The Final Zone project

Gnokii tags me about Riley Brandt Photography Youtube video featuring Fedora 23 Design Suite first look . Highlighted positive comments are the default applications, plugins and more color management for photographers. Enjoy!

Scribus 1.5.1svn running on Fedora 23 After several trials rebuilding Scribus 1.5.1 using Tom "Spot" Callaway 's spec file, the effort and patience finally paid off. The rpm version successfully compiled (I had to disable the devel package due to some odd built issue I have yet to find out) and is now available for Fedora 22, 23 and Rawhide under COPR repository . The reason for usinig the latest development version is mainly due to features not found on stable release which no longer cuts it: Cleaner user interface Better table implementation Orphan and widow control for better typography Ability to open/import other desktop publisher application like Adobe InDesgin, Quark Express and Microsoft Publisher Better import of Adobe Illustrator files ...and more An interesting feature is the chat system allowing to directly contact the community which is very helpful and should be standard to the majority of application. Download it , play with it, use it a...

Darktable is no longer available for 32-bits x86 devices since version 2.0. Calligra Krita will be available as default alongside MyPaint to match the Lab section website . Majority of features come from Fedora Workstation taking advantage of Gnome Shell technology. More tutorials . Users are welcome to add them. On technical side, the spec file uses design-suite group list for better synchronization (user can install the suite package with the command dnf install @design-suite ).

Talky.io have updated their website featuring their WebRTC chat. One of intriguing feature is the support up to 15 people highlighted below. Revamped Talky.io website featuring WebRTC It appears their systems is a worthy alterntive of Google HangOut. It will be nice project like Empathy carries more love.

Stable release of Fedora 23  Design Suite is now available with minimal changes like the inclusion of supplemental wallpapers posted from Nuancier. After installation on ASUS X550ZE laptop , no apparent change of the status is in sight. However, some hotkeys (home,end,pgup,pgdn) are functional. The author of asus-nb-wmi allowing to setup these hotkeys mentioned the inability to reach ASUS developers to address these common issues plaguing many ASUS laptops users and the lack of documentation. Backlight is currently broken due to the controller issues as display on boot so bug is filed : [     7.684288] [drm:radeon_acpi_init [radeon]] *ERROR* Cannot find a backlight controller Battery optimization is still an issue due to the driver choosing to use a powerful GPU rather the power saving mode. AMD is currently working on new driver structure. Dual Radeon is currently unsupported but works are under way .

Users having installed SoundConverter on Fedora 23 may notice the app will silently fail to run. The issue is caused by gstreamer-python which possibly needs a rebuilt. Running via terminal lead with this message: SoundConverter needs python-gstreamer 0.10! Running python on terminal leads to the following result: $ python Python 2.7.10 (default, Sep  8 2015, 17:20:17) [GCC 5.1.1 20150618 (Red Hat 5.1.1-4)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import gst Traceback (most recent call last):   File " ", line 1, in   File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/gst-0.10/gst/__init__.py", line 193, in     from _gst import * ImportError: /usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/gst-0.10/gst/_gst.so: undefined symbol: libxml_xmlDocPtrWrap >>> exit ()    Current workaround is to downgrade it using Fedora 22 package via dnf sudo dnf downgrade gstreamer-python --relea...

The current default layout Layout with the main toolbar Here is how LibreOffice Writer looks after removing the toolbar and only keep the sidebar located on the right. To achieve that result, set View -> Toolbars -> Standard unchecked. The benefit is a more focused and uncluttered layout without distraction and also more touchscreen friendly. It will be nice that user interface layout will be more responsive depending the size of the screen. This example is made with LibreOffice Writer 5.0.0.5 running on Fedora 23 Release Candidate 3.

F23-backgrounds is recently updated with the newest wallpapers including extra and is now available in stable repository. Simply update via Software application on latest Fedora 23 Workstation or command pkcon update f23-backgrounds-base f23-backgrounds-extras View the update In addition f22-backgrounds received a much needed update with the inclusion of previous supplemental wallpapers winnners . Please test them for all version to push them to stable release. Here is also the directory for distributions looking to package these wallpapers.

I upgraded the Asus X550ZE to Fedora 23 Beta Design Suite. So far, the majority of hardware is functional except the Fn hotkeys and the poor power optimization. For Fn hotkeys, after looking at all possible solutions, it turned out majority of Asus X series laptops is affected due to the lack of proper documentation of wapf function found within asus-nb-wmi module from the kernel. The ball is on ASUS to make hotkeys functional and provide needed information. The second case related to poor power optimization is due to radeon driver. In addition, the lack of functional hybrid driver only make the laptop running on R7 265 GPU for performance while the R5 230 is permanently disabled for better power saving. It will be a while before Linux kernel will support hybrid graphics for Dual AMD Radeon.

Fedora Magazine did a good job exposing more Fedora Labs notably Fedora 23 Design Suite Beta. No much update occurred other than the tutorial section currently under work thanks to one of notable contributors Andrew Walton, who also provided one of his excellent pictures available as part of Fedora 23 wallpaper. Final phase will be tweaking and update the tutorials on the wiki section before passing to the incoming 24 release. Feedback is welcome for users looking to have their favourites applications and fonts included by default as long they abide to Fedora Project policies .

Looking and talking at Ask Fedora , it will be nice to share suggestion for proper networked scanner support on HP all-in-one printers. One of solution is to install hplip-gui via terminal. sudo dnf install hplip-gui Or su -c "dnf install hplip-gui Unfortunately, the frontend is not listed on Gnome Software due to appdata missing. Another solution is to directly edit /etc/cups/printers.conf and change the device URI. To find the correct URI with HP protocol  of your networked HP all-in-one printer, use hp-setup -i or hp-setup hostname . The URI should be listed like hp:/net/name_of_hp_printer?zc=hostname Where hp:/net/ is the protocol replacing dnssd:// , zc=hostname is the name of hostmane for the all-in-one printer sometime subsituted by ip=ipaddress For example, the uri of Photosmart eStation C510 is  hp:/net/Photosmart_eStn_C510_series?zc=HPFFBBC9 hp:/Photosmart_eStn_C510_series?ip=192.168.1.64 Save the change and restart either the system or simply ...

Fedora 23 Rawhide within Gnome Boxes Gnome Boxes is an application similar to VirtualBox that allows installing a operating systems via virtualization or use it remotely. The main focus is the simplicity to casual users wanting to try their system.  One of new features is the ability to do an express installation with minimal interaction which is convenient for a quick setup for say Microsoft Windows system up to 8.1. One of weakness is the lack of transferring data within the virtualizer as done on VirtualBox useful to do the work on format not supported by applications on Linux distribution notable Fedora which is my main system. On some occasion, Boxes will not detect the existing virtualized system I installed on the main session until the restart. It can be annoying but not enough to detract the experience. Overall, Gnome Boxes is a very useful tool for developers and also designers wanting to run their operating system without dual boot. The test was done on ASUS X...

I updated a status report for aiming a full out of box experience for ASUS X550 family laptop . It is a AMD Kaveri powered laptop featuring Dual Radeon GPU. Known issues are missing functional hotkeys (Fn), broken webcam support and lack of optimized power management.

For artists and designers (i.e. graphics and web), Fedora 22 Design Suite is now available and received a new website located on https://labs.fedoraproject.org/en/design-suite/ . Listed features from the wiki : Now based on Fedora Workstation media . Addition of Sparkleshares, PDF Mod and Shutter applications. Inclusion of plugins for Blender (Lux Render and YaFaRay) and Inkscape (Sozi and Table). Latest versions of Entangle (0.7.0) and Inkscape (0.91) Gimp gained a new G'Mic plugin replacing Greycstation as default. Two shortcut icons for documentation of both Design Suite and Design Team Updated the list of tutorials related to design Users preferring installing  Fedora Workstation from network can add Design Suite category from the installer.

I recently bought an ASUS X550ZE to replace the venerable Sony VAIO N250E laptop. The reason of choosing an AMD powered laptop is for long term support i.e. the use of Vulkan API in future AMD GPU driver. In summary, here is the ASUS X550ZE specification taken from ASUS website : Processor AMD® APU A10-7400P /A8-7200P/FX-7600P Processor Chipset AMD A76M FCH Memory DDR3L 1600 MHz SDRAM, 8 GB Display 15.6" 16:9 /Full HD (1920x1080) Graphic AMD Radeon® R5 M230 + Radeon® R7 M265 DX Dual Graphics with 2GB DDR3 VRAM Built-in A10-7400P Storage 2.5" 9.5mm SATA 1TB 5400/7200 RPM Optical Drive Super-Multi DVD Card Reader 2 -in-1 card reader ( SD/ SDHC/ MMC) Camera VGA Web Camera Networking Integrated 802.11 b/g/n Built-in Bluetooth™ V4.0 (Optional) 10/100/1000/Gigabits Base T Interface 1 x COMBO audio jack 1 x VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external monitor 2 x USB 3.0 port(s) 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert 1 x HDMI Audio Built-in ...

Design Suite Alpha 22 is available for downloading along the Workstation edition of Fedora 22 Alpha which is based. The spins includes plugins for both Gimp (Gmic), Inkscape (support of making tables) and Blender (LuxRender). Shutter, a screenshot tool for desktop, is  added at the request of Design Team. More documentations related to Design Suite and Design Team are added for informing users, however known issue is swapped names of the correct url address which is fixed for beta release. In addition, the installer received similar updates for users looking to use Design related group of packages via either Server  edition or other spin variants.

Image speaks itself. gimp-paint-studio package just got an metainfo needed for Gnome Software Center as add-on for Gimp based on related Richard Hughes' blog . The updated package will be shortly available in Rawhide and also in Fedora 21 updates-testing repository . It will not be included for Fedora 20 due  to the preview release of Gnome Software lacking addons support. Next step will be contacting upstream adding that metainfo.  Hopefully other add-ons maintainers for applications such as Inkscape and Blender will do the same to bring a richful experiences to users.

A quick summary of the events. I met some Mofamiliar and new faces behind their IRC nickname including gnokii which is strong sense of humour and pro-active. The process was about reorganizing the Design Team by priority of the project. Mo covered the brainstorming where the rough task is pictured on https://luya.fedorapeople.org/fad-2015/ The complete edited version will follow soon.

It appears GMIC is now available in Fedora repository meaning it will be included in Design Suite 21 as replacement of the obsolete GREYstoration by default. That plugin is very useful for the excellent tutorials from Pat David who also contributed to the GMIC project thus removing the need to manually compile and install it.

Design Suite Live Spin has a shortcut for a list of tutorials related to graphical art and visual studio. The actual link is on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Design_Suite/Tutorials which needs more links for tutorials using free and open source tools.