Category: linux

KDE 4.7

The latest version of KDE, 4.7, was released in July. There were questions regarding its availability for Fedora 15. After some initial indecision it has been made available but not in official updates. This is due to changes in the packaging.

One of the criticisms of the way KDE was packaged for Fedora was the use of metapackages. These metapackages reduced the number of available packages but meant you needed to install many applications you didn’t want to get one that you did. While this made it simple for new users it was an irritation for more experienced users. With 4.7 this has changed and individual packages are available for most KDE apps. The metapackages still exist but they are more like groups now as they will pull in a number of other packages. The metapackages themselves are empty.

So KDE 4.7 will be part of Fedora 16 but not released officially for Fedora 15. However packages have been made available for those who can’t wait. See this post on the KDE mailing list for details on updating Fedora 15 to KDE 4.7.

I have been using it for a few days and find it is quite stable. While most of the changes are not immediately obvious the more you use it the more you find. Many of the packages are updated to new versions. One I noticed straight away was digiKam which is now version 2.

If you are using Fedora 15 KDE I would suggest updating as this doesn’t feel like a testing release more like a regular stable release.

Kororaa 15

Kororaa has been mentioned a number of times here before but if you haven’t caught up with it before it is a Fedora Remix that includes as standard all those extras most people add to their system. The latest Kororaa release is a beta based on Fedora. I should stress that the beta part applies to the extras added to Kororaa as the Fedora part is right up to date as it includes all the updates up to the release date.

I’ve been using the Kororaa beta 2 64 bit KDE on my laptop for a little while and can report it is generally good. I had a couple of issues initially but once sorted I am liking the new version.

First problem was I was starting Conky using a short script that I had installed in KDE’s Autostart. The script caused the system to lock up. Not sure why but when I removed it everything ran as expected. I simply put Conky in Autostart as an appication and it works. The script simply delayed the startup to allow the window manager to load. I think it was a carry over from the time I used Compiz on xfce and it isn’t needed any more.

Second problem involved getting the services I needed for my Conky to run. The method of managing services in Fedora 15 has changed from earlier versions as a result of the introduction of Systemd. There is good documentation on the changes on the Fedora Wiki. After I found that I had almost everything working

I have a nvidia graphics card on this laptop and I’m using the free nouveau as opposed to the closed proprietory drivers. It is working with Kwin’s Desktop Effects which it never has in previous versions. There are some differences with the look of the screen and some effects aren’t as smooth as with the nvidia driver. But I will keep nouveau for a while longer at least. One problem with not using the nvidia driver is that nouveau doesn’t report the state of the driver, temp etc. so I will need to change my Conky setup to get that working.

This is the first Kororaa or Fedora that I can say I actually like the splash screen, I haven’t replaced it yet. I usually customise the splash screen and the kdm screen too. Blue is not my favourite colour.

All of these comments are Fedora system things and not Kororaa specific. One thing I did use was Kororaa’s Add / Remove Extras tool to install Flash. It also can install the nvidia or ATI graphics drivers and may be expanded to cover other things later. It worked well although it installs the i686 flash and not the 64 bit which has had some security problems and has never made it past beta. Another advantage of starting with Kororaa was I didn’t need to install many of the packages I usually add. They are all there after the installationis finished. I restore my data, configure a few options and I’m ready to go.

I would recommend Fedora 15 but if you want all the features of Fedora in a ready to go package try Kororaa.

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

Printing Issues

Recently I had 2 different and ultimately unrelated printing issues. I thought I would detail them here as I had trouble finding information on them.

Drivers

First was a printer driver issue. I have a Brother HL-5340D laser printer. It is new and quite nice model. My local printer / toner shop recommended it as he has sold a few without problems. My only difficulty was that although Cups recognised it it didn’t have a driver for it. I went to the Brother site and found they have good Linux support with lots of downloadable drivers for their printers.

For my printer I had a choice of drivers. First was a ppd file which is the format cups asks for. I thought that would be the easiest way. Just download the driver and point cups to it. Installation was easy but printing was an issue. Most important for me it wouldn’t print envelopes. It couldn’t get the alignment or the orientation correct. I ended up deleting that printer and starting again.

This time I used the lpr file with cupswrapper. Brother provides rpm files for both. After downloading and installing, Brother provides good detailed instructions but it is straightforward, I tried printing again and this time success. It worked as I expected.

The continuous document

At first I wondered if this was a driver issue too. But as it turned out it wasn’t. The problem was I was trying to print, from OpenOffice (LibreOffice has the same issue) multiple copies of a multi-page document double sided but it had an odd number of pages. You may think that isn’t a problem and I would normally agree. However this time the first page of the second copy was on the back of the last page of the first copy.

I could have printed single copies. That was the first suggestion I found when searching. But as I needed a lot of copies I didn’t relish that idea. I kept looking and finally found that there is an option on the Printing dialogue in OO. Under Printing – Options there is “create separate jobs for collated output”. I didn’t know what that meant either but selecting it solved the problem.

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New / Old Fedora Remix

There is a new remix of Fedora that has just been released. Koororaa is based on Fedora 14 KDE. It is actually a return of an old KDE remix but now it is based on Fedora.

It comes preinstalled with popular non-KDE apps such as Firefox and Gimp as well as having extra repos such as Flash and RPMFusion preconfigured. There is also a Lite version which can be used on basic machines such as netbooks or as the base for a customised system. There are 32 and 64 bit versions too. Both run as live versions so can be used without installation.

I have been experimenting with the standard version and was impressed with the included packages even though he has it tagged as a Beta version. I intend to install it on a system in the next few days and give it a further tryout.

The developer, Chris Smart, is an Australian based in Canberra so it is nice to see something this useful coming out of Oz. Have a look at his site at kororaa.org

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64 Bit Flash

Well Adobe has finally released an updated Flash for 64 bit Linux. Previously they had removed support for it due to some security issues. The new driver appeared a few days ago. It seems to offer some improvement in stability too so is a must install if you have 64 bit.

As usual the best guide for Fedora people to access it is through the Fedora forum. Thanks to Leigh who packages it for the community.

KDE 4.5 In Fedora 13

KDE released version 4.5 some time ago. However it hasn’t appeared in Fedora 13. There is some suggestion that it will be saved for Fedora 14. Of course this brought the question can it be installed on Fedora 13?

There is a thread on the Fedora Forum that provides the answer. I have used it one computer for a couple of weeks without issue although it has some quirks that suggest it is not the final version. If you want to give it a go have a look at http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=250066

Fedora 13

I’ve been rather busy lately. (click here if you want to know why) so haven’t been blogging here at all. By the way that site is on WordPress too, good option for our ‘not for profit’ group. But when I did have some time for myself I installed Fedora 13 on my laptop. Once again no problems, everything worked out of the box but I made the usual improvements.

My nvidia graphics card has needed the proprietary drivers in the past but I was hoping the improvements to Nouveau would make that un-necessary this time. It is possible to get 3D using Nouveau and mesa-dri-drivers-experimental but not with my GeForce 8400 GS so I’m back with the drivers from RPMFusion again.

In KDE knetworkmanager has replaced the networkmanager-gnome applet which is an interesting change. If you are using KDE you should use its utilities but it hasn’t been stable in past versions. This time it works well but doesn’t have the wizards the gnome version has. Maybe they will follow.

The new version of Conky (1.8.0) now supports transparency so the steps needed to make it work in KDE using feh are no longer needed. A good improvement.

I’ve been using Google Chrome as my browser for a while. It is faster then Firefox and has most of the extensions. I tried the open source version, Chromium, but found it too unstable for everyday use so back to Chrome.

The need to edit the hal fdi policy files to get touchpad options such as “tap to click” working has been overcome now. KDE has a touchpad option in the settings and it works well.

Overall I’m very pleased with Fedora 13 and when the opportunity arises I will install it on my other computers.

Browsing

I haven’t been here for a while, I know, so here is something I’ve found recently. I have been using Firefox as my main browser since before it reached ver 1 but lately I felt it was getting slower. I have tried a few others, Konquerer, the default browser on KDE is quite good but had some problem with a couple of sites. I really liked Arora but I had become addicted to some of the add-ons in Firefox and Arora is a no frills browser.

Then I found Chrome by Google. Chrome is based on the open source Chromium and is easily the fastest browser I have used. It is still in beta, well it is a Google product, but I’ve found it quite stable.

Best of all it has most of the popular extensions that have made Firefox so powerful. Some of them are also still in development. I’ve had problems syncing with Xmarks, for example. I replaced the Gmail signature add-on I was using with Autopen which is much better. One disappointment is that Cooliris is only available for Windows at the moment. A linux and Mac version has been promised for a while but is still to appear.

I’ve had no problem getting You Tube to work and downloads seem to be handled better than Firefox too. One thing I would like to change is to have Chrome more integrated into the desktop. It doesn’t pick up display properties from the desktop but uses it’s own. Still I would recommend it, give it a try.