/s
${downspeedgraph ppp0 25,120 color1 color2} ${alignr}${upspeedgraph ppp0 25,120 color1 color2}$color
${color1}Downloaded: $color${totaldown ppp0} $alignr ${color1}Uploaded: $color${totalup ppp0}

Hope that helps.

Security on the Go

An article on Lifehacker Australia today highlights the problem of security when using free wi-fi. I wonder how many people realise that they are putting themselves at risk when they surf the web at fast food and other places. Have a look here for more info.

Keyboard Shortcuts

I may have mentioned earlier that I have set up keyboard shortcuts for menu items I use daily. But since I updated to KDE 4.3 I have noticed a change in the way shortcuts are set up.

Previously I right clicked on the menu icon and selected menu editor. Next I found the app I wanted to create a shortcut for and then I went to the advanced tab and entered the key combination.

I still do that but now an additional step is required. I need to go the System Settings then Input Actions and the shortcuts I have created are there but not activated. Adding a tick to each shortcut activates it and it starts to work. I’m not sure if this is a bug or a change that was added for a reason but it seems an unnecessary complication.

Fedora and KDE 4.3

KDE 4.3 was released a few weeks ago and the update has finally made it into the Fedora Updates repo a few days ago. It had been in Updates Testing for a while. The update was worth waiting for, 4.3 is another improvement.

The release notes list hundreds of bugs that have been squashed and although most apparent changes are cosmetic the work done beneath the skin is obvious from the improved performance. I’ve noticed a speed increase to the extent that KDE isn’t much slower than Xfce on the same hardware. This is a condemnation of Xfce as much as a bouquet for KDE. I found Xfce 4.6 to be slow compared to previous versions while KDE has made big strides forward since 4.0.

The only small problem I had was I needed to change my startup script for Conky as it lost its transparency. It appears the config file that contains the wallpaper setting has changed. That fixed everything is back to normal, well a better normal.

KDE 4.3 is another (big!) step forward for KDE. It is now well and truly ready for everyday use. If you haven’t tried KDE for a while now is the time for another look.

Desktop Effects – Your Choice

When someone mentions desktop effects in Linux most people think of Compiz. If you use Gnome that is your only option. However Linux is all about choice. If you use KDE or Xfce you can have desktop effects without Compiz.

I’m not knocking Compiz here as without doubt it offers the widest variety of effects. Many people may not realise it is not the only option. I’ll give an overview of these other effects as found on Fedora 11. Some of the details may differ in other distros.

Xfce (I have 4.6.1) has some basic effects hidden under Window Manager Tweaks in the Preferences menu. The Compositor tab has some options for different levels of Transparency and Shadows. There aren’t any other effects, no wobbly windows or cubes. It works well on my old Radeon card with little effect on performance. Reducing the Opacity of inactive windows makes the active one easier to use. It may be the only choice on older computers which can’t handle Compiz.

KDE (4.2.4) has much more extensive options. Under System Settings select Desktop and you have the setup screen for KDE Desktop Effects. It appears to be trying to reproduce Compiz in KDE. It isn’t quite there but does a good job. In fact I find it a bit more stable then Compiz in the same environment. The earlier versions were a bit buggy but it is good now. One big advantage is it uses the standard Workspace switcher unlike Compiz. It has all the popular options like the Cube or Sphere, Wobbly windows and of course the standard stuff like shadows and transparency. While not as complete as Compiz and without some of the fine tuning although it gets closer with each update, it is a good choice if you use KDE 4.2 or higher.

So there are some alternatives to Compiz which have the advantage of being native to the Desktop manager. They are worth a look.

Fedora 11

I finally got around to installing F11 on my Dell 1520 laptop this week so here are some of my experiences and impressions. I looked back at my post on F10 before I wrote this and I must say although 10 was good the installation of F11 went very well.

This time I only installed KDE and not Xfce. Not that I have any problems with Xfce, I will use it on my older desktop as KDE is a bit heavy for it. I stuck to the x86_64 version as I haven’t had any problems with it in older versions. I can’t see the point of having a 64 bit processor and running a 32 bit system.

The installation didn’t start off well as it stalled when anaconda started. I had to use the basic video driver option on the dvd. It then went as usual. I didn’t need to do that in previous versions but it didn’t worry me as I intended to install the nVidia drivers anyway. They are needed for desktop effects and GoogleEarth.

The installation went well, I selected KDE and then added and removed some of the optional apps. Next step was to install yum-presto. This is one of the big advances in F11, or maybe that should be little advances as it reduces the size of updates. With presto only the actual changes are downloaded not the whole package. For those of us with slower connections or limited downloads this is a great improvement. The downloads are reduced by up to 80% but I gather the average is about 60%.

That done I updated which took a lot less time than usual. There was some problems getting started as I got some strange errors from the repos but I gather that was due to the heavy load. I sorted itself out and I haven’t had any problems since.  Then it was time to install the other apps and drivers I wanted.

Next was time to customise the desktop. The new artwork looks great but  … well lets just say blue isn’t my favourite colour. Unfortunately only one theme and wallpaper is installed with KDE so I installed kdeartwork from the Fedora repos. This adds many more themes and some wallpapers although I use one I found elsewhere or one of my own photos.

After setting up Conky and restoring my backups of data and some config files, Amarok databases and the like I was almost ready to go. The only real issue I had was my bluetooth mouse. I hate using the touchpad and wanted to get the mouse working asap. I found that although Kbluetooth4 was installed by default Bluez wasn’t so there was no Bluetooth service. That fixed I tried to get the mouse recognised. I had to restart before it would work. Kbluetooth4 let me set it up but after each restart I had to do it again, it showed in the status as “not trusted”. I couldn’t find anywhere to change it but after a few restarts it brought up a dialogue and asked if it was trusted and has been working ever since. I was then able to disable the touchpad as I have found my self bumping it in the past and ended up typing somewhere else on the screen.

The end result is I have working system in little time with no real problems after the Bluetooth was sorted. KDE looks great and runs better than ever. Some of the KDE apps have been updated and just keep getting better. I have seen reports of problems with sound but that seems to be mainly Gnome, mine worked out of the box on both speakers and headphones.

In my opinion this is the best Fedora ever, isn’t it great that we can say that every version. Well done to the Fedora team.

Another Firefox Gadget

Since I wrote the last post I have added a new gadget that seems pretty useful. It is aimed at Australian Firefox (and other Mozilla browsers) users and others who have download limits on their internet connection. It provides a quick check of the current usage using the data from your ISP. It adds a meter into your toolbar. Hovering the mouse over the meter shows more info.   I found out about on my friend Snowy’s site here. More information and it can be downloaded here.