A Fedora 22 beta walk-through

The just released Fedora 22 beta boots up with a simple login display.

Once you're in Fedora, you'll find GNOME's characteristically stark, clean interface.

With a click on GNOME 3.16's Activities menu choice on the upper left, you'll get the menu bar on the left of available applications, the file and program search box in the top center, and the available desktops chooser on the right.

To see all your Fedora desktop's installed applications, click on the applications icon on the lower right. Some people love GNOME 3.16's simple, straightforward interface.

With this version of Fedora, you also get access to a simple app store. Under the hood, yum the traditional Red Hat package manager has been replaced by an updated package manager DNF. You don't have to worry about this.

As you can see, all you need do is pick a program to install (here's the best of breed audio editor Audacity) and Fedora takes care of the rest.

Firefox, as always, is Fedora's default web browser. Firefox is fine, but the fonts, in this beta, are jagged in its rendering.

When you use the desktop chooser you can see the activities application bar, the window that currently has the focus, and your desktop choices. Unfortunately, you can also see that the web browser's rendering is still off.

One nice new feature is how Fedora integrated online and cloud services into the desktop. Here, for example, you see how I've integrated my Google account, including Gmail and Google Calender; my ownCloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud; and Facebook into the desktop. GNOME's notification system has been overhauled so notification pop-up "banners," such as calendar appointments, show up at the top of the screen.

Fedora 22 also makes it easy to share your files, your screen, your media or enable remote logins with OpenSSH.

Some users may find Fedora 22 and GNOME 3.16 too barren for their desktop, but it's a powerful Linux desktop for those who put the time into mastering it.