Category: Kororaa

It’s the Little Things

Most modern operating systems do a reasonable job and that applies even more to most current Linux distros. However it is often little things that bug users. These are issues that don’t stop you working but do get in your way a bit. I have a few and when there is a bit of free time I look for solutions. Recently I found answers to 2 of these problems.

The first is when viewing an image in full screen in digiKam the screen flashes. This seems to be a Kwin problem and I was pleased to find a fix. I didn’t record where I found this so apologies to the helpful person who made this public. It was necessary to run the following commands

kwriteconfig –file kwinrc –group Compositing –key UnredirectFullscreen –type bool false
qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin reconfigure

The other issue was with suspend and resume. My laptop does both without error but the bluetooth service doesn’t restart at resume. That means no mouse, a situation which makes the computer unusable. It is possible to manually restart the service but that is a nuisance. So the solution is to add a script to restart the service. The details are found on the Fedora forum.

Fixing little things like this makes the system so much easier to live with.

Kororaa 15 Final Released

Kororaa Linux has released the final version 15. It is available with either Gnome and KDE. The big change to this version is the inclusion of Jockey which will automatically identify the correct proprietary video drivers and offer to install them.

Kororaa includes all the additional features of previous versions including all the popular codecs and many additional applications. For full details visit the website at kororaa.org.

Kororaa 15 Beta released

Kororaa is a Fedora remix that includes tweaks and extras that make it much easier to use than many Linux distros. As it is based on Fedora it includes the latest versions of most software. Kororaa adds the extras that many people need or want. Currently the stable version is based on Fedora 14 but a beta of 15 is now available.

The second beta was released yesterday after a few users, including me, had problems with the first beta. This was a quick response from the developer, Chris Smart. There are versions for both Gnome and KDE. The Gnome version comes with Gnome 3 and the KDE with 4.6.5. Both are the latest versions. The kernel version is 2.6.38. Both come as live DVDs which can run from DVD, usb drive or be installed on your hard drive. Instructions are on the download page.

I tried the KDE version both as a live usb and installed in a vm. The live version worked fine on my laptop but I have had some problem getting it to boot on my desktop. It appears to be a graphics card issue with my nvidia 250 that has been difficult to set up in previous versions. With the older 8400GS graphics on my laptop it worked fine. For the first time I was able to run Desktop Effects from the live boot using the included nouveau driver. Previously it required the proprietary nvidia driver for 3d to work but the latest version of nouveau has solved this problem.

This is a fully featured Linux system with software to do just about everything you can do with a computer. Included are LibreOffice, video editor kdenlive, blogging client Blogilo, micro blogging client Choqok, image and graphics editors, a number of media players with VLC as the default and many other applications.

One special feature is the Add / Remove Extras utility which will install proprietary graphics drivers and Flash. This simplifies something many new users find difficult.

After less than a year in existence in its current form Kororaa has built up a small but friendly community. No doubt a lot of this is due to the willingness of the developer to respond to user’s questions and suggestions.

If you are looking for a Linux system that can do everything and requires little set up before it is ready to go check out Kororaa.

Kororaa Released

After a few months of work the final of Kororaa 14 has been released. Kororaa is a Fedora respin that includes all the extras many add to Fedora. After a number of beta releases the final was released this week. It includes all the latest Fedora updates and is available with a choice of KDE or Gnome Deskto environments. As it is based on Fedora 14 it is a stable release. Work will now start on Kororaa 15 based on Fedora 15 which was also released this week.

For the full details see the Kororaa Site

Kororaa Updated

I posted a short time ago about Kororaa, a Fedora Remix. Today the beta 2 was released with some big changes.

I quote

“Kororaa 14 (Nemo) Beta2 has been released for download.

This release includes several fixes, updates to all your favourite applications, as well as the following major changes:

Download it today! :-)“