Gnome 3 on Fedora 17

November 6, 2012
Linux - User Interface

The first Linux distribution I used was Red Hat. I am not going to lie, the guy in the logo used scare the hell out of me! I then migrated to Fedora when Red Hat was discontinued. Currently I am running Fedora 17’s Beefy Miracle. Fedora always has silly names for their releases! Before that release, I was using Fedora 14 and using the well-loved Gnome 2 as my desktop environment. Sorry KDE people, I don’t want that much “control” over my desktop. I like to keep it simple.

Juuuuulia, I’m watching you.

Six months ago or so, I had a random urge to update to Fedora 16 and test out Gnome 3. And yessss, I was aware that Gnome 3 did not live up to its predecessor and even Linus Torvalds thought it was fail. Whatever, I’m just a silly girl! Just let me be!

Whether it was the installer’s fault, my inexperience in updating Linux, or a combination of both, my entire hard drive was wiped and I said adios to my Windows 7 partition. Noooooo! My preeecious Photoshop! Luckily, I wasn’t silly enough to not to back-up my files. After getting some help to resolve hard drive errors and get Fedora working on my gangsta HP Envy 14 Beats laptop (it was on sale, don’t judge me), I was finally able to see Gnome 3.

Here is the desktop.

Here is how to access the programs and applications.

My personal opinion: the user interface is fugly, literally fat and ugly. Screenshots ~~can be~~ are deceiving. On my 14 inch, 1388 x 768 laptop screen, it is quite bulky. I do commend the developers for maintaining a degree of “minimalism” though. At first, I was annoyed by the fact you had to access applications on a another screen rather than just having an application menu built in the title bar. I did discover you could add an application menu and other neat desktop widgets through Gnome Extensions. Eventually though, I became accustomed to using the function key to search for applications. The only programs I really use on a frequent basis are Firefox, gedit, and VirtualBox. I use VirtualBox to access my beloved Photoshop in Windows XP (I’m sorry, GIMP isn’t as amazing as PS). So yes, I don’t dual boot anymore. Sadface?

To improve the appearance of Gnome Shell, I installed gnome-tweak-tool and used the theme Zukitwo. I was able to get the maximize and minimize buttons back too. It’s a great theme, I definitely recommend it! I modified the CSS slightly to my satisfaction. I also replaced the default Gnome icon set with Faenza.

Another annoyance I had with Gnome 3 was good, old NetworkManager. Sometimes it wasn’t able to connect to a network because of a “bad password”. Other times, I could only stay connected for a very short period of time. It was probably an issue with Fedora and wpa_supplicant. Frustrated, I uninstalled NetworkManager and replaced it with Wicd. It was a lot better for the first few months. It was convenient to be able to see actual logs. I had to disable SElinux, which really wasn’t too much of an issue. Then, it also went downhill. Now, my blame goes to Fedora and its messed up encryption.

The other day, NetworkManager somehow found its way back into my computer through some update packages. The package manager also sucks too. As a result, it began conflicting with Wicd. I gave up and ditched Wicd. Now I’m back with NetworkManager and surprisingly, it doesn’t randomly kick me off of network anymore. But, my network connections remain slow as hell! I’m a hundred percent certain that my wireless card is not to blame, even my rinky-dinky iPad can get better speeds.

These were my two main front-end and back-end issues with Gnome 3 and Fedora. I have a lot more, but they weren’t as pressing. As of now, I am thinking of ditching both. I’m sorry you two. I still want to try Mate on Fedora 18 which is coming out soon (I’m too lazy to test the Beta). Maybe then I will decide for sure whether Fedora is worth ditching altogether. I’m thinking of switching to either Linux Mint or Arch (I get a cat in return :3) and using Cinnamon.

Be bold, take flight — tryangles!