release time came, and i balked.  my normal rush to install the latest fedora on my personal laptop didn’t happen.  i was very apprehensive.  i did manage to install it on my netbook and worked well with in that environment.   to me, it seemed better fit for that platform anyway.  ok, let’s be honest:  i was just too used to my compiz and transparent terminals and rotating cube and wobbly windows to give them up.  of course, a change like this on my work laptop would mean slower productivity while i unlearned what i had learned.

that’s the boring stuff.  i finally installed on personal lappy and work lappy.  correction:  i finally logged into gnome 3 on both.  i found that a few things in gnome 3 had been smoothed over.

what i like:

• integrated messaging (using pidgin and the shell extension rather than empathy). this works like it was designed and for me functions just as efficiently.
• suspend vs. shutdown. i have seen people suspend their laptops, shove it their bags, and go home.  i thought this was dumb since the battery would fade faster than if it had been completely shutdown.  but as i have been adopting this behavior, i like it much better.  there’s a time for shutting down and a time for suspending.  most of the time, i’ve discovered, it’s the latter.  and for a desktop, who shuts those down anymore unless you have to unplug it or open it up for maintenance.  more often than not, those are the exceptions.  what is great is pulling my lappy out of my timbuktu and having it ready to go.  a couple of seconds to find a network connection, and i ‘m back in business.

what i am getting used to:

• vertical desktop layout vs. horizontal (or in my case, cube). the auto-adding of the screens/desktops when needed is nice.  my one dislike of this is the auto-removing when the screen/desktop is cleared of windows.  i like things in a certain order.  crashed or closed window can rearrange that order.
• maximize and tiling of windows. i am still adjusting to this.  i would say i like it, but i still find myself accidentally max-ing a window then trying to line it up at the top of the screen.

what i don’t like:

• the lack of transparency of my terminals! i read through my term windows rather than alt+tabbing (or alt+accenting) among them, so the transparency is key to me.  i do understand this is a side effect of how they did the transparency effect and will be corrected in gnome 3.2.  i really want this back.  (yes, i know you get your transparency with maximized windows, but i don’t open every single one of my terminals in max size work.)
• the message pop-up bar at the bottom. i am still getting used to this.  i feel that it’s clunky and needs a change, but i don’t have a good suggestion for a way to change it.  i’m not even sure why i have a problem with it.  it just doesn’t feel like it works efficiently.
• no battery indicator on the top bar. really?  seems kinda backwards when they want a more suspend-able mindset only to not show you how much juice you have left.  someone wasn’t thinking on this point.  i know some themes have it, but this should have been out-of-the-box included.

i’m stoked to see what version three point two will look and feel like.  and with a few adjusted themes, i’m happy with the experience.  bonus points to all those who have contributed the shell extensions allowing for modification.

the adjustment wasn’t as painful as i imagined.  i used xfce for a while before jumping into gnome 3.  i even toyed around with fluxbox as an alternative.  in the end, i gave it a shot.  i mean, c’mon!  it’s not like it’s kde or os x.

the f15 media was shipped to us but hadn’t made it to the hotel by friday.  a few of us started burning media to hand out on saturday.  we made a dent in the stack of dvds by the time it was over.  i cashed out a little earlier than the others as i don’t do late very well anymore.

when i made it down to the table the next morning, i found the official f15 media on the table.  fedex had moved it from salt lake city to spartanburg by 9:15a.  the media is nice, the crowning achievement being the live media which makes it possible to boot into any of four desktops on either 32- or 64-bit.  (thanks to spot for that work.)

check out a few pics:

toshio sent out an email to the fedora mailing lists asking who might show up at pycon.  dave malcolm was there giving a couple of talks, one of which i attended.  (it was a very good session.)  along with toshio and david, i met neville.  (luke was there too, but i never actually spoke to him.)

ben sent the box of swag to toshio who in turn gave it to me.  on friday, which was first day of the main conference, i located the free grab table and put out some media, pens, pins, and balloons right before i walked into a session.  when i came out of that session, the stuff was gone.

wow.  next morning, i brought down more of the fedora stuff and put it out on the same table.  again, next break for the sessions, it was all gone…except for maybe one pen.  sunday morning, i put out the rest of the media, pens, pins, stickers, and balloons.  i didn’t check back later, but given the response the first couple of times i think it all might have found a home.

in all that saw, fedora was represented.  one of the network sessions i attended included a live security spin with the speaker’s scripts.  of course, dave malcolm highlighted the fedora blue.  and those of us who did attend wore our fedora shirts at some point during the time.

i don’t have any pics.  it was good to meet toshio, dave, and neville.  (luke, next time i’ll have a convo with you.)  it’s good to be part of the fedora community.

fedora events: pycon 2011

Southern_Gentlem, threethirty, SGS all instructing the world about fedora linux

i sat in on stormy’s opening keynote.  of the few points she made, the one about how much of our private data can be better controlled using firefox was surprising to me.  i was also intrigued about the tomboy notes app, something of which i have not made much use.

i sat in on stickster’s pyGtk talk.  it was a  good presentation.  i’ve fooled around with pyGtk before, so this was a refresher.  it was presented well.  i just wish he had more time available to expound on more of his examples.

john “maddog” hall – thanks for all the fish!

i had never heard john “maddog” hall speak before, but i was familiar with the name.  his closing session at the end of the day was an enlightening trip of his forty years of jobs which included his introduction and involvement with linux from the operating system’s beginning.

we handed out all the media, almost all the stickers, and the t-shirts went like hotcakes!  i wasn’t there for the t-shirt giveaway, but i heard it took only 15 minutes to unload the batch SouthernGentlem brought with him.  everyone wanted them!  and why not?  it is fedora, after all.

fedora media

threethirty and SGS waiting for the next question

two OLPCs and a netbook showing off the fedora (and stickster at the red hat table)

it’s been a while since i’d taken a road trip.  this weekend was pleasant.

oh, and the accommodations were very nice.  this was sunrise from my window on saturday morning.

sunrise

my concern was making sure i had supported video since my last purchase proved to be an epic fail. i took a copy of fedora on a usb key into best buy and booted the sony laptop up to verify the video drivers. my testing was a definite win.

as with all my computers, i swiftly removed windows from the hard drive and replaced with linux, fedora flavored. i got my laptop up to speed rather quickly and was happy.

then one day, i was interacting with some people in the #fedora-social channel on irc and someone asked me if sound was working. i told him that i wasn’t sure. when i got home, i checked. it was not working. i never thought to check the sound as there’s not been problems with the sound working in the past. (at least, i’ve not had any difficulties.)

when i reported back that my sound was silent, i was given a few suggestions to try. after jumping through those hoops, what finally worked was to grab a koji kernel and install it. at the time, it was in release candidate 1 status, but it gave me sound. since then, that kernel was stabilized, and i am currently running 2.6.34.6-54.fc13.x86_64.)

since that’s been resolved, this laptop is has all the desired items on my list.

hp g26t

i purchased the laptop with money from tax return, and it shipped to me.  i picked it up on friday and unboxed it immediately only to find the keyboard wasn’t what i thought it was going to b (first unmet expectation).  i took it home, ran the dvd backup software first, then shoved my fedora 12 (64-bit) dvd into the player for the reboot.  the installation went smoothly.  i ran the upgrade next (since i hadn’t previously downloaded a f12 respin image and didn’t want to wait for it).

when it rebooted, i noticed the resolution was still stuck on 1024×768.  this thing does better, i reasoned.  i copied the xorg.conf file to my home directory and rebooted.  when it restarted, i had no screen.  i rebooted again.  same deal.  i tried to ctrl+alt+f2 to a straight up text login.  nothing.  all the f-keys gave me nothing.

i tried rebooting into vesa mode, nomodeset, noacpi…all the same blank nothingness.  i set my init to 3 and booted to a command line.  checked intel hardware, looked on the google for any hope of someone posting a solution or even a sympathetic blog post of the same problem.  nothing out there about it.  this machine is too new for that.

after asking for more advice in the #fedora channel on freenode (irc), i realized i’d found an intel video driver the linux kernel didn’t support.  i decided it was best to send it back.  which i did.

now, i’m back to where i was just before i found this laptop.  my second interest laptop isn’t a strong enough want to just simply purchase it.  maybe if i wait, i’ll find something i want when they put out some new laptops.

i have to admit that i have a real dislike/never-use-again mentality for at&t. but this has bought them a little bit of respect from me. don’t get me wrong. i’m still never going to use them again, but i will admire them from my reliable internet connections way over here.

before skin

after skin

a few other features that are of interest to me:

• another big bonus i’m looking forward to is the twenty second boot time.
• how about individual volume controls for different apps?  yes, please.
• gnome 2.26 is the default desktop.  kde 4.2 is available for those who need bigger buttons and more of a windows vista/7 feel.
• and ext4 allowing for up to 16TB file sizes.  just in case, you know.

i have to say the artwork is looking pretty good too, good quality.

in all my dealings with fedora, i’ve had to content with several technologies a bit behind the release date, such as the 3-d effects.  everything i had installed worked out of the gate for this install.  were i to do an upgrade, it would have been practically seemless.  the team did a good job with this release.