4 posts tagged “laptop”
I am waiting on my Elive Gem 1.0 torrent to finish, so it'll be the next OS on the review block. The requirements are apparently very minimal but on faster and stronger machines, the beauty really shows from what many say. The screenshots look very appealing and show great promise, so I look forward to the download completion. The build and theory looks good on paper, but I am curious on two things which will determine whether my ride is gonna be bumpy or smooth for my review.
- Compatibility with my Intel Wireless Pro 2200 WLAN chipset
Internet being important, because I'd like to be able to access the web for patches, updates and fixes.
- Widescreen support
Nothing like a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution stretched on a 1200 x 800 screen to give a review a bad bias. I don't have a desktop to do a review from standard resolutions anymore.
I hope for the best and to do a comprehensive review.
Some of the readers out there remember a few weeks back when I went on a brave streak to install Linux Mint and then Xubuntu with some frustrations met with both operating systems. After much thought and changes in approach, I have decided to change Suzaku to a unique change of theme for my return to Ubuntu.
I found a great widescreen wallpaper that was linked to InterFacelift and it was (appropriately) titled XP Inverse which is illustrated as an inversion of the default XP Bliss wallpaper by Microsoft for a default installation of Windows XP. The windows theme is a Metacity theme called "LinStA is not VISTA" in a black plastic/aluminum motif downloaded from Gnome-Look. The icon pack was from Gnome-Look called nuovoXT which goes well with the Linsta Metacity package. The icon behavior is set to the Glossy behavior. Beryl is running at boot-up with compositing running and a window effect of "burn" enabled. It is a nice corporate looking set-up with the burning windows going well with the background. Enclosed is an image of the new desktop:
I continue my reviewing of the Linux distros pulled this week. Fedora 7 was released this past Thursday, so I was glad to have hopped the torrent to pull the ISO's for both versions. Factor in Red Hat's involvement and you begin to understand how Fedora is really a great enterprise project for the Linux enthusiast.
Fedora was tested with my machine, Suzaku, for those curious...
Fedora 7
Fedora is a community version offshoot of the Red Hat Linux package that has finally found unification. Before, Fedora was spread over a number of CD ISO's or had to be burned on a DVD giving you a fully loaded OS. There was another option to burn a single CD install (known as Fedora Core) but that had you either adding extras via CD/DVD or the web.. Essentially you got the whole enchilada or you got nada. With the release of Fedora 7, The LiveCD was a great plan of attack. Fedora 7 by default is a Gnome environment. The artwork theme is "Flying High" which fits the mood of the distro as they have accomplished a lot for their 7th release.
The Fedora team took the time to create a very artistic GRUB bootloader screen. It has more of the "Flying High" balloon artwork skinned nicely to the GRUB bootloader. The GDM theme meshes very well into the theme but it is plagued by the same problem as PCLinuxOS, you're trapped at the log-in screen but a message under it has a count-down beff any Fedora KDE users want to chime in about getting that to work properly, I would appreciate it. ore it auto logs you in as Fedora. They could have done what Ubuntu's LiveCD does with a direct log-in to the OS as Gnome allows the option to do so.
The uSplash image that shows the procedure calls to load up Fedora 7 in Gnome is a themed image with a bland set of logos of all the tasks in loading. I was welcomed to a soothing blue and white theme and a great wallpaper of hot air balloons in an evening sky. Fedora was equipped with Avahi zeroconf for wi-fi networks, so picking up a wi-fi signal with a supported wi-fi card is good and dandy. I don't have another machine to test for unsupported cards and the presence of NDISwrapper, but I wouldn't assume that it's built into the LiveCD.
Fedora 7's package is a bit light for my tastes... Sure, you can use YUM to download and add modules/programs to the LiveCD, but you may want to have a good amount of RAM to try that, as I actually locked up from the system being overloaded from reading the CD and installing Beryl through Yum. If you're trying to gauge for stability, don't overload the procedures on the LiveCD as the need to read from the CD and run the OS completely on the RAM will not give an accurate idea of how the system can run. If you want more to play with... I would suggest holding out for the next review.
My only big pet peeve with Fedora 7 was the lack of built-in support for multimedia keys on laptops. Like earlier when I was trying to play with the Fedora 7 LiveCD in a coffee house... the loud sounds on boot were a bit embarrassing. For some reason, the keyboard shortcut association would not accept my hardware keys for the volume controls. I would have expected that the alsamixer would have been in the system tray at boot and not tucked away... but that's a whole different tangent. If any Fedora or Red Hat user would like to educate me or show me how to resolve that, I wouldn't mind.
Fedora 7 KDE
I was actually really more impressed with Fedora 7 KDE than I was with Fedora 7. Most of the things that I have said hold true even in the KDE version... Except for a few things...
The KDE shell is significantly lighter on the RAM usage than the Gnome shell. This has been common knowledge in the KDE vs. Gnome arguments, but the scale of the differences was almost dramatic. The wireless network manager in the KDE environment is the KNetworkManager which I am no stranger to, as my parent's Kubuntu machine uses it. Fedora has the KDE system bar set at a one level setting, which works well as to help go with their wonderful wallpaper.
The software library in the LiveCD of Fedora 7 KDE is significantly larger than the Fedora 7 LiveCD. You get to try a whole lot of software, like the KOffice suite, the K-Games suite... heck, even the Beryl packages to play with the Beryl window compositor. That impressed me a lot. The thing that scared me was the fact that in KDE with Beryl loaded and running from the Fedora 7 KDE LiveCD, my favorite burn effect was rendered better and faster than it is on Ubuntu Gnome! I would say that I liked the variety of software on the Fedora 7 KDE LiveCD more. The inclusion of the SELinux package was interesting, for those who are security paranoid... though not totally necessary.
Though Fedora 7 KDE was not without its flaws... Once again, I was unable to adjust my volume or mute with my hardware keys on Suzaku. On trying to associate my volume keys through KMixer, it wouldn't even recognize the media keys! Dynamic CPU scaling was not fully operational as I could not force the processor to run at pure performance mode or power-saver mode. In the Gnome version, Yum was accessible through the "Add/Remove Programs" button in the Gnome menu bar. I couldn't find the same KDE equivalent, unless I totally missed it... The last one was more of a bother than anything... On ending the LiveCD, Fedora does not force-eject the CD on finish. That means you'd have to forcibly eject the drive with the push button for a media drive or power up the machine and eject right on boot-up. Most of the other LiveCD distros eject right on shut down and then ask for the user to press enter to finish power-down.
Overall, I respect Fedora 7 and the KDE version... It is definitely not for the beginner, but I can say that both versions of Fedora 7 will be with me at all times. They have made it a nice polished release and hopefully, Things will get better once Fedora 8 rolls by. I was browsing some of the Fedora forums didn't quite reflect a newbie user friendly as I am acquainted to experience... The level of expertise is much higher in Fedora; I can understand why the level of knowledge must be higher to appreciate the Fedora project.
A family dispute with family caused quite a ruckus the previous night. I had to front a large amount of cash just to appease the family from a very twisted deal that I never wanted to be a part of. A lesson to others... Never get sucked into a deal that could only cause needless pain.
Other things considered... I went to Staples and found a SWEET Franklin Covey organizer on sale. It was a nice professional looking one. Former price was $44.99, clearance price of $17.99! I bought it because I have found that more and more I seem to lost track of so quickly from my tasks. I remember my boss's words well: "Sometimes... you just have to write it down and keep organized. If you get a chance... Check out the Franklin Covey planners." I think it's a move in the right direction as with a written system that I keep with me at all times. I want to help push my life forward, rather than keep running around in circles... Hopefully, the planner will be my first step to success. Maybe that was what was holding me back... stubborn reliance on my mind as a means of task organization. Plus with always having weekly goals to try to work towards, it should help me build myself stronger as a person. I desire to become better, stronger and wiser through hard work and reinforcing my values.
Today... I did another conversion for the ex's laptop. She was anxious to convert, but she finally got sick of the spyware, viruses, and other malware. Once I got her set-up with the basics and spent some time with her getting her oriented with everything. Her little sister was curious and piqued by the new system. After everything, I had to leave. She has been immersing since and like it. She is still a little scared, but all converters are a bit afraid. I love helping anyone local who converts, so I don't really mind.
