my-guides.net Fedora 8 Installation Guide Contributed by axel Last Updated Sunday, 06 January 2008 Fedora 8 (Werewolf) has been released! Fedora is a community supported project and is distributed for free. It is a very good choice for developers and high tech enthousiasts using Linux in non critical environments. Red Hat Enterprise Linux ( RHEL ) is based on Fedora but it costs money. The advantange is that you can get support from Red Hat. But enough with RHEL. Just like with Fedora Core 6 and Fedora 7 I wrote this guide to help you with some common installation tasks that might be useful for you. Everything has been tested on my system and it works! Learn how to set up extra repositories, add video/dvd and audio codecs, install useful applications, configure Firefox's plugins, install compiz-fusion and much more! ** Note: If a command starts with a $ it means that it has to be executed as user, whereas if it starts with # it means it has to be executed as root. ** Note: If you are unfamiliare with linux console or if you want to learn more about Linux commands you can take a look at my Basic Linux Commands guide. ** Note: For editing text files in the following guide I use nano, a terminal based editor. You can instead use gedit if you are in Gnome or kedit if you are in KDE. Contents - Configuring sudo - Configuring yum - Basic Commands - Fedora Repositories - Livna Repository - FreshRPMs Repository - ATrpms Repository - Graphical Interface ( yumex ) - yum through proxy - yum plugins http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net - Configuring Services - Installing video drivers - Installing nVidia driver - Installing ati driver - Installing Microsoft fonts - Configuring Firefox - KDE Default browser - Acrobat Plugin - Flash Plugin - Mplayer Plugin - java Plugin - mms streaming play - Set backspace button - MP3 and Audio players - Rhythmbox/Gstreamer - Amarok - Audacious - XMMS http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net - DVD & video players - mplayer - totem - xine - vlc - video lan client - kaffeine - RealPlayer - IRC Clients - konversation - xchat - MSN Messenger Clients - kopete - pidgin - amsn - Author, Burn and BackUp CD/DVDs - gnomebaker - k3b - k9copy http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net - DeVeDe - Download manager - PDF Readers - kpdf - xpdf - acrobatreader - Torrent Clients - KTorrent - Bittorrent - Other Useful Applications - rar - FTP Clients - chm Reader - eMule Client - linuxdcpp - Partition Editor - Google Earth - Skype http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net - Accessing Windows Partitions - FAT32 - NTFS - Accessing Windows Shares - Compiz-fusion - git - unofficial repo - unofficial packages - official packages - KDE - KDE Installation - KDE Country Flags - KDE style in gtk applications - Auto Login - JAVA Installaion - OpenJDK - Sun JAVA http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net 1. Configuring sudo Normally if you want to run a command which requires root privileges you first have to type 'su -', type your root password and then type the command. However you can bypass this by using the 'sudo' command. But first you have to configure it like this: $ su - Password: <- Give your root password here # visudo Now go below the line: root ALL=(ALL) ALL press a, and type the following username ALL=(ALL) ALL where username is the username you use to login. Next press Escape. Now, if you want to be promted for your root password each time you use the sudo command go to this line: # %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL and with your cursor pointing on # press x If you don't want to be promted for your root password each time you use the sudo command go to this line: # %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net and with your cursor pointing on # press x **Note: Using sudo without having to type your root password may expose your system since anyone that gets access to that user may as well become root. So, be careful! Next, press :wq to save and exit. (type the : as well) Finally type: # gpasswd -a username wheel To test if you have done it correctly as a simple user type: $ sudo whoami If everything is working properly the command should return the word root. **Note: For the rest of the guide I will be using the sudo command when I want to execute a command which requires root previleges. You can still use the normal su -c 'command' way. 2. Configuring yum Basic Commands - Install an application $ sudo yum install application_name - Remove an application $ sudo yum remove application_name - Install an rpm from your hard disk using yum to resolve dependencies http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net $ sudo yum localinstall application_name - Search for an application $ sudo yum search application_name - Find info about an application $ sudo yum info application_name - Update the whole system $ sudo yum update - Enable a repository $ sudo yum --enablerepo=repo_name - Disable a repository $ sudo yum --disablerepo=repo_name Fedora Repositories Fedora has 2 repositories named 'fedora' and 'updates'. To use them and not get errors about unsigned packages you must import their GPG keys. Open a terminal and type: $ sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/* Livna Repository In Livna repository you can find additional programs and multimedia codecs. Install it like this: $ sudo rpm -hiv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm $ sudo rpm --import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net FreshRPMS Repository Install it like this: $ sudo rpm -hiv http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/8/freshrpms-release/freshrpms-release-1.1- 1.fc.noarch.rpm $ sudo rpm --import http://freshrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY-freshrpms ATrpms Repository This repository is said to provide better mythtv support among others. I can't say for sure since I don't have a card to test it. To install it type: $ sudo rpm --import http://atrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms $ sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/atrpms.repo And paste those lines in the file atrpms.repo [atrpms] name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - ATrpms baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/f$releasever-$basearch/atrpms/stable gpgkey=http://ATrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms gpgcheck=1 enabled=0** Note: From now on you should better use only one of Livna, FreshRPMs and ATrpms repositories for installing additional packages. Mixing repositories may cause your system to become unstable or even crash it! I prefer the Livna repository and I will use this for the rest of the guide. Therefore my default settings will be Livna repository enabled and freshrpms/atrpms repositories disabled. You can disable the ones you don't want like that: $ sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/livna.repo $ sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/freshrpms.repo $ sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/atpms.repo and change "enabled=1" to "enabled=0". Save (Ctrl+O) and exit (Ctrl+X). Graphical Interface ( yumex ) If you are not familiar with console you can use yumex. Yumex is a GUI (Graphical user Interface) for yum to simplify all the above commands. To install it type: $ sudo yum install yumex http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net ** Note: For the rest of the guide I'll be using yum for installing additional packages. If you prefer it you can enable/disable repos and install packages through yumex. yum through proxy If you are behind an http proxy server and you want yum to connect to the internet through that proxy open a terminal and type: $ sudo nano /etc/yum.conf Add this line in the yum configuration proxy=http://ip:port/ where ip is your proxy's ip address and port is the port the proxy listens to. Don't forget the / after the port number. Save (Ctrl+O) and exit (Ctrl+X). yum plugins - presto Presto is a project that provides faster, smaller size downloads to Fedora users. With presto plugin enabled you use deltarpm repositories to download only the part of the rpm that has change, thus saving you bandwidth and time. To enable it open a terminal and type: $ sudo yum install yum-presto deltarpm Next we have to make some changes to the .repo file to support downloading from deltarpm repositories. $ sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo and change it from [updates] name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch - Updates http://www.my-guides.net/en Powered by Joomla! Generated: 10 January, 2008, 10:38 my-guides.net #baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/updates/$releasever/$basearch/ mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-released-f$releasever&arch=$basearch enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedorato [updates] name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch - Updates baseurl=http://lesloueizeh.com/f8/i386/updates