Fedora Linux not for everyone. If you’re an experienced Linux user who wants an easy-to-use desktop Linux, I recommend Mint 11. If you’re new to Linux and just want something that’s easy to pick up and use, I think you should give Ubuntu 11.04 a try. But, if you’re a Linux expert, and want to explore the outer limits of what’s possible with Linux, then Red Hat’s new Fedora 15 Linux is the distribution for you.
Why? Well, here are my five favorite reasons to use Fedora 15. I’m going to start though with one reason I don’t care for this release of Fedora. Let’s call this one: Feature 0.
0) The GNOME 3 desktop environment
GNOME 3 claims to be the “the next generation of GNOME with a brand new user interface. It provides a completely new and modern desktop that has been designed for today’s users and technologies.” It’s not.
First, did we really need a “completely new desktop?” I don’t think so. I quite liked GNOME the 2.x series. It worked well for me and I didn’t need to learn anything new to use it. I get the point of Ubuntu’s Unity, which is a radically different shell that rides on top of GNOME. Unity is meant for Windows and Mac users who’ve never used Linux It’s also clearly designed to eventually become a tablet interface. When I look at GNOME though what I see is change just for the sake of change not change for greater end-user usability.
The idea of GNOME 3 was to get rid of clutter OK, I can see that, but in doing it GNOME’s designers had made GNOME less usable For example, in shifting from one project to another in your workspace you need to use the dashboard as a window management interface For me, this is like having to stop my car to shift gears That by itself is so annoying that I quickly stopped using GNOME 3.0.
I also found miss each windows’ minimize and maximize buttons. You can still minimize and maximize application windows, but what used to be an automatic action now wastes time. Finally, GNOME makes it very hard indeed to tweak your desktop. There’s no easy way to even set up a screen saver! I mean seriously, I have to do something like:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme 'Clearlooks‘
from a shell just to change my desktop theme?
GNOME 3 Failure: I saw this message far too many times.
It also doesn’t help any that GNOME 3 won’t run on basic graphics hardware. You need just the right mix of graphics and graphic drivers to get it to work. On my systems, I was only able to get one to work by using the Radeon driver for an older ATI graphics card.
In short, GNOME 3.0 is new but for users it’s a step backward. Fedora 15 is the first major distribution to include GNOME 3 by default. That was a mistake. Like Fedora 4 in its first not ready for prime time versions, GNOME 3 is not what most users want from a desktop. As for me, I’m sticking with GNOME 2.32, with occasional visits to KDE 4.6.
Now that I’ve got that out of my system, here’s what I like about Fedora 15.
