Ubuntu user here, who wants to try Fedora, but the slow trial plan has had to be abandoned.

HD has virtually gone, because of wear on cable/HD interface, probably caused by vibration. At the moment, I'm balancing dodgy HD on books and cups and other things to keep some sort of angle to maintain contact.

Given that my system has collapsed, I have the perfect opportunity to move to Fedora.

The problem is this - when I've tried Fedora in live CD's I've liked it but the windows behaviour is what puts me off (in Gnome).

Every double-click on an icon opens a new window, so I finish up with too many stacked windows.

Is there any way in Fedora to move up/down a directory without opening a new window?

I've looked everywhere in settings etc but have found nothing that shows me how to move from, say, Pics - 2008 - Thanksgiving - Uncle Seamus without opening four separate windows.

Can that all be done in one window in Fedora?

Please answer this one real quick...I need to get the stuff off my old HD as promptly as possible but need help on Fedora. If one-window changing is not on, I'll stick with ubuntu.

I guess that's the default behavior of nautilus (the file manage of gnome, which is the default desktop on fedora). I don't use it, but it's definitely possible to change it's behavior to use a single window to navigate. Don't worry about that.

And if you don't like nautilus still, there are dozens of file managers that you can use as an alternative. And different desktop environments as well if what you dislike is the general feel of gnome.

Hi, and thanks for that.

I do like Gnome and use it all the time in ubuntu.

All I need to know, I guess, is how to change the Fedora windows behaviour to allow me to open successive directories in one window.

Can anyone tell me how to do that?

View menu. Make sure the side panel is checked.
BTW: its a Gnome/Nautilus thing Ubuntu must have the side panel checked by default. Drove me crazy too first time I used Nautilus in Debian.

I'm going to try that right now. It's late where I am, so I'll probably not get back to you for a while.

But I'll definitely let you know how I get on. And glad to know I'm not the only one driven mad by it.

Thanks.

I've had similar HD problems, but my solution was to replace the drive cable, not the computer since the cables are usually cheaply made and prone to failure. Of course you've probably tried that, but, just in case, I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention the obvious.

Thanks a lot to everyone who replied. I've got the windows thing ok now.

I wish, however, it was as simple as replacing the drive cable:

The problem is with the cable/HD interface, which has sheared off. The HD is knackered, so all I can do is hope to keep it viable long enough to get the data off onto my new drive.

I've tried Fedora and OpenSuse. Like them both. OpenSuse, unfortunately, won't let me customise my keyboard as Irish (Gaelic) the way that ubuntu does.

Fedora's great, but I'm thinking I'd like to try out KDE for a while, provided the distro lets me personalise my keyboard in Irish.

Any suggestions?

Sorry, not about keyboard settings. Remember: "Monolingual is another word for American."

I'm actually surprised that SUsE (a distribution created in Germany) doesn't include keyboard setting functionality. In fact I suspect it's there, at least as a command line application. Try system-config-keyboard in a terminal window.

Thanks for all the help there guys.

I got the Fedora window settings OK but simply couldn't get the better of screen-res. I just did not have the energy to learn how to plunge through directories and edit xorg.config (I'm well used to it in ubuntu.)

That said, re-installing Hardy Heron gave me exactly the same screen-res problems that I had a couple of years ago when I became a Linux user at the tail end of Feisty Fawn.

I googled till I puked, deciding that I'd best stick with what I knew best, accepting however that it might be a few days before I could get back to a decent screen-res.

The googling didn't work and in the end I copied my old xorg.conf so's I could use it in my new set-up.

Then I decided to give Intrepid Ibex a try, still expecting that it would take a couple of days before I'd get the video right. Yes, it came up with the horrible blank space down the left-hand side, but it invited me to install the correct drivers.

Now, we all know that the "correct drivers" are usually way off the mark with video-res, but on this occasion the restricted drivers worked first time.

No three-day googling. Just an instant result. Wouldn't it be great if it was like that all the time?

If the admins permit, I'd like to start another thread on the issue. Why, for example, do KDE-based distros have no problem with the video-res issue, but Gnome-based distros do.

And why do direct XP installs fail to register sound or decent graphics when put onto hard disc but have no problems when installed via VirtualBox???

I'm really confused about that one.

Thanks again.

The OS might not recognize your hardware when installed directly onto a hard disk because it doesn't have the correct driver to support said hardware. When you install an OS in a virtual machine (with VirtualBox or others) the guest OS isn't directly working with your hardware. The virtual machine is just that, a virtual machine. So you may have card x that is supported on your OS, but when you install a guest OS on a virtual machine, it may emulate say card z and provide drivers to the guest os. When the guest os makes a request to card Z, the virtual machine in turn takes that request, and translates it and sends it to your physical card x.

Or at least that's how I always thought it worked and tried to visualize it. That's why if a particular OS works flawlessly in a virtual machine, there is no guarantee that it will work at all if installed directly on the hard disk.

Hi claudius753

Think I know where you're coming from. I have a 3GB duo-core that hates XP. That's OK. I run Linux, so I'm not concerned.

When I try to run my other HD from Windows, though, it struggles in the sound department. Yet if I install XP in VirtualBox there's no problems.

You're interpretation is a good one. Much appreciated.

Thanks again.