Fedora 10 put to the test

Taking this into consideration, I would recommend the DVD installation method over the live CD, especially if you expect to install more than one copy.

The live CD is ideal for having a look at Fedora without any commitment; you cannot run the desktop live from the installation DVD.

The improved range of applications comes in handy too: if you choose to install the Gnome desktop, this method of installation provides Open Office.

RPM Fusion
With some software having restrictions on distribution, freely available Linux distributions often cannot provide everything you need on the installation media.

Ubuntu partially gets around this problem with its ‘multiverse’ software repository, which contains a large amount of software affected in this way.

Fedora has no such repository and, as such, would be too limited for most people. To get around this, three unofficial repositories were set up, the most popular of which was ‘Livna’. The three repositories would sometimes provide different versions of the same software; ultimately not very productive, but with Fedora 10’s release, these have all merged into ‘RPM Fusion’.

The first thing to do upon installing Fedora and applying its updates is to enable this repository. Head over to http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration to download the ‘free’ and ‘nonfree’ files. The setup process is automated, onl y requiring confirmation a few times about changes to the system. Once done, you will have access to various drivers (such as the Nvidia and AMD proprietary graphics drivers) and all necessary multimedia codecs.

One important package not included in RPM Fusion is Adobe’s Flash plug-in. The way to install this will be familiar to Windows users. Just head to the Adobe website and download the plug-in marked ‘RPM for Linux’. You can have Firefox install this directly, or save the download and click on it to do it yourself.

Fedora versus Ubuntu
Fedora 10 is a polished and attractive desktop, and offers some advantages over its closest rival, Ubuntu 8.10. Its up-to-date software may provide useful features to many people, although this could also mean less stability compared to more tested software. For beginners, Ubuntu is still undoubtedly the best choice, but for anyone willing to experiment a little and try out alternatives, Fedora 10 is certainly worth a shot.

Complex tasks made easy with Gnome Do
A small utility that is starting to get lots of popular attention is Gnome Do. This oddly named piece of software lets you perform sometimes complex tasks with just a couple of keyboard strokes. For instance, you can enter part of a file name, and from there perform a variety of tasks on the matched file, including opening it, moving or renaming it. You can also enter a Firefox bookmark or any URL and have Firefox launch and access that site.

A very useful feature is the ability to launch an application quickly by typing part of its name. It can easily be extended too; a variety of plug-ins come as standard to enhance the features, all of which can be enabled or disabled at will. One plug-in lets you quickly upload images to the Imageshack hosting site, returning the URL to you ready to use.

To launch Gnome Do, press the ‘super’ key (mapped to the ‘Start’ key) and the spacebar together. Type whatever you wish (such as a URL, a file name, an application to launch, etc). and then perform the action, or press the Tab key to decide which action to perform. If you match the name of an image file, you could decide to open this, upload it to Flickr or to Imageshack. The utility is available directly from the Ubuntu and Fedora repositories.

BBC iPlayer downloads available for Linux users
The BBC is now supporting iPlayer downloads for Linux, which is great news. Previously this was available only to Windows users.

The new player runs with Air, which Adobe released for Linux in December. At the time of writing, to set it up you had to mark yourself as a BBC Labs ‘tester’ by accessing www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/labs and then click to download any programme via the usual iPlayer website. You must have the latest version of Flash, which can be downloaded from Adobe’s website for Ubuntu and Fedora systems. The installation of Air and the BBC iPlayer application is fully automatic through Firefox.