This doesn't happen all the time. But it did today.

I'm stuck using Citrix. Maybe Citrix isn't crap (though it's certainly looking like it), but the application I'm using over Citrix is -- I repeat, IS -- crap.

I'm in Fedora 18, and it starts dying on me.

So I reboot into Windows 8. "Maybe it'll work better in the desktop operating system that isn't the playground of hackers and libre-everything partisans."

I start up Windows 8. I start my Citrix app.

It won't run at all in Windows. It won't even run badly. Nothing. Fucking nothing.

Back to Fedora. I just have to start a new session periodically to keep the Citrix over-the-wire goodness flowing.

Maybe this is a Windows 8 issue (because it runs reliably yet crappy in Windows 7). Maybe it's a Firefox-in-Windows issue.

All I know is I can hobble along in Linux but not Windows.

It didn't take me days to figure it out, but getting this Fedora 18 system to recognize and actually print on my el-cheapo HP LaserJet 1020 should have been a whole lot easier than it turned out to be.

The system "recognized" the printer as soon as I plugged it in. I already had the hplip package installed, which I thought would help. Drivers were installed for me.

But as soon as I tried to print, nothing happened.

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I raised a bug in Fedora over 3.9.x kernels that won't boot under EFI on my HP Pavilion g6-2210us laptop.

The latest patched kernel works for me. Thanks, Fedora users and developers!

I've spent just about a month with this new HP Pavilion g6-2210us laptop that shipped with Windows 8. That means UEFI and Secure Boot.

And new hardware. We all know how difficult Linux can be with new hardware.

During the aforementioned month, I did a lot of work in Windows 8. I sent up my whole environment. Even installed Perl. And Python. (It's not like I'm a big-time hacker or anything, but I aspire.)

But it's time for me to get back to Linux. Except that I'm having issues.

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I'm testing Fedora 18 again. Yes, the live image. I didn't do an install, though I'm certainly thinking about it.

In this release's GNOME 3.6 desktop, at least a few applications -- all from GNOME proper -- like Nautilus are putting more functionality into the "global" menu that pops down from the app's icon in the upper panel.

While not catastrophic, it is problematic.

From where I sit, as long as most of an application's menu choices remain in its own window, putting anything in that app's panel-icon dropdown menu other than a superfluous "quit" does nothing to enhance the user experience.

More directly, having to go from the menu in the application's window to the additional menu in the upper panel to look for the functions you want just seems wrong.

For one thing, it kills discoverability, something that both GNOME 3 and Ubuntu's Unity seem overly fond of doing.

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Fedora 18 has finally appeared in its final form after many delays. Largely responsible: a new Anaconda installer that has seen much criticism, mostly from users who like complicated manual partitioning. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I've always liked Ananconda. As far as I know, it's the only installer that can create any number of encrypted partitions -- in or out of LVM (logical volume management) -- and allow me to unlock them with a single passphrase typed once during boot. It also appears to be the only installer that can create a fully encrypted LVM installation while allowing another operating system -- like Windows -- to remain on the same disk.

What I'm trying to say is if the Debian installer would do these two things, I'd be a happy, happy camper.

Back to Fedora 18, aka "Spherical Cow." (I do like funny distro names more than serious Fedora names or stupid Ubuntu animal ones.) F18 offers a whole bunch of desktop environments in relatively (to very) new versions: GNOME, Xfce, LXDE, KDE and now MATE and Cinnamon. No Unity. A pity, perhaps. Or not.

I downloaded the network-install ISO, from which I could theoretically install any one of these environments.

I also downloaded a live image of Fedora 18 with Xfce 4.10. For the past many months, I've been using Xfce 4.8 rather heavily in Debian Wheezy. Debian Wheezy is never, ever going to get Xfce 4.10, even via Backports, as far as I know. Not that there's all that much difference between 4.8 and 4.10.

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I've been sampling Fedora 18 -- now in alpha -- via the live images mostly as a way to test and come to terms with GNOME 3.6.

I'm currently running GNOME 3.4.2 in Debian Wheezy, but I've wanted to know what was going to be so different in newer versions of the desktop environment.

I'm grappling with those differences, as you can read in posts right around this one. While it seems like this is time for GNOME 3 to settle in a bit, it looks like that will happen maybe a year from now.

Coming at this as a user of GNOME 3 (and I find myself actually liking the environment that many have avowed to leave behind), Fedora 18 is looking like a very good release for desktop users.

I've been comparing it to the Ubuntu 12.10 GNOME Remix, which is sticking with a less-hobbled Nautilus 3.4 along with a GNOME 3.6 base. So far, Fedora 18 appears to be superior. It handles my hardware (and touchy Alps touchpad) better and seems more solid, even in its current alpha form.

Even though the first Ubuntu GNOME remix is a final release, it seems pretty unfinished, and I expect things to be a lot better if and when the Ubuntu 13.04 GNOME Remix is released.

But for now Fedora 18 looks like a very promising way to run a solid GNOME 3 system. Or as solid as it gets, anyway.

Note: Look at this page from the GNOME Project. It offers an ISO that includes GNOME 3.6. I've heard that it's Fedora with a newer GNOME. GNOME is also hosting ISOs for the Ubuntu 21.10 GNOME Remix.

And on the Getting GNOME page, GNOME recommends not only its own ISO but Fedora proper, OpenSUSE, Arch and Debian.

The more I figure out how GNOME 3/Shell works in Fedora 16, the more I like it.

I'm not at the point where I can say, "Oh, it's totally better than GNOME 2," but I'm increasingly able to do things the way I'm accustomed to doing in the GNOME Shell environment.

I will refrain from comparing how things work in Fedora 16/GNOME Shell vs. Ubuntu 11.10/Unity until I spend more time in the latter. But this comparison is at the forefront of my thinking about which direction my Linux desktop use will go in during the year ahead.

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I've spent probably more than a year avoiding new distributions, new releases, distro reviews and the dreaded "I ran the live CD of Project X and here's what happened" posts.

But I'm in an inquisitive mood. And here is one of those "I ran the live CD for an hour" reviews. Take it for the proverbial what it's worth.

My earlier tests of GNOME 3 (in OpenSUSE) were a bit of a bust, and while my tests of Unity in Ubuntu 11.04's live environment went well, I wasn't sufficiently moved enough to take the next step (which I suppose would be throwing over good ol' Debian Squeeze and GNOME 2 for Ubuntu with Unity).

Today I decided to give Fedora 16 and its GNOME 3/GNOME Shell desktop a try.

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http://fedora.org/