Hands on: Secrets of Fedora 8

Last time, we looked at Fedora 8, one of the major Linux distributions currently available. We saw some of the features of this release and touched on a number of post-installation steps. This time, we’ll continue and take a closer look at some of these.

If you keep up to date with developments in Linux, you may know that Fedora follows a regular release cycle, similar to that of Ubuntu. Fedora 9 will in fact be available as you read this.

However, Fedora is perhaps the most pioneering distribution when it comes to experimenting with new technology, and for that reason some people may wish to stick with the previous release for a while longer. Fedora 8 has not remained stagnant at all, and has continued to receive very regular updates, including enhancements to security and many other areas.

The update process is the first thing you should perform upon booting a new installation. Be prepared for a long wait, even on a fast broadband connection, for the number of updates pushes the download to well over 300MB. Included will be a new kernel, so a reboot will be required following the completion of the update. The panel utility will take care of the entire process.

As we saw last month, the third-party livna repository is all but essential on any Fedora installation that is to be used as a working desktop system. Head to the site with Firefox and download the Fedora 8 repository RPM linked on the main page. You must save the RPM to disk (Firefox prompts to open the file by default), and then double-click the icon that appears on the desktop.

After following the prompts an error window will appear to warn you that the package cannot be verified. This warning is normal, since it is a third-party package, and can be ignored. The first time you install any package from livna you will be prompted to accept a security key. The packages are signed with this key, so go ahead. This will prevent further warnings.

The packages in the new repository can be accessed by the graphical Add/Remove menu option. The search facilities in this application are a little clunky, and so it may be quicker to install the packages from the command line when you know the name of those you want. For example, to install playback support for MP3, AAC, MPEG-2, x264 and MPEG-4 in gstreamer apps (such as the default audio and video player), you need three gstreamer plug-in packages from livna. From a terminal window enter:

$ su -
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-ffmpeg

The first command logs you in as root, the second calls the ‘yum’ package manager command, the style of which will be familiar to those who have used Ubuntu’s and Debian’s ‘apt-get’. Alternatively, load up the Add/Remove menu option and search for these packages, marking them for installation. Either method will result in several dependent packages also being retrieved. One advantage of running yum at the command line is that you can see which repository each of the packages comes from.

Further multimedia
For video DVD playback, you will need another package from livna, but at the same time you might want to install the VLC media player, which is a much better application for DVDs than the included Totem:

# yum install libdvdcss vlc

Adobe’s Flash plug-in is not included in livna. For this, head to www.adobe.com and click the ‘Get Flash Player’ image. If you are already running Fedora, you will be taken to the correct screen automatically. Select ‘.rpm for Linux’ from the dropdown menu, and save and install as before with the RPM from livna. While on Adobe’s site you may wish to download Acrobat Reader too, though the included Evince Document Reader application is very good in its own right.