Today I decided to do yet another install of Fedora Core 6. I guess I want to get it right, not that my previous installs are problematic. I'm installing from the previously burned DVD. Let's start.
Boot your computer from the DVD or disk 1 of the set up CD's. When you get to the boot prompt type 'linux i686'. There's a known bug with the anaconda installer and some folks are getting the i586 kernel installed. Using the 'linux i686' command line parameter gives you a fighting chance of actually installing the i686 kernel. You now have the option to test the installation media. Do so if you wish. I'm skipping this step as I know that the disk is fine. The next screen gives you the chance to read the Fedora Core 6 release notes. Click next. Choose your default language. Click next. Choose your default keyboard layout. Click next. Choose whether this will be an upgrade or a full install. Full install here. Click next. Choose the partition to install Fedora Core 6 to. I have several available. I choose the one I want, hda10, and I edit the mount point, which will be '/' and choose to format this partition as ext3. Click next. The installer warns you that you are about to format partition hda10. Click next or ok. Next is the grub options screen. Edit this as you see fit. I chose to leave FC6 as the default operating system. You can make changes to the grub bootloader later. Click next. Choose your network configuration. I prefer to leave everything as is here. DHCP will be just fine for now. I will change things later. Select your time zone. Click next. The next screen is where you choose a root password. You should select something fairly complex. Write it down somewhere. Click next. On this screen you can choose to install additional software at this time. You can also install additional software at a later time. I choose to leave things as they are. I want to get Fedora Core 6 installed. I'll add software later. The system checks dependencies for the requested packages. Click next. The install begins. On my system installation takes around 20 minutes. Remove the DVD and reboot into your new Fedora Core 6 installation.
Next up: First Boot
Showing posts with label Fedora Core 6 - My Way. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fedora Core 6 - My Way. Show all posts
Saturday, December 30, 2006
What's all the NVidia fuss?
I have Fedora Core 6 installed on 4 different partitions on this computer. I like to play around with Linux a bit. I had no plans on setting up the correct Nvidia driver for this particular desktop because I felt that the Nvidia driver actually slowed down the desktop. It felt 'lethargic' after I installed it. Well, I changed my mind. I took the plunge and installed the Nvidia driver for this desktop. My graphics card is the GeForce FX5200 128 megabyte AGP. I've been using the Livna repos for this install so I typed, as root, 'yum install kmod-nvidia'. Yum did it's job. The driver installed without error. I logged out of the desktop and logged back in. One the way back in the Nvidia logo was seen. That's good. That's what we want to see. Reaching the desktop as regular user I went to the top panel, system, preferences, desktop effects. I commanded Mr. Fedora to enable desktop effects and accepted the defaults. Grabbed the already open terminal and moved it around. What do you know, it works! I dragged the terminal to the side of the screen and the cube effect takes over. Move my mouse pointer to the upper right corner of the screen and all open programs are moved to the center of the screen. Works! Alt/Tab? Works. What's all the Nvidia fuss?
Footnote:
Although I say that I have no trouble with Desktop Effects there is one note of annoyance. When I log in to the desktop for the first time Desktop Effects seem to be partially disabled, to the extent that there are no window borders. I need to 'Enable Desktop Effects' at each log in.
Footnote:
Although I say that I have no trouble with Desktop Effects there is one note of annoyance. When I log in to the desktop for the first time Desktop Effects seem to be partially disabled, to the extent that there are no window borders. I need to 'Enable Desktop Effects' at each log in.
Installing Java for Firefox and Mozilla
From what I've seen on the Linux forums there are a few different schools of thought when it comes to installing Java. Here's what I do. I download Java from www.java.com/en/download/linux_manual.jsp. Download the Linux (self-extracting file). This will save the file to your default download location. I move the downloaded file from /home/glenn/Desktop (my default download location) to /opt.
[root@dad ~]# mv /home/glenn/Desktop/jre-1_5_0_09-linux-i586.bin /opt
Next I change to the /opt folder.
[root@dad ~]# cd /opt
Then I run the downloaded file.
[root@dad ~]# sh jre-1_5_0_09-linux-i586.bin
Press the space bar several times to accept the defaults and finally type 'yes'. When the installation is done you need to link the Java plug in to the Firefox and Mozilla plug in folders so that Java will work properly.
Link to Firefox plug in.
[root@dad opt]# ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_09/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/firefox-1.5.0.8/plugins/
Link to Mozilla plug in.
[root@dad opt]# ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_09/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
Installation is complete. You can remove jre-1_5_0_09-linux-i586.bin if you desire.
Close Firefox if it is open. Start Firefox. I usually go to Google and search 'test java'. I select a web page that will in fact use the plugin to confirm that it works, which it will. This method works every time I install Java on a new system.
[root@dad ~]# mv /home/glenn/Desktop/jre-1_5_0_09-linux-i586.bin /opt
Next I change to the /opt folder.
[root@dad ~]# cd /opt
Then I run the downloaded file.
[root@dad ~]# sh jre-1_5_0_09-linux-i586.bin
Press the space bar several times to accept the defaults and finally type 'yes'. When the installation is done you need to link the Java plug in to the Firefox and Mozilla plug in folders so that Java will work properly.
Link to Firefox plug in.
[root@dad opt]# ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_09/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/firefox-1.5.0.8/plugins/
Link to Mozilla plug in.
[root@dad opt]# ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_09/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
Installation is complete. You can remove jre-1_5_0_09-linux-i586.bin if you desire.
Close Firefox if it is open. Start Firefox. I usually go to Google and search 'test java'. I select a web page that will in fact use the plugin to confirm that it works, which it will. This method works every time I install Java on a new system.
Installing Flashplayer 9
I'm going to add Flashplayer 9 my way. I've been using Flashplayer 9 for a while now with no apparent trouble. Go to: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer9.html and click on 'download installer for Linux'. Click on 'save to disk' and 'do this automatically for files of this type'. I install most everything in/from /opt. Copy or move FP9_plugin_beta_112006.tar.gz to /opt. You will probably need to use 'sudo'. I prefer to open a terminal and type 'su -' so that I don't need to keep typing passwords. Here's the output from my terminal:
[glenn@dad ~]$ su -
Password:
[root@dad ~]# mv /home/glenn/Desktop/FP9_plugin_beta_112006.tar.gz /opt/
[root@dad ~]# cd /opt
[root@dad opt]# ls <-- List contents of folder
FP9_plugin_beta_112006.tar.gz
[root@dad opt]# tar xvfz <-- Extract contents of file
flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/
flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/libflashplayer.so
flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/readme.txt
[root@dad opt]# cd flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/ <-- Switch to the flashplayer folder
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]# ls <-- List contents of folder
libflashplayer.so readme.txt
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]# cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-1.5.0.8/plugins/ <-- Copy libflashplayer.so to default Firefox plugin folder
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]# cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ <-- Copy libflashplayer.so to default Mozilla plugin folder
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]#
Done. Restart Firefox. Type 'about:plugins' in the url bar. Flash should be listed and should work now.
After the install you can remove FP9_plugin_beta_112006.tar.gz if you desire.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
[glenn@dad ~]$ su -
Password:
[root@dad ~]# mv /home/glenn/Desktop/FP9_plugin_beta_112006.tar.gz /opt/
[root@dad ~]# cd /opt
[root@dad opt]# ls <-- List contents of folder
FP9_plugin_beta_112006.tar.gz
[root@dad opt]# tar xvfz <-- Extract contents of file
flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/
flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/libflashplayer.so
flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/readme.txt
[root@dad opt]# cd flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78/ <-- Switch to the flashplayer folder
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]# ls <-- List contents of folder
libflashplayer.so readme.txt
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]# cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-1.5.0.8/plugins/ <-- Copy libflashplayer.so to default Firefox plugin folder
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]# cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ <-- Copy libflashplayer.so to default Mozilla plugin folder
[root@dad flash-player-plugin-9.0.21.78]#
Done. Restart Firefox. Type 'about:plugins' in the url bar. Flash should be listed and should work now.
After the install you can remove FP9_plugin_beta_112006.tar.gz if you desire.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
Static IP address in Gnome
I prefer to use a static ip address on my FC6 box. It seems to make networking between all the computers here at home a lot easier. Go to the top panel and select System / Administration / Network. Enter root password. Your default ethernet card should be shown in the first window. Deactivate it. Select 'edit' from the icons at the top of the network configuration tool. Under the 'general' tab I select 'statically set ip address'. I enter my ip address, 192.168.1.101, my subnet mask, 255.255.255.0, and my default gateway, 192.168.1.1. Click 'ok'. Select the 'dns' tab. Enter your preferred hostname. For me this is 'dad'. The primary and secondary DNS address are usually already there by default as is the DNS search path. If yours are not there you need to find out what they are and enter them now. Click on the menu file / save. Click the 'devices' tab. Click on the 'activate' icon to activate your ethernet connection. Accept any alerts that are presented and you should now have a working static ip address that will not change upon reboot.
As part of setting a static ip address I need to edit my /etc/hosts file. Here's what I do:
At the command prompt, as regular user, type "sudo gedit /etc/hosts". I like to add the ip addresses and hostnames of all 5 computers on my network. Here's my default hosts file:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
::1 localhost.localdomain localhost
Here's what I added:
127.0.0.1 dad
192.168.1.100 meg
192.168.1.101 dad
192.168.1.102 neville
192.168.1.103 oldendorff
192.168.1.104 mom
Save and close your editor.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
As part of setting a static ip address I need to edit my /etc/hosts file. Here's what I do:
At the command prompt, as regular user, type "sudo gedit /etc/hosts". I like to add the ip addresses and hostnames of all 5 computers on my network. Here's my default hosts file:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
::1 localhost.localdomain localhost
Here's what I added:
127.0.0.1 dad
192.168.1.100 meg
192.168.1.101 dad
192.168.1.102 neville
192.168.1.103 oldendorff
192.168.1.104 mom
Save and close your editor.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
Add yourself to the sudoer's list
Add yourself to the sudoers list. Open a terminal. Type 'su' without the quotes, and enter root's password. Type '/usr/sbin/visudo', without the quotes. This will open the visudo configuration file. Hit the escape key and then hit the insert key. This will allow you to edit the file. Scroll down until you see these lines:
## Allows people in group wheel to run all commands
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
Remove the # in front of %wheel. Hit escape once and then :wq! (colon, w, q and ! ,in that order) and press enter. This will exit the editor and save the changes that you have made. You are now added to the sudoers list. On the top panel select System / Administration / Users and Groups. Type root's password and select your user. Click on the properties icon for your user. Select the groups tab, and scroll down to where you see the wheel group. Select that check box, click ok and close out all windows. You will now be able to use a terminal with root permissions so that any time you are in a terminal and need to do something as root you can preface your command with 'sudo', without the quotes, as in sudo updatedb or sudo gedit foo.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
## Allows people in group wheel to run all commands
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
Remove the # in front of %wheel. Hit escape once and then :wq! (colon, w, q and ! ,in that order) and press enter. This will exit the editor and save the changes that you have made. You are now added to the sudoers list. On the top panel select System / Administration / Users and Groups. Type root's password and select your user. Click on the properties icon for your user. Select the groups tab, and scroll down to where you see the wheel group. Select that check box, click ok and close out all windows. You will now be able to use a terminal with root permissions so that any time you are in a terminal and need to do something as root you can preface your command with 'sudo', without the quotes, as in sudo updatedb or sudo gedit foo.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
Add a terminal icon to the top panel
Add a terminal icon to the top panel. On the top panel and select Aplications / Accessories / Terminal. Right click 'terminal' and select 'add this launcher to panel'. A handy terminal icon will be added to your top panel. Next time you log in it will probably have moved from where you left it. Right click the terminal icon and select 'move' to put it back where you want it.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
Default Screen Saver
A minor annoyance to me is the screensaver. By default, the screensaver is password protected. It get's me every time! I don't need this feature for what I do with this computer so I disable the password locking this way: Go to the top panel and select System/Preferences/Screensaver. I prefer to choose the blank screen, top left of the screen saver preferences window. At the bottom of the preferences window just above the help button you'll see 'lock screen when screen saver is active'. Untick the checkbox. Now a simple move of the mouse brings you back to your desktop whenever the screen saver is activated.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
Enable Auto Login
One of the first things I like to do to customize my personal Fedora Core Gnome desktop is to enable auto-login. To do that, go to the top menu and select System/Administration/Login Screen. Type in the root password and the 'Login Window Preferences' window appears. On the left side under 'include' click the 'add' button to add yourself to the llist. Now click 'apply user changes'. Click on the 'security' tab. Tick 'enable automatic login' and select your user name from the dropdown menu. Tick 'enable timed login' and select your user name from the dropdown menu. Close the preferences window. This will allow you to get to the desktop when system boots without having to select a user and typing password. This is just my preference. Some will say that this practice is a security risk. That's fine. My computer is a home system that is only accessed by me and rarely, if at all, my family members.One of the first things I like to do to customize my personal Fedora Core Gnome desktop is to enable auto-login. To do that, go to the top panel and select System/Administration/Login Screen.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. If I'm in error and need to make a correction please, by all means, let me know. I want all info presented here to be accurate.
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