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 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
• Common Bugs, with workarounds.
• Fedora Guide, 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

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. 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.