[wplug] Fedora Core 16 KDE spin

[Ted Rodgers]

It's not often I find a mainline distribution that I feel is worthy of a
lot of exceptional praise, but recently I found one that.

A couple weeks ago I was presented with an opportunity: a friend asked me
to install Linux onto the laptop he and his girlfriend use.  The laptop
specs were decent but not over the top:  C2Duo chip, 1 GB RAM, integrated
Intel video, SATA disk, wireless, bluetooth, SD card reader.  Their
complaints about the now-previous operating system were that it ran pretty
sluggish whenever the antivirus was enabled, was still somewhat slow
without the antivirus running,  and that it constantly needed cleaned out,
and it needed a lot of extra things to allow it to play files (mostly web
based, but also Ipod connectivity and media files).  The brand label on the
system was Dell, if anyone cares.

I considered for a bit what distro to give them because I was concerned
about performance after the install. I knew LXDE is lightweight and easy,
but also know it's lacking some pieces that his gf, who had never used
Linux, might miss.  My friend had used my desktop and laptop, both with
KDE, before without issue, so I really wanted to shoot for that.  I'll say
here that I use KDE, well parts of KDE --I'm picky and I remove or don't
install pieces that I don't want/need, and I am not one to accept having to
hack the desktop environment to pieces in order to get an acceptable
desktop experience.  Nor did I want to take the "use an alternative window
manager rather than kwin" route because I routinely build KDE and I know
kwin. KDE's window manager, can, if allowed to by lack of bloat, rock, even
on lightweight systems.  In a very optimistic move, I decided to try out
Fedora Core 16 KDE spin, from an official (that is real fedora) mirror:

http://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde

I used an usb install after using dd to write the iso a usb stick.  The
install was very simple and took 10-15 minutes.  The spin versions of
Fedora are somewhat different in that they include a fixed number of
packages and don't give you as many options during install.  Overall, it
greatly simplifies the process and makes it nearly fail proof.  During the
first boot, all the system devices, including wireless, sound, and the
integrated webcam; were properly picked up and the desktop environment
worked out of the box.  I was happy to see that kwin was the included
window manager and the default set of applications were kde-centric,
meaning they would integrate well with the desktop: clicks would open
applications. not make a use wonder what application to select from a list.

After an initial check and running of updates --the system was installed
from packages on the DVD, so there were updates available-- I rebooted and
added some things to help my friends out.  First, I added firefox to the
install and then moved along to adding ipod support by pulling in amarok
and the ipod backend, and I also gave them juk --an audio player I prefer
over amarok due to less extras at runtime. And then there were the flash
and java plugins.  Flash was simple, but java was a bit more of a hassle.
I wanted to use Oracle's official java, so I used their rpm file, but I had
to create sym links in the browser's plugin directory in order for it to be
picked up in firefox's about:plugins page.  The process was easier than in
2001, but honestly, not by much.  Perhaps using the open java version
Fedora supports would have been easier, but I've never used it, so I
couldn't vouch for it working for a new user when websites were reporting
to me I had no java installed.

There were a few more tweaks I did in order to make life sane for my
friends.  I was sure to include LibreOffice so doc files were supported.  I
removed some of the included system tools that would never be used but were
on the menu --no need to give them items that are of no use to them.  The
other important item was vlc for media, especially video meida.  I was
somewhat unhappy that there was not an optional meta package for installing
vlc with all of its bells and whistles / plugins.

So what didn't work right out of the box?  Not much.  I mentioned java
above, and honestly it wasn't that difficult.  But then there was mp3
support, something Fedora hasn't included with install media for many
years.  In a perfect world, open codecs would always be used, but
converting an existing media collection to theora / ogg or another format
is a project for another time.  In this case, I found that gstreamer was
the culprit, it had no mpeg/mp3 support.  Unlike other distributions, there
is no "click to add a non-free mirror" option in the package manager, so
after a quick web search, I added a repo, and it seemed the easiest route
was to add all of the gstreamer plugins --by including them all, there is a
smaller chance that some other format won't play, too.  The result was that
there were many additional dependencies pulled in, and yes, mp3 support did
work when it was done.  With other package options enabled at build time,
gstreamer likely could have been avoided and the additional packages could
have been less.  Overall, less than a minute on a web search and a couple
minute wait for downloads was not a bad requirement to provide access to an
existing media collection, and I was not required to compile/recompile
anything, so updates can occur through the included package manager, the
same as with the included software.

I've done a lot of Linux installed, including many desktops.  I was
absolutely ecstatic at the quality of the KDE build that fedora provides.
Other desktop environments with "light weight" window managers were
possible options, too, but to find that fedora packages KDE in a way that
is not only usable but also not bloated down or made slow by including
absolutely every kde package and excessive inter-package linking, that was
a gift, not just to me but to all KDE users.  We're typically provided by a
very poorly configured/built KDE desktop that requires a lot of TCL to make
it work.  Fedora Core 16 KDE spin shows they have a development team that
truly cares about the end result / end user experience.  I was pleased to
once again be able to share fedora with friends with assurance that their
needs in a system were met.

Last thing here is the important one:  what is the feedback from my
friends?  The love it.  They are very happy with system start up time and
how much faster / responsive the desktop is than what they had before.
Wireless is easy to use, too, and Dell laptop volume keys for media
function, too.  With a couple minutes of basic "where are things"
instruction, they've been using the laptop without issue and without
needing to call me for any support.

Big thanks goes out to the Fedora team.  I'd recommend the Fedora Core 16
KDE spin to the same or more folks than I would otherwise be referring to
other distributions.  I'm happy that taking another look at Fedora after
all these years has shown me it's come a long ways; may the team keep up
the good work!

Ted