Setting up a PC with Fedora
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Last update: 7-27-04
Revision: Original
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When the ARPANET was introduced around the late 1960's in the need for government workers to find a way to exchange pornography fast and efficiently, Unix began to get more and more popular. Operating systems such as unix (or very similar to it) began to arouse the interest of many large corporations becasue of it's stability. In the late 80's / early 90's a young geek named Linus Torvalds was studying at some university around Helsinki, he wanted to find a way to normal PC users to transfer images throughout networks, but in a different way, through a cloned version of unix, called linux. Linux later became a very confusing ordeal of madness created by thousands of monkeys on GNU emacs around the world, until Fedora Core came about.
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Fetching the correct image
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Currently at this time, we have basically 2 versions we want to talk about grabbing here. First we have Fedora Core 2, the lastest stable release, and Fedora Core 3 Test 1, the testing release (obviously).
http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors.html - Choose a mirror from the fedora core mirrors list and here is where you need to go:
For ISO's
Fedora Core 2 http://mirrorurl/2/i386/iso : download FC2-i386-disc1.iso FC2-i386-disc2.iso and FC2-i386-disc3.iso. If you want to burn the DVD, use FC2-i386-DVD.iso.
Fedora Core 3 Test 1 http://mirrorurl/test/2.90/i386/iso : FC3-test1-i386-disc1.iso FC3-test1-i386-disc2.iso and FC3-test1-i386-disc3.iso FC3-test1-i386-disc4.iso.. Sorry, no DVD of this.
Remember you can replace the i386 with your architecture.
For ftp install, you just try
http://mirrorurl/pathtodistyouwant/os/images and grab boot.iso
after that, to install via ftp you have to enter the domain and path to the os directory on any of the working fedora core mirrors. Make sure your boot.iso corresponds with the version your downloads, ie fedora core 3 test 1 wont install fedora core 2.
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Installing
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The installer feature in Fedora is very straight forward, giving you the options to format your PC and download packages up front, along with configuring your root password and your firewall and such. Depending on whether you downloaded the iso or are doing an ftp install, on first install of
any distrobutions I recommend you try to install everything, then once you find the packages you want, you can reinstall with the packages you choose by using the Custom option when configuring what packages you would like to install..
If you want to do a duel boot, you have to make sure that if you ahve a windows hard drive it's not taking up all your hard drive space, if it is, try resizing it (thus giving it room for fedora) by using a program like
Partition Magic, after that, the fedora core installer will help you set up a GRUB bootloader so you can duel-boot with windows and have the option to boot into different kernels.
Go ahead and install the packages
*tick tick tick tick* Okay, when your done move onto the next section
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X11
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When god sold microsoft to bill gates, he probably sold it way too early. God was already in the midst of alpha testing many GUI window interfaces for windows, but apparently the sellout simply broke in the way. Bill gates later broke into Xerox and stole there idea to create a GUI interface to access pornography images through a thumbnail/icon interface.
After installatin of fedora, you may notice some things, lets say for instance you try to boot up a game, and you sort of get the feeling your on a machine that's using integrated graphics. This isn't true, Fedora just doesn't come with the Nvidia driver's installed (if you view the /etc/X11/xorg.conf you will see that you are using "nv", a generic)
To get this baby installed head over to
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d...1.0-6106.html. Some of you people may have noticed that fact that some geeks using fedora a while ago were sort of frantic on the fact that 4kstacks wasn't supported by the last nvidia driver, this is a sad fact, but the new driver you are linked to fixes that problem. :-) Yay.
Installing this baby may sound sort of intimidating at first, but it's actually easy.
su -
vi /etc/inittab
Inittab is basically choosing which mode linux boots into when you boot it up, the default after you install fedora is 5, X11 (which boots you into Fedora's default WM, gnome).
Well, chance that 5 in inittab to a 3, now (edit: if you cant type anything, press insert)
when your done editing that 5 into a 3, take a breath of fresh air, press esc, then :wq <enter> to get out. The colon : states that you want to make a command, the w means write, and the q means quit.
Alright, now, considering you have the nvidia driver downloaded, lets restart...
If you done everything right, the screen should have booted into a big black terminal interface. This is what linux looks like behind it's GUI interface, but it's okay, I know your scared, but we'll get you out of here fast... Login as root:
su -
and if you downloaded the NVIDIA drivers to your root home, do:
cd ~ #make sure ur in home dir
chmod 755 NV* #chmod to make sure its executable
./NV* #execute driver installation package
and if you downloaded the NVIDIA driver to your username home do:
cd ../ #change to root dir
cd /home/username #replace username with your username :-P
chmod 755 NV* #just incase, make sure it's executable
./NV* #execute
go along with the installer, you can breath again now, and hopefully nothing messed up. If you cant find something or forgot the name of it, try going into a directory and typing
ls
to list files and
../
to move back a directory
Now after that's installed,
vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and use this excerpt of the nvidia readme:
If you already have an X config file working with a different driver
(such as the 'nv' or 'vesa' driver), then all you need to do is find
the relevant Device section and replace the line:
Driver "nv"
(or Driver "vesa")
with
Driver "nvidia"
In the Module section, make sure you have:
Load "glx"
You should also remove the following lines:
Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"
mkay, now type "esc :wq <enter>"
now, vi /etc/inittab
and change the 3 to 5 (that means your going back to x11).. save, restart
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your survived thus far, JAVA time~!
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now if things went correctly, X11 should have booted, you should have saw a nice big white screen saying NVIDIA... if you didn't you either messed up or god doesn't like you (im serious).
anyway, we are going to pick up the pace here..
http://sun.java.com and download the latest java 1.4.x package to your home dir.
chmod 755 java*
./java*
(this will extract the rpm)
now do
su -
cd to directory where file was downloaded
rpm -i javasetupname.rpm
(replace java with whatever the java installer package is named)
okay, now to edit java.sh or create a new one so java works globally
vi /etc/profile.d/java.sh
if the file didn't exist previously it will mention at the middle-bottom that you are creating a new file
okay type
JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/j2re1.4.2_04
export JAVA_HOME
PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin
export PATH
replace the j2re1.4.2_04 with the current release of java, was running j2re1.4.2_04 but it perhaps my be a bit different now.
now "esc :wq" and restart
now go back into terminal and type "java"
yay! if everything is right you'll see a bunch of command flag options come up., if everything is wrong you will see java:command not found. if this happens the oompa loompas will have to carry you out.. thanks for trying out linux, bye
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installing azureus for .... you know
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the introduction of this story tells the honest truth of the creation of the internet, to exchange porngraphy... now the year is 2004, and our pornography technologies, especially on linux have evolved to a well-oiled machine of trading and sharing.
http://sourceforge.net/azureus
download for i386
extract the tar to ~/.azureus
remember ~ is your home direct and .azureus creates .azureus in a hidden directory in your home so it wont get in the way. excellent work, now click on the gnome toolbar and try to add a launcher.... "/home/username/.azureus/azureus.sh" should run the azureus shell launcher, hence launching azureus. now,
www.empornium.us - register, get confirmed, and enjoy these torrents, with azureus and your new fedora machine!
thanks, if you have an questions, or fixes, PM me.
programgeek
