Category Archives: fedora 18

Mar 12 2013
bootup, fedora, fedora 18

Fedora Boot Experience

In a recent thread on fedora-devel, (warning, it’s > 150 messages) there is discussion on what we should display to the user during a typical boot up.  But to change and improve, defining and documenting what we already have is a good place to start.

Here is a quick set of screenshots that shows the screens that typical user may have to see and interact with when booting Fedora 18

1. Grub is displayed

GRUB is displayed by default on boot. There is a 5 second time-out for the user to do something. Or they can just press enter to boot the highlighted entry.

2. Grub boot details

GRUB then displays some output on what it is booting

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Optional Disk encryption screen.

If the system has disk encryption enabled, you will see an input box with a lock beside it where the LUKS passphrase is entered.

3. Plymouth Boot

A grey screen appears, and a silhouette of the fedora logo is shown on the screen. It “fills up” with white as the boot progresses. At this point the user may press the ESC key to bring up the gritty details of the bootup sequence.

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4. Bootup Complete

When the logo is filled up, the boot sequence is complete, and the fedora logo is shown in full colour

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5. Login Screen Shows

The login screen is shown.

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Feb 12 2013
fedora 18, GNOME 3.6, nautilus, Uncategorized

How do you stop GNOME applications (like nautilus) from hiding their titlebar when maximised?

Easy! There is an Ask Fedora! question that has the answer for you!

Feb 05 2013
anaconda, fedora 18

Anaconda didn’t just shed its skin

In a recent post, anaconda developer Will Woods provided the amazing statistic that:

about 90% of the Anaconda codebase was rewritten over 2 Fedora release cycles

This means that as well as having refreshed installer interface (aka newUI), the underlying code is cleaner, and easier to maintain.

Feb 04 2013
fedora, fedora 18, GNOME 3.6

Alt + Click & Drag to move windows no longer works in Fedora 18 / GNOME 3.8

In previous versions of Fedora running GNOME (pre Fedora 18, GNOME 3.6), a user was able to click and drag anywhere on a window while the ALT key was pressed to move the window. This behaviour has changed in Fedora 18. To replicate this behaviour, the user now needs to hold down the Super key (aka the meta key, or the Command key on an apple keyboard or the Windows key on a windows keyboard) while dragging anywhere on a window. Additionally, holding down ALT and Middle Clicking and dragging on a window previously allowed a user to resize the window. In Fedora 18 and GNOME 3.6, this key is now also the Super Key.

Want the old ALT key behaviour back?

Easy.

  1. Open up the GNOME Tweak Tool
  2. Choose the Windows category, from the list on the left hand side.
  3. Change the option for Modifier to use for modified window click actions from Super to Alt.
    tweak-alt-drag

 

 

Jan 16 2013
fedora, fedora 18, gnome, gnome shell

No Logout option in Fedora 18

In Fedora 18, GNOME 3.6 has some more tweaks and changes to how the User menu works. One change that may trip up regular Fedora / gnome-shell users is that there is no “Logout” option in the user menu (the menu that drops down from your name in the top right corner of the shell).

Basically, the change is this:

if you only have one user set up on a system, and only have one Desktop environment installed (i.e. just GNOME) then the logout option is not shown.

However, this comes with the following caveat: if you install a new desktop other than GNOME3, you will need to manually restart the shell  (press Alt+F2, type ‘r’, and hit enter) or reboot for the logout option to start displaying.

I don’t care, just re-enable the logout in Fedora 18

if you only have one user, and only one desktop enviroment, and still want the log out option to display,  the GNOME developerss have also added in an option to be able to persistently keep the logout option in the user menu.

To make the logout option always appear:

  1. First open up the dconf editor (fedora package “dconf-editor”), and navigate to the org > gnome > shell key.
  2. Check the option “always-show-log-out” (pictured below in the screenshot), to always show the logout option. Note, however, that a restart of the shell or a reboot may be required for this option to start working.

 

Jan 15 2013
fedora, fedora 18

Fedora 18 Released, print your sleeve!

Celebrate the release of Fedora 18 by printing out and folding a paper sleeve for your disc media. This release, we have all 12 of the media covers available as printable-at-home, foldable sleeves. There are also a set of graphical instructions to help you fold.

PDFs for the sleeves and instructions are indexed on the wiki, or you can use the following links:

  • Folding Instructions
  • 32-bit Install DVD
  • 64-bit Install DVD
  • 32 and 64-bit Install DVD
  • Multi Desktop Live DVD
  • 32-bit Desktop Live CD
  • 64-bit Desktop Live CD
  • 32-bit KDE Live CD
  • 64-bit KDE Live CD
  • 32-bit Xfce Live CD
  • 64-bit Xfce Live CD
  • 32-bit LXDE Live CD
  • 64-bit LXDE Live CD

Dec 12 2012
fedora, fedora 18

Home-printable, foldable disc sleeve for Fedora

While working on the (high-colour / goes to the professional printer / you have to worry about CMYK) disc sleeves for the upcoming fedora release, i stumbled on a print-at-home foldable disc sleeve for fedora 17.

So, i decided to take this concept, make a cover that could be printed onto white paper. So, download the PDF, and try it out for yourself! Note that this is not the final design for Fedora 18!