yum install yum-presto
 
What is the first thing you did after installing Fedora 11?
 

 
This simple utility sits in your traybar, watches on the windows on your desktop and manages the sounds for you. Let’s say for example you’re listening some music. Then suddenly a skype call comes. Ear Candy will lower the music automatically for you until the skype call is ended. Same (with fries) for movies and whatever else you want.
 
Ear candy features a nice configuration panel which lets you configure settings for each application. Since the preset apps are very few, you may want to add new ones. In order to do that, open that app, make it produce some sound, then click the “+” button and select it from the list you see.
 
Ear Candy looks like a fabulous usability feature that I would love to see on Fedora as a default (F12 maybe?).
 
For more info check out these two blog post:

 
And this video demo:

 

 
How to use your Bluetooth Headset with Fedora? I found this guide but that guide is over year old and based on btsco module that fails to compile on Fedora 10 :(
 
Is there some other way of getting bluetooth headsets to work on Fedora?
 
Judging by experience by others it looks like this worked in Fedora 9 but it is not working in Fedora 10 ;(
 

 
In latest FLOSS Weekly 71 podcast the guest was Paul Frields, Fedora Project Leader. I loved the show, but how great would it be if Jono Bacon (Ubuntu community manager) was also there as a host of FLOSS Weekly?
 
I hope it would be even more hilarious and fun. Jono is co-hosting FLOSS Weekly sometimes, well there is always next time ;)

 
In our local LUG we have been brewing a custom distro based upon Fedora and Omega linux distributions. We also added a lot of applications from many categories; like gps, astronomy, office and multimedia software.
 
What makes it apart from distributions that it is based upon are these points:

 
Why did we make this distribution? Because there are just too many things missing by default in current Fedora. Due to laws in US and because the software in question isn’t licenced under open source licence Fedora can’t provide things like skype and flash that most of users are just too depended upon and can’t work without them.
 
Any comments and suggestions are welcome, tell us what we are doing wrong and how to make this distro better.
 
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I have tested Fedora 11 alpha, beta and now preview releases on few of my laptops and I’m really impressed by how Fedora 11 works once it is installed.
 
The problems I’ve encountered are those within the installation part – it seems like anaconda installer has become much worse than it was in Fedora 10 and in previous versions.
 
I watched how OpenSuse and Ubuntu teams have really polished their installers and hoped that Fedora 10 or 11 would have some more polish in GUI because if you just look at OpenSuse or Ubuntu screenshots you will see how outdated Fedora’s anaconda installer looks in comparison to them. I agree that in Fedora 10 there was no feature that lacked (except installer failed on Asus eee 701 laptops) but I really hoped that GUI would get a fresh look also, it really needs one general overhaul, especially in partitioning part of the installer. The inner working of anaconda previous to Fedora 11 was in top shape so that is why I was so surprised how bad anaconda is performing in Fedora 11 Preview release!
 
The only way to install Fedora 11 is to leave the default settings while in partitioning part of the installer. If you try ANY option with existing partitions on the hard drive, it will just crash the installer! I didn’t find any way how to create custom partitions in anaconda installer, delete partition or delete the whole disk without installer crashing on me. Are you looking how to create custom LVM partitions? Forget it. Encryption? No way. If you have hard drive with no partitions the chances are 50:50 for your installer not to crash, and again, you can’t erase the hard drive without installer crashing :(
 
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Enlightenment desktop looks very interesting and claims to use very little resources but that it also gives you a lot of bling. That got me hooked immediately. To install and tryout Enlightenment on Fedora you only need to install one package: enlightenment.
 
Next time you get to your login screen and click on username in bottom part of login screen you can choose different desktop interface.
 
I really liked Enlightenment and it really has light resource requirements and it looks gorgeous. There are lots of light desktop environments but they all look too spartan even for Fedora Leonidas (pun intended) or for my taste ;)
 
There are two mayor issues that prevent me from using Enlightenment as my everyday desktop. First is the lack of support for NetworkManager. In order to connect to wired or wireless networks I had to use command line, so users that don’t know how to use cli to setup network can’t use Enlightenment at all. Second one is no usb hotplug manager for usb memory sticks.
 
If somehow these two features can be made to work on Fedora then we would have one great desktop for low powered machines. I know about LXDE, Openbox, XFCE and others but IMHO Enlightenment is a better looking and therefore more likable lightweight desktop.
 
What is your favorite lightweight desktop? Why do you prefer it? Have you used Enlightenment? What do you think about Enlightenment desktop?
 

 

 
Bryan from Linux Action Show podcast made a presentation at LinuxFest Northwest called Why Desktop Linux Sucks and What We can Do About It
 
I don’t agree with all of his statements, like ones that Linux needs only one package format, but I agree with most other things he says. He (on purpose?) didn’t mention Google Summer of Code as a way of sponsoring projects, which is also strange. Please look for yourself and share your comments.
 
UPDATE;
I found this blog post that goes into more detail why one package system wouldn’t help things.

 
Christopher said www.mugshot.org it is Redhat’s neglected gold mine, and I agree.
 
Wikipedia says that from April 4th, 2009 until May 11th the Mugshot website was down and displayed the following message: “Mugshot is currently not running.” As of May 12th mugshot.org redirects to redhat.com.
 
So what has happened with www.mugshot.org ?
 

 

 
Nautilus 2.22 + Tracker tags integration
 
As soon as I saw that Fedora (Gnome) has semantic desktop features, I tried to enable it. I strongly believe this is a must have feature for any advanced desktop Fedora user!
 
yum install nautilus-python tracker-search-tool tracker
 
After restarting nautilus I enabled nautilus sidebar but didn’t see this feature there. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?
 
UPDATE:
You can read about this feature more in this article: A Metadata Enabled GNOME
 
I also posted a bugzilla bug report regarding this issue and there is also a Fedora forum post also (not posted by me).