Month: June 2009

Here’s my take on installing Fedora 11, which was released June 9, 2009. I chose not to do an upgrade as I often do. Instead, I did backup, followed by a fresh install, preserving my /home partition, but wiping out the other partitions. Then I used [`meld`](http://meld.sourceforge.net/) to restore my configuration files in /etc — such as ssh server keys, printer settings and file system mounts. I found that I had to use the kernel boot option `nomodeset` in order to avoid system lockups. Overall, I’ve been pleased with my Fedora 11 experience, despite the bumps.

Fedora 11 useful resources:

– [Release Notes](http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f11/en-US/)
– [Common Bugs](http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F11_bugs), with workarounds.
– [Fedora Guide](http://www.fedoraguide.info/), explaining how to configure a Fedora system.

Pre-install:

– `cp -a /etc /home/backup/etc`
– `cp -a /root /home/backup/etc`
– backup /home
– booted the LiveCD to make sure it would detect my hardware and run

Install

– I decided to preserve my partition layout, which isn’t the default option upon fresh install
– Didn’t delete my `/home` partition.
– Reformatted all other partitions, with “/” as ext4

Post-install:

– Had to enable eth0 in NetworkManager, and make “enabled” the default.
– `yum install -y meld nautilus-actions nautilus-open-terminal vim-X11 zsh screen mc rdesktop`
– `meld /home/backup/etc /etc`
– Restored /etc/ssh settings
– Restored /etc/cups printer settings
– Checked /etc/fstab differences
– Installed [NX Server](http://www.nomachine.com/)

Pleasurable:

– Bootup is very pleasant, and seems faster. 30 seconds boot. 17 seconds login. 14 second shutdown. This is on an AMD Athlon 2400 Mhz Sempron with an ATI video card.
– Artwork is top notch (backgrounds on login screen and default wallpaper)

Pain points:

– Unavailable extensions for Thunderbird 3.0
— Enigmail
– Unavailable extensions for Firefox 3.5
— Aardvark
— QuickProxy
– Computer locked up every few hours until I added `nomodeset` to my kernel settings in /etc/grub.conf.

Last year, I wrote about how to achieve [Gnome Slideshow Screensaver Sanity](http://jaredrobinson.com/blog/?p=106). I’ve recently upgraded to Fedora 11, and I noticed that GLSlideshow isn’t installed by default (maybe it never was), and I wondered if I could alter the settings for gnome slideshow. By default, it uses pictures out of the $HOME/Pictures folder, and there’s no way in the user interface to change that location, which can be frustrating. Here’s how I worked around it. Note the use of the `–location` option, and that I changed my `Name=` setting.

– `cp /usr/share/applications/screensavers/personal-slideshow.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/my-slideshow.desktop`
– `gedit ~/.local/share/applications/my-slideshow.desktop`


[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Custom Photos
Exec=/usr/libexec/gnome-screensaver/slideshow --location=/home/images/Photos
TryExec=/usr/libexec/gnome-screensaver/slideshow
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=GNOME;Screensaver;
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;


Go into the screensaver preferences (System -> Preferences -> Screensaver), and select “Custom Photos”. There’s no way to customize the duration to display each photo, but at least I don’t have to settle for Gnome’s default location.