Best variant of Fedora for a Virtual Machine...?

[And Kemp]

Hi Marko,

This is exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for - thanks!

Best wishes,

And.

On 14/08/2012 5:03 PM, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> On Tuesday, 14. August 2012. 13.17.58 And Kemp wrote:
>> To practice prior to my exam I would like to be able to enter commands
>> at the command line: obtaining (separate) terminal windows using KDE
>> comes across as clunky (I usually use Ubuntu - sorry!). Whilst
>> <CNTRL><ALT><F2> to enter a full terminal screen is straightforward,
>> it's not helpful (to me at least) in terms of being able to switch
>> between panes (I generally like a lot of them for things like man pages,
>> different directories, etc.). Konqueror, Konsole and all other thinks,
>> "K" start off as being chipper but after a day, not so much...  Access
>> via the main menu is now becoming more than tiresome.
> Konsole is the preferred terminal emulator in KDE. You can reach it via the
> "F"-menu -> System -> Konsole, or as a first option to a context-menu of the
> desktop (just right-click somewhere on the desktop), or by putting a launcher
> onto the panel or the desktop (unlock widgets, find Konsole in the menu, right-
> click, choose "add to panel" or "add to desktop" or whatever...). You can go
> to systemsettings and assign your favorite shortcut-key combination to start
> Konsole via the keyboard.
>
> Once started, you can open a various number of tabs with different sessions
> inside, and easily switch from one to the other. Konsole itself is very
> configurable both visually and functionally, just go to its "settings" menu and
> choose "configure current profile".
>
> Ditto for Konqueror and other stuff you might need. In general, KDE is waaay
> more configurable than Gnome, as far as GUI is concerned.
>   
>> I've trawled through the documentation as best I can (all I want is a
>> couple of meaningful shortcut icons on a desktop - hardly a mammoth
>> operation to my mind) in terms of, "getting started" but creating icons
>> comes across as an insurmountable problem (That whole, "create shortcut
>> on desktop" option just doesn't work on my installation .  The shortcut
>> appears: does it run when clicked? Does it cuckoo...).
> I hope that you are aware that "icons on a desktop" is considered to be a Bad
> Idea (tm) that comes from the Windows world and eventually clutters an
> otherwise useful desktop space.
>
> In KDE there is the "folder view" widget (you can even put many of them on the
> desktop), configurable to show the icons from a specific folder (the ~/Desktop
> by default, IIRC). In addition, if you really really really want to put icons
> on the desktop (as opposed to the folder view widget), you can:
>
> 1. unlock widgets
> 2. right-click on the desktop to open the context menu
> 3. choose "Desktop settings"
> 4. change the "layout" option from "desktop" to "folder view".
>
> That way the whole desktop will behave as one big folder view widget.
> Regarding step 4., there are some other interesting choices, you might try
> them out.
>
>> Simple things
>> like mounting the CD drive from a command line can be summarized,
>> according to my impression of Google forum replies, as, "RTFM!
>> RTFM!...  It's automatic (the only thing missing here is, 'You
>> idiot')!".  [Note: It's *NOT* automatic; nor is in any manual I could
>> locate: one has to create a device folder (at least, that's how I fixed
>> the problem in the end, having tried (and failed) to adopt the "Fedora
>> way", assuming there is such a thing!)]
> By default, you should have a "device notifier" widget installed in the systray
> of the panel (or you can put one on the desktop...). Once the CD is in the
> drive, the device notifier should pop up and ask you what do you want to do
> with the CD (open it in file manager, view photos, listen to music, etc.). If
> the CD contains regular data, it should be already mounted by now, in
> /media/whatever directory. In the device notifier there is also an "eject"
> button that basically unmounts/ejects your CD. This all also works with USB
> flash drives etc.
>
>  From the command line, you mount the CD via the command (assuming it is not
> already mounted automatically):
>
> # mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /your/mount/directory
>
> or something along those lines. You need to be root to do it.
>
>> Part of this familiarization
>> process is the reason I downloaded Fedora in the first place, but as a
>> general-purpose (Ubuntu) Linux user, don't really expect to have to read
>> through the entire manual to be unable to accomplish the simplest tasks
>> for a variant of an OS I'm relatively comfortable with.
> Every distro has its own quirks. As a long-time Fedora KDE user, I found
> myself completely inside-out when put in front of an Ubuntu desktop. I found
> it hard to readjust to the fact that the "close window" button is in the top-
> left corner instead of the top-right... ;-)
>   
>> In terms of rpm / yum, it's mainly plain sailing, but I'm having an
>> issue which don't appear to be addressed effectively from google
>> searches: I try and query packages (using -qv) to be informed that the
>> package is not installed.  I try and install it to be informed it's
>> already installed!
> How about an example? Copy&paste your querries and the responses.
>
>> Any advise you can offer in this regard would be
>> gratefully received.
> In general, don't use rpm manually. Use yum instead (that's its purpose).
> Familiarize yourself with man yum, it is very powerful when you know how to
> ask it. Use it from the terminal session (I don't like GUI's for yum, they are
> all clunky...).
>   
>> Finally(!) a question: At the risk of opening a kettle of worms [can of
>> worms / kettle of fish] I believe I'm having a poor Fedora experience
>> because of my being unable to adopt a KDE mindset (correctly?).  I
>> believe I've missed something really 'obvious' with regards to the UI.
> The most nonobvious obvious thing that you might have missed is the
> functionality of (un)locking widgets. Other than that, most of the
> configuration stuff is in systemsettings. There are also other (advanced)
> aspects of KDE usage like for example "activities". I never needed them, but
> they can be quite useful in some usecases.
>
> Also, there is a big distinction in philosophy if DE usage between Gnome and
> KDE. You might need to mentally readjust a bit. :-)
>
>> Is it possible to eliminate KDE or should I attempt a different
>> download?
> You can have several different DE's coexisting on a single Fedora installation.
> Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Sugar... Not to mention window managers. Switch
> between them on the login screen (choose session). To install them,
>
> 1. yum grouplist
> 2. find your desktop of choice in the list
> 3. yum groupinstall "name of the group"
>
> Don't omit the quotes in step 3, there might be spaces or stuff in the group
> name.
>
>> Which would you recommend?
> I use KDE. Default is Gnome3 (but under a lot of criticism since the switch
> from Gnome2). Most Gnome2-oriented people on this list will recommend XFCE or
> LXDE (and they are probably right if you are used to the old Gnome2). You can
> also try Sugar if you are 10 years old... ;-)
>
> Mind you, since you are running Fedora in a VM, the 3D accelerated graphics is
> probably not supported (or not supported well enough...). Gnome3 will probably
> fail miserably into the fallback mode, KDE will miss all the Compiz-like eye-
> candy visual effects that are otherwise present, and maybe something similar
> for XFCE/LXDE. YMMV.
>
>> Am I creating problems for myself
>> by selecting a 64-bit installation or should I go with 32-bit?
> In general, no. There should be no difference between 32/64bit installs, bar
> some very peculiar situations (proprietary software, amount of RAM, skype,
> etc...). I am on 64bit for several years now, and never had any issues. 64bit
> is considered computationally superior in some generic circumstances, which is
> to be expected.
>
> In particular, since you are running Fedora in a virtual machine, the 64bit
> guest OS depends on how well 64bit software is supported by your virtual
> machine and the host OS. I've seen cases where 64bit clients are not supported
> or do not work properly. However, I've only ever run Windows in a VM myself,
> Fedora was always on the hardware.
>
> HTH, :-)
> Marko
>
>
>