Making Fedora 8 look good
I’ve installed Fedora 8 under Sun’s VirtualBox (a superb VM in my opinion). Actually I did it a while ago, but I did make some notes at the time, on how to make it look good. I’d really like to delete that file, so what better way than to publish :-).
Firstly, you’ve got to understand that I think Ubuntu is great, it’s beautiful, but it doesn’t have the software I need as standard. Second thing to understand, both Ubuntu 8 and Fedora 8 (forget 9) run approximately the same version of the Gnome desktop….. So if the only thing holding me to Ubuntu is appearance, surely I can make Fedora 8 look good.
Yes, I can. Firstly, look through the Add/Remove program, under Applications menu. Find any theme / wallpaper packs and add them, this will broaden your choices. Now go to the menu System->Preferences->Look And Feel. Under there you can keep the same theme (or not) and click on customize. You’ll find a list of colour schemes for the current theme. I chose Clearlooks_Cairo-Human. Sound familiar?.. Yes, Ubuntu uses a colour scheme called ‘Human’ also. And it is very similar, with those lovely flesh tones.
Ok, colours are good. Now theres something else that I like to do, and that is to loose the redundant toolbar at the bottom of the screen (or top, depending on your preference). Do so this I click on a bit of clear space on the bar, and select ‘Delete this panel’. But now there is no window list, so on the top panel I click on a bit of clear space and select ‘Add to panel’. Go find ‘Window List’ and click ‘Add’… Now you can move it around to a comfortable position, and do the same to add the ‘Workspace Switcher’.
Select a wallpaper. Something vague that won’t attract your interest, but that is pleasing to the eye is ideal. Find a clear patch of desktop and click right for menu. I personally selected something that looks like brown hair mostly for the colour and texture. It fits the Human colour scheme used by the window frames. You’re preferences will vary, obviously.
Fed up with folder windows all over your desktop? Yes, me too. Each double click on a folder should open in the same window, and gnome does support this. Go to the menu System->Preferences->Personal->File Management, and click the Behaviour tab. Under there is a check box ‘Always open in browser windows’, click the fella. That’s it.
Last but not least. That toolbar is probably looking a bit out of place, so lets soften it up a bit. Again find a clear patch on the toolbar and click right for a menu. Now select a background solid colour with approximately 50% transparency. Try to choose a colour that matches your wallpaper, so mine is Red:192 Green:162 Blue:130 for a light brown. That will give it a slightly frosted look, and let it blend in with the wallpaper whilst remaining reasonably distinct.
Ok, now for a problem. If you have a big screen like 1920×1200, you’ll run into a problem every time you go full screen. X changes the DPI, so all of the fonts in various applications get confused. Firefox is especially irritating when this happens, as it kind of goes half and half, with some bits getting big fonts, some bits not, some getting a big font but using small font spacing… Ok, you get the idea, it’s ugly. You need to open up a terminal, and ’su’ to the root account. From there edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf using your favorite editor (vi surely), and find the section titled ‘Device’. Add the line Option “DPI” “96×96″. Hopefully thats it, just restart X and all should be ok. No magically resizing fonts.
Hopefully at this point your desktop is much more pleasing to the eye. No sharp contrasting colours, and has a relaxing feel to it. Here’s a snapshot of my desktop.
