FC5: first impressions

[Dimi Paun]

Now that I past the installation of FC5, I can share some of
my impressions. BTW, I've been running Red Hat since 4.0, so
I'm a long time user of everything Red Hat.

I'd like to start by saying that this is a nice step forward
from FC4. There's a lot to be happy about: new versions, nicer
eye-candy, much faster in places. Good job!

I'd like to stress the "faster" part. This is a very important
criteria for a good desktop experience, and I'm really glad
we finally see some much needed improvements. It took _seconds_
in FC4 to start a simple app like gedit, now it's around a second.
Also, Firefox really shines, and for the first time it's actually
a better browser than IE for reading LKML [0].

I can go on and on about the number of improvements, but that
would be boring, so I'll start with the complaints :). BTW, I
run GNOME, and try to keep things as standard as possible.

So here are my complaints, in order of importance:

0. Missing terminal on desktop menu... just kidding! :)
   You guys were right, I can live without it. Mea culpa.

[seriously now]

1. Metacity's new window in the background
   I can not stress how big of a problem this is for me.
   I have used it since it was introduced, in the hope that
   I'll get used to it. I didn't. Not only it does the wrong
   thing for me in 90% of the cases, it also forces me to
   use the mouse a lot more, which is painful for me.
   A few google searches and browsing through GConf did not
   reveal a way of disabling it.

2. Evolution can't print
   Nowadays I get quite a few invoices via email, and not being
   able to print them is a big problem. Evo will just print the
   headers, but not the content. Even the Print Preview shows
   just the headers with an empty content. What gives?!?
   BTW, same behavior was present in FC4, I was hoping FC5 will
   fix it.

3. Gedit's tab
   Not only I find these tabs simply the wrong interface, but
   unconditionally having one even if I have only on file
   open is irritating me to the point that I avoid that app
   even when I need it. It's ugly, it takes vertical space, etc.
   Again, I found no way of disabling this silly behavior.

These are my top 3 problems. There are others, but they pale in
comparison. If I missed a simple way of fixing them, I'd appreciate
any pointers.

Thanks for an otherwise fantastic distro guys! All the pain, blood, 
and tears that you guys put into it is very much appreciated.

-- 
Dimi Paun <dimi at lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.

[0] Go to the LKML archive, say here
    http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0603.1/author.html
    scroll to the middle of the list, click on a message, and then
    click the Back button to go back to the list. 
    See how fast it renders the list again. 
    Until now, IE was way faster, but not anymore!