The beta release of Korora 21 is now available. The Korora Project.site has the full details. As usual Korora is based on the latest Fedora release with all the latest updates included.
If you have any suggestions for improvement or issues follow the links there.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve spent some time switching back and forward between Xfce (my preferred Desktop Environment) and KDE. I once ran KDE almost exclusively but for various reasons I’ve been using Xfce for the last couple of years.
One of the reasons was the frequency of KDE to lock up. It would just stop running. I have long suspected it was a graphics problem but had no proof. I have a nVidia GT240 video card and had been using the open source nouveau driver. After a recent lock up I was forcing a shutdown when the screen filled with nouveau errors. Although I prefer to use open source drivers where possible I decided to install the nvidia drivers from RPMFusion using Korora’s PharLap application.
All went well with the installation and it did solve the lock up problems. Doing a bit of research I found an old bug which has been kept current. As far as I can see there has been no action on it. Anyhow problem solved and now I have working Xfce and KDE desktops and can and do switch between them as I feel like it.
Speaking of old bugs a long time I reported a problem with landscape printing and after much investigation by many people it was narrowed down to cups-filters and an update provided which fixed the problem. Now some months later those packages were updated and the problem returned. I commented on the bug and straight away another update was provided along with an apology. Well done Jiri Popelka. I tested and provided karma to the update so hopefully it is making its way through the update system now.
I’ve been testing installations on a uefi system the last couple of days. I was surprised how simple it was with Korora and so also with Fedora. More details later but if you want a linux system on an uefi computer either as a single installation or a dual boot Korora is the way to go.
I did post some time ago about the disappearance of Tilda from Fedora. At the time this was due to the lack of upstream support and the fact that development had stalled. Since then development has again started and Tilda is being improved. While it is not (yet?) available for Fedora it is a simple procedure to add it. The following link covers compiling and installing it. I tested it in Korora 20 Xfce and it worked fine and I have the latest Tilda running now.
/kernel_reloaded/ » compile latest tilda and enjoy solarized terminal.
I had one of those days where you don’t do anything much but seem to have a number of small successes. That has been my day.
First I installed Korora 20 Xfce on my netbook. I don’t use the netbook much so it hasn’t been updated for a while. There was no issues, Korora installed without problems.
While checking over the netbook I noticed something that has been happening for a while. My conky is set up to show the current power adapter status, charging, discharging etc. For a couple of versions it has shown ‘no adapter, charging’. Obviously something was wrong but it said charging when it was so it wasn’t a major problem. Looking at the Conky man page I found there is an option for the acpiacadapter variable to specify the subfolder of /sys/class/power_supply that indicates the current state. It looks for AC or ADP1 if the option isn’t used. Fedora and hence Korora uses AC0. Adding that as the option fixed the problem. Easy fix when you take the time to research it.
Second, a minor nuisance is the need to enter my password twice when logging in on my netbook or laptop. I use the same password for login as for the keyring. I found an older post on the Fedora Xfce mailling list that gave the solution. Deleting the leading – from the line
-auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so
in /etc/pam.d/lightdm allows LightDM to open the keyring so it can be used by other applications. Again a simple fix after a bit of research.
I also updated the links on this blog when I noticed that the Korora link was for Kororaa. So I checked all the others and found a couple of dead links and a couple of typos too.
All in all an easy day but some little annoyances fixed.
Korora Project has just announced the release of Korora 20. It adds 3 new desktops environments and many new features. I’ve been using the beta release of both Xfce and KDE for some time and found no problems. It is a great update, full details in the link at the start.
As part of the new release is the launch of a new website and support site. Try it out.
An interesting look at Chris Smart and the Korora Project.
Interview: Chris Smart of the Korora Project | MontanaLinux.org.
Chris introduces Pharlap the new device driver manager to replace Jockey.
Korora Project | Introducing Pharlap, our new driver manager replacement for Jockey.
The Korora Project has announced a new release, version 19.1, which along with a number of tweaks and all the latest updates introduces 2 new desktop versions, Cinnamon and Mate. For al the details see Korora Project | Korora 19.1 released.
Korora comes with many repos already set up so you can just install many software packages from the Package Manager or command line. One of the repos that is set up is Google Chrome. A simple
dnf install google-chrome
will install the stable version of Google Chrome.
However if you want the beta or unstable version, I prefer the beta version, then you need to edit the repo file. Actually other versions like the beta will install with the specific command
dnf install google-chrome-beta
but they won’t be updated in future. Using your preferred text editor open /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo. The last line is an exclude statement. You will need to delete or comment out this line. Alternatively you could edit it by removing the version you wish to install / update from that line.
Now you can use the beta or unstable version of Google Chrome in Korora.
Techodyssey 