Fedora 12 Is Ready For Primetime

Fedora 12 is release and is now ready for downloading here. Fedora 12 is now promising better web-cam support and improved video codecs. Also listed as major improvements are audio and power management. Some of the minor improvements are listed as better bluetooth, bug reporting, security and virtualization enhancements. I haven't used Fedora in a while and I will be downloading the iso and loading it to a flash drive. Fedora has their own tool for creating USB keys, the LiveUSB Creator. It will work in Linux or a Windows version is available and it is easily the easiest way to create the Fedora Live USB.

Speed Up Gnome In Most Distros

I have an older system and I am always on the lookot for little tweaks to gain some more performance out of my system. If you have a dual or quad core, these tips might not be of interest except to pass on to your friends with lesser CPU power.

• Use wireframe instead of rendering windows

When moving windows the system has to render the contents before moving it. If this is sluggish on your system open a terminal and type: (all one line)
gconftool -2 --type bool --set /apps/metacity/general/reduced_resources true
This command will not work if you are using Compize but if you are you most likely don't need it.

• Force menus to open faster

This command will remove the small delay the system uses to draw the icons in the menus. It will require you to re-start the xserver.
 gtk-menu-popup-delay=0
Don't forget to reinitialize xserver by using Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. Your menus will pop open a bit faster with this tip.

This isn't a complete list by any means. If you have a great tip please share it in the comments.

Karmic Koala Installed For Two Weeks

I have now had Karmic Koala installed for about two weeks. I first did the install via 9.04's Update Manager and it was not a very pleasant experience. Perhaps the Ubuntu servers were still being hit hard but the install lasted for more than 7 hours. Ugh! I couldn't quit though since I had no idea what had started and what it would do. So I toughed it out and let it run. Everything worked pretty good except for the video. Screen re-draws were slow and played video almost impossible. I ran it for two days like this until I decided to go ahead and do a clean install. Wow what a difference. Video is sharp and snappy and played video runs as good as it ever has.



Overall I am quite happy with the new install. The boot time is very snappy and faster than 9.04. Watch this video of comparison boot times between Karmic Koala, Jaunty Jackalope, Vista and Windows 7. The test was done on all the same hardware and new installs conducted by the folks a Linux Format.