Fedora 12 Enabling Authentication

In most situations, you will enable shadow passwords and SHA512 passwords (as selected by default) to authenticate users who log in to your computer from local passwd and shadow password files. To change that behavior, you can select the Use Network Login button during the Create User setup during Firstboot.

The shadow password file prevents access to encrypted passwords. SHA512 is an algorithm used to encrypt passwords in Linux and other UNIX systems. It replaces an algorithm called crypt, which was used with early UNIX systems. When you enable SHA512 passwords, your users can have longer passwords that are harder to break than those encrypted with crypt. You can also use MD5 or SHA256 for encrypting passwords, although these methods are less secure.

If you are on a network that supports one of several different forms of network-wide authentication, you may choose one of the following features (on the Authentication tab):

• Enable Kerberos Support — Tick this check box to enable network authentication services available through Kerberos. After enabling Kerberos, you can add information about a Kerberos Realm (a group of Kerberos servers and clients), KDC (a computer that issues Kerberos tickets), and Admin server (a server running the Kerberos kadmind daemon).

• Enable LDAP Support — If your organization gathers information about users, you can tick this check box to search for authentication information in an LDAP server. You can enter the LDAP Server name and optionally an LDAP distinguished name to look up the user information your system needs.

• Enable Smart Card Support — Tick this check box to allow users to log in using a certificate and key associated with a smart card.

• Fingerprint Reader — Tick this check box to allow users to authenticate using a fingerprint reader.

• Enable Winbind Support — Tick this check box to configure your computer to authenticate users from information retrieved from NTDOM or ADS servers.


In addition to the services just mentioned, you can also select from various ways of gathering distributed user information, if any of these methods are supported on your network.

• Configure Hesiod — If your organization uses Hesiod for holding user and group information in DNS, you can add the LHS (domain prefix) and RHS (Hesiod default domain) to use for doing Hesiod queries.

• Configure NIS — Select this button and type the NIS domain name and NIS server location if your network is configured to use the Network Information System (NIS). Instead of selecting an NIS Server, you can select the check box to broadcast to find the server on your network.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Fedora 12 Choosing Different Install Modes

Although most computers automatically install Fedora in the default mode (graphical), there may be times when your video card does not support that mode. Also, although the install process will detect most computer hardware, there may be times when your hard disk, Ethernet card, or other critical piece of hardware cannot be detected and you’ll need to enter special information at boot time.

The following is a list of different installation options you can use to start the Fedora install process. You would typically try these modes only if the default mode failed (that is, if the screen was garbled or installation failed at some point). For a list of other supported modes, refer to the /usr/share/doc/anaconda*/command-line.txt file (if you have a running Fedora system somewhere with the anaconda package installed) or press F1 through F5 keys to see short descriptions of some of these types.

To use these boot options, highlight the first entry on the boot menu and press Tab. When the boot command appears at the bottom of the screen, type the options you want at the end of that line and press Enter to boot the install process.

• text: Type text to run installation in a text-based mode. Do this if installation doesn’t seem to recognize your graphics card. The installation screens aren’t as pretty, but they work just as well.

• ks: Type ks to run a Fedora installation using a kickstart file. A kickstart file provides some or all of the installation option answers you would otherwise have to select manually.

• lowres: Type lowres to run installation in 640 x 480 screen resolution for graphics cards that can’t support the higher resolution. To choose a particular resolution, use the resolution option. For example: resolution=1024x768.

• noprobe: Typically, the installation process will try to determine what hardware you have on your computer. In noprobe mode, installation will not probe to determine your hardware; you will be asked to load any special drivers that might be needed to install it.

• mediacheck: Type mediacheck to check your DVD before installing. Because media checking is done next in the normal installation process, you should do this only to test the media on a computer you are not installing on. For Fedora Live CDs, select the Verify and Boot option to check the CD before booting.

• rescue: The rescue mode is not really an installation mode. This mode boots from DVD or CD, mounts your hard disk, and lets you access useful utilities to correct problems preventing your Linux system from operating properly.

• vnc vncconnect=hostname vncpassword=******: Run the install in VNC mode to step through the installation process from another system.

• dd: Type dd if you have a driver disk you want to use to install.

• askmethod: Type askmethod to have the installation process ask where to install from (local DVD/CD, NFS image, FTP, HTTP, or hard disk).

• nocddma: Type nocddma to turn off DMA. Errors with some CD drives can be overcome by turning off the DMA feature. This is a good option to try if an install CD or DVD you know to be good fails media check. You could also try ide=nodma to turn of DMA for all IDE devices.

• updates: Type updates to install from an update disk.

You can add other options to the linux boot command to identify particular hardware that is not being detected properly. For example, to specify the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors for your hard disk (if you believe the boot process is not detecting these values properly), you could pass the information to the kernel as follows: linux hdx=720,32,64. In this example, the kernel is told that the hard disk hdx has 720 cylinders, 32 heads, and 64 sectors. You can find this information in the documentation that comes with your hard disk (or stamped on the hard disk itself on a sticker near the serial number).

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Choosing computer hardware to Install Fedora 12

This may not really be a choice. You may just have an old PC lying around that you want to try Fedora on. Or you may have a killer workstation with some extra disk space and want to try out Fedora on a separate partition or whole disk. To install the 32-bit PC version of Fedora successfully (that is, the version on the accompanying DVD), the computer must have the following:

• x86 processor — Your computer needs an Intel-compatible CPU. With the latest version, Fedora recommends that you at least have a Pentium-class processor to run Fedora. For a text-only installation, a 200 MHz Pentium is the minimum, while a 400 MHz Pentium II is the minimum for a GUI installation.

• DVD or CD-ROM drive — You need to be able to boot up the installation process from a DVD, CD-ROM, or other bootable drive. (You can also boot from a USB flash memory drive by using the livecd-tools package to build an installable image for your USB device from the live CD or another minimal boot image.) Once you have booted from one of the media just described, you can use the Internet or a LAN connection to install Fedora software packages from a server on the network, or you can figure out a way to copy the contents of the DVD to a local hard disk to install from there.

• Hard disk — The minimum amount of space you need varies depending on the installation type and packages you select. If you are an inexperienced user, you want at least 2.3GB of space so you can get the GUI (with some Office and Productivity apps) or 3GB if you want to do software development. Although different install types are no longer supported in Fedora, the following items roughly indicate how much disk space you need to install different types of desktop or server systems:
• Office and Productivity — Requires 2.3GB of disk space.
• Software Development — Requires 3.0GB of disk space.
• Web Server — Requires 1.1GB of disk space.
• Minimal — Requires at least 620MB of disk space.

• RAM — You should have at least 128MB of RAM to install Fedora (text mode only). If you are running in graphical mode, you will want at least 192MB. The recommended minimum RAM (for decent performance) for GUI mode is at least 256MB.

• Keyboard and monitor — Although this seems obvious, the truth is that you need only a keyboard and monitor during installation. You can operate Fedora quite well over a
LAN using either a shell interface from a network login or an X terminal. For the really advanced, it is even possible to do a graphical network install over VNC (virtual network computing), a serial console, or an integrated lights out (ILO) solution to do a headless install.

Fedora versions, are available for the AMD64 architecture and PowerPC. The minimum PowerPC hardware supported is a PowerPC G3/POWER3.
Supported PowerPC products include the Apple Power Macintosh (1999 or later), IBM 32-bit RS/6000, Genesi Pegasos II, as well as 64-bit G5 and POWER processors from IBM eServer pSeries computers. Check the Fedora Project download site for information on PPC versions of Fedora.

For other hardware, such as Intel Itanium and IBM mainframe, there are versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux available (which you have to purchase from Red Hat, Inc.).

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Install Fedora 12 From DVD, network, or hard disk?

When you install Fedora, the distribution doesn’t have to come from the installation DVD or CD. After booting the installation DVD, press Tab with the Install selection highlighted. Then type the word askmethod at the end of the boot command line displayed and press Enter. You are offered the choice of installing Fedora from the following locations:

• Local DVD or CDROM — This is the most common method of installing Fedora and the one you get by simply pressing Enter from the installation boot prompt.

• Hard drive — If you can place a copy of the Fedora distribution on your hard drive, you can install it from there. (Presumably, the distribution is on a hard drive partition to which you are not installing.)

• NFS directory — Allows you to install from any shared directory on another computer on your network using the Network File System (NFS) facility.

• HTTP— Lets you install from a Web page address (http://) or FTP site (ftp://).

If your computer doesn’t have a DVD drive, you can use the boot.iso CD image from http://download.fedoraproject.org/. Navigate to releases/12/Fedora/i386/os/images/ to get the boot.iso CD image file. Make a CD from this file and use that CD to start a network install (HTTP, FTP, or NFS). Just type linux askmethod at the boot prompt to begin the installation process.

If you don’t have a bootable DVD or CD drive, there are other ways to start the Fedora installation. Unlike some earlier Fedora and Red Hat Linux versions, Fedora doesn’t support floppy disk boot images (the Linux kernel is too large to fit on a floppy disk). Therefore, if you don’t have a bootable DVD or CD drive, you need to start the install process from some other medium (such as a USB device, PXE server, or hard drive).

The following specialty installation types also may be of interest to you:

• Boot CD — You can create a boot CD from the location mentioned above. Copy and burn the file boot.iso from the images directory. You can use the CD you create from that image to begin the install process if you have a DVD drive that is not bootable or if you have the Fedora 12 software available on any of the media described in the linux askmethod section.

• USB or other bootable media — If your computer can be configured to boot from alternate bootable media, such as a USB pen drive, that is larger than a floppy disk, you can use the livecd-tools package to build an installable image for your USB device from one of the Live CD or minimal boot images.

• Kickstart installation — Lets you create a set of answers to the questions Fedora asks you during installation. This can be a time-saving method if you are installing Fedora on many computers with similar configurations.

A Fedora Installation Guide is now available from the Fedora Project if you find you need further information. You can access the guide here:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f12/en-US/html-single/

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Fedora 12 selecting Install or upgrade?

First you should determine if you are doing a new install or an upgrade. If you are upgrading an existing Fedora system to the latest version, the installation process will try to leave your data files and configuration files intact as much as possible. You also need to do the upgrade from the DVD because upgrades are not available from the Fedora live CD.

An upgrade installation takes longer than a new install. A new install will simply erase all data on the Linux partitions (or entire hard disk) that you choose. (You can optionally select which partitions to format.)

If you choose to upgrade, you can save yourself some time (and disk space) by removing software packages you don’t need. An upgrade will just skip packages that are not installed and not try to upgrade them. Here are a few other tips related to upgrades:

• Conflicting packages — If you upgrade a system on which you installed packages from sources outside of the Fedora project that conflict with Fedora packages, those features may no longer work. For example, if you replaced GNOME with Ximian GNOME or used a third-party KDE package set, you can’t upgrade those packages to Fedora 12 (It’s probably best to remove those packages before upgrading, and then apply them again later if you like.)

• Third-party packages — If you have installed packages from third-party repositories that are specific to your current kernel (such as drivers for NVidia video cards or wireless LAN cards) you will need to get new versions of those packages that match your upgraded kernel.

• Kernel requirements — To upgrade, you must have at least a Linux 2.0 kernel installed on the system you are upgrading.

• Configuration files — With an upgrade, your configuration files that are replaced are saved as filename.rpmsave (for example, the hosts file is saved as hosts.rpmsave). More often, however, your old configuration files will remain in place, while the system copies new configuration files to filename.rpmnew. The locations of those files, as well as other upgrade information, is written to /root/upgrade.log. The upgrade installs the new kernel, any changed software packages, and any packages that the installed packages depend on being there. Your data files and configuration information should remain intact.

• Digital certificates — If you are using digital certificates on your system, you must relocate them to the /etc/pki directory after the upgrade.

• Java — If you used the Java RPM from Sun Microsystems to provide Java support, conflicts with that package may cause it to be erased during an upgrade. If that occurs, you can install the Java RPM from jpackage.org or install the Java tarball from Sun Microsystems into your /opt directory. You can also consider removing that version of
Java from your system and instead using the open source Java IcedTea packages included with Fedora to provide Java support.


A feature that is available when you are upgrading to Fedora 12 is the preupgrade package. By installing preupgrade on a Fedora 11 system (yum install preupgrade), you can prepare your system to upgrade to Fedora 12 by launching a single application to:

• Determine which packages need to be downloaded to upgrade to Fedora 12.

• Download the packages needed to complete the upgrade (while Fedora 11 is still running)

• Download the boot images needed for the upgrade.

The advantage to using preupgrade is that you can continue using your system while you do most of the time-consuming work (such as downloading packages) that needs to be done to complete an upgrade. Also, before you get into running the installer, you will be able to see if there are any package dependencies you should deal with (before committing to the actual upgrade).

With the preupgrade package installed, you can start the GUI version of preupgrade by typing preupgrade from a Terminal window as root user. Files needed for the upgrade are copied to the /var/cache/yum/preupgrade* directories. Once preupgrade is complete, you can reboot to begin the upgrade.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Fedora 12 Quick Installation

If you have a little bit of experience with computers and a computer with common hardware, you can probably install Fedora pretty easily. The procedure in this section will get you going quickly if you have:

• Media — The Fedora installation DVD or live/install CD

• PC — A Pentium-class PC (at least 200 MHz for text mode; 400 MHz Pentium II for GUI) with a built-in, bootable DVD or CD drive, at least 128MB of RAM (for text mode) or 256MB of RAM (for GUI mode).

• Disk space — If you are installing from the live CD, you need at least 3GB of disk space. Keep in mind that the live CD install only copies the live CD files to your hard disk. You don’t get to select individual packages, as you do when installing from the DVD. (The fact that files are compressed on the CD accounts for the need for more hard disk space than the 700MB CD image would indicate.)

With the DVD, depending on which packages you choose to install, the disk space you need can range from about 600MB (for a minimal server with no GUI install) to 10GB (to install all packages). I recommend from 2GB to 3GB minimum if you are installing a desktop system. (The Fedora Project recommends at least 5 percent of additional free space, plus any disk space you require for user data.)

For this quick procedure, you must either be dedicating your entire hard disk to Linux, have a preconfigured Linux partition, or have sufficient free space on your hard disk outside any existing Windows partition.

Here’s how you get started:
1. Insert the Fedora 12 installation DVD or live CD into your computer’s drive.

2. Reboot your computer.

3. The next step depends on whether you are using the live CD or DVD

• For the DVD, choose whether you want to install or upgrade an existing system.

• For the install/live CD, let the boot screen time out. When the CD boots up to a GNOME desktop, double-click the Install to Hard Drive icon to begin the installation.

During installation, you are asked questions about your computer hardware and the network connections. After you have completed each answer, click Next. The following list describes the information you will need to enter.

• Install or Upgrade — If you are installing from DVD and have an earlier version of Fedora installed, you can choose Upgrade to upgrade your system without losing data files. Otherwise, you can continue with a new installation by selecting Install Fedora.
(Upgrades are not supported when you are installing from the live CD.)

• Media Check — If you are installing from the DVD, you can optionally check the DVD to be sure it is not damaged or corrupted. This choice is not on the live CD.

• Language Selection — Choose the language used during the install (you can add other languages later). This choice is not on the live CD.

• Keyboard Configuration — Choose your keyboard type from a list of international keyboard types

• Select Hostname — Choose a hostname for your system.

• Time Zone Selection — Identify the time zone in which you are located. Uncheck the System Clock uses UTC box if you are booting multiple operating systems from this machine because most operating systems expect the BIOS clock to match local time.

• Set Root Password — Add the root user account password.

• Disk Partitioning Setup — Choose to remove Linux partitions, all partitions, or no partitions (and use existing free space) to have space to install Fedora. Because repartitioning can result in lost data.

• Boot Loader Configuration — Add the GRUB boot manager to control the boot process. (GRUB is described later in this chapter.) With multiple operating systems on the computer, select which one to boot by default.

• Choose Software — If you are installing from DVD, choose from several preset installation classes, such as Office and Productivity (for laptop, home, or desktop use), Software Development (desktop plus software development), or Web Server (file, print, Web, and other server software). I suggest you also select Customize now so that you can see exactly which packages you have selected (and add others if you want to). If you are installing from the live CD, you won’t be able to choose the software to install (in this or the next step) because the entire contents of the CD are installed to hard disk.

• Installation Categories — If you are installing from DVD, select each category that appears to see which groups of software packages are installed. Then select the Optional packages button to add or subtract packages from each group.

• Installation — Up to this point, you can quit the install process without having written anything to disk. When you select Next from the installation categories, the selected packages are installed.

When installation is done, remove the Fedora DVD and click Exit to reboot your computer. If you installed from the live CD, reboot your computer and remove the live CD before it’s time for the installed system to boot. Linux should boot by default. After Linux boots for the first time, Firstboot runs to let you read the license information, set the system date and time, add a user account, and optionally, send the Fedora Project details of your system hardware. On subsequent reboots, you will see a login prompt. You can log in and begin using your Linux system.

NOTE: After answering the questions, the actual installation of packages from the DVD takes between 20 and 60 minutes, depending on the number of packages and the speed of the computer hardware. For the live CD, the installation process is typically much faster because the contents of the CD are simply copied to hard disk. Upgrades can take much longer.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Using the Fedora 12 Live CD

The official Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD is a great way to try out Fedora before you commit to installing it. In addition to answering the obvious question of “does Fedora run on my PC at all?” the CD itself contains useful tools for examining your hardware and preparing your computer for installation.

USB flash drives can be used the same way) that contains an entire operating system. In most cases, you can boot the live CD without touching the contents of your hard drive. With the Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD, you can boot up to a working GNOME desktop that works like most desktop computer systems installed to hard disk. If you don’t like the system, then reboot, remove the CD, and your computer will return to the way it was. If you like it, you can click a single button and install the same desktop system to your hard disk.

Here’s a quick set of steps to try out the Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD (included with this book):

1. Insert the Fedora 12 Desktop Live CD into your CD drive and reboot.

2. From the boot screen, either let the CD timeout and boot or press any key to see other selections. From the boot menu, highlight either Boot or Verify and Boot, and then press Enter. (The verify step makes sure the medium isn’t corrupted.)

3. When you see the login screen, you can select a language or just let the login prompt timeout. (No password is required because this is a live CD.) The GNOME desktop starts up.

4. From the GNOME desktop, here are a few things you can try from the live CD:

• Run applications — Try any of the applications you choose from menus in the top panel. If you have an Internet connection (Fedora will automatically configure most wired Ethernet cards), you can try Web browsing and other Internet applications. You can even add more applications. Select System -> Administration -> Add/Remove Software to select applications to install over the Internet. (Because the live CD is a read-only medium, software you add will disappear when you reboot.)

• Check hardware

• Prepare for dual booting — If you want to keep an installed Windows system that is already on your computer’s hard disk, you can prepare your computer to be able to dual boot both Windows and a new install of Fedora.


If you like the live CD, and your computer is prepared for you to install to it, you can immediately install the contents of the live CD to your computer’s hard drive. Select the Install to Hard Drive icon from the desktop, and then follow along the installation procedure in the next sections.


NOTE: The live CD will not run well on less than 256MB of RAM. Also, if you find that the live CD hangs at some point in the boot process. With the boot label highlighted on the boot menu, press the Tab key to be able to add boot options to the boot command. Keep in mind that the performance of a CD is not comparable to that of a hard disk. Once you have installed Fedora on your hard disk it should be much faster and more responsive.


NOTE: If you prefer the KDE Desktop Environment over GNOME, Fedora offers a live CD spin based on the KDE desktop. You can download that live CD from any Fedora mirror site.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Understanding Fedora Installation Media

The Fedora project includes a lot of software to help you get started installing the release as well as creating your own releases, if you desire. These include:

• Fedora Repository — This repository, maintained by the Fedora Project, includes all the software.

• Installation Media — The Fedora repository contains too much software to expect the average person to download. Therefore the Fedora Project offers more reasonable-sized installation media that include a single 3.5G installation DVD, a GNOME Desktop Live CD, and a KDE Desktop Live CD. Either of the live CDs can also be used to install the Fedora desktop system contained on that CD to hard drive. You can also download the equivalent of the installation DVD as a set of five CDs if you don’t have a writable DVD drive. See http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all to download Fedora.

• Spins — After the release, look for Fedora spins that include custom releases of Fedora, typically aimed toward special interests such as games, education, or electronic design (http://spins.fedoraproject.org/). A spin is just a selected grouping of Fedora software into a live or install CD or DVD image. Other spins include special desktop integration such as the Xfce desktop spin.

• Build Tools — To help people put together the mass of Fedora software into a form that is useful to them, the Fedora Project created several software tool projects. With Fedora and optionally other software repositories, Pungi can be used to create a new set of
installation media, while livecd-creator can build a live CD or live DVD.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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The Culture of Free Software

Fedora was born from a culture of free software development and continues to thrive from that culture. The copyright for software included in Fedora systems is covered primarily under the GNU public license. That license, which most free software falls under, provides the following:

• Author rights — The original author retains the rights to his or her software.

• Free distribution — People can use the GNU software in their own software, changing and redistributing it as they please. They do, however, have to include the source code with their distribution (or make it easily available).

• Copyright maintained — Even if you were to repackage and resell the software, the original GNU agreement must be maintained with the software. This means that all future recipients of the software must have the opportunity to change the source code, just as you did.

It is important to remember that there is no warranty on GNU software. If something goes wrong, the original developer of the software has no obligation to fix the problem. However, the Linux culture has provided resources for that event. Experts on the Internet can help you iron out your problems, or you can access one of the many Linux newsgroups or forums to read how others have dealt with their problems and to post your own questions about how to fix yours. Chances are that someone will know what to do — and may even provide the software or configuration file you need.

If you need reliable support for your Linux system, commercial Linux support is available from a variety of companies. Also, many of the software projects that go into Linux offer their own support features, which lets you get help directly from those who are building the code.

NOTE: The GNU project uses the term free software to describe the software that is covered by the GNU license. Many Linux proponents tend to use the term open source software to describe software. Although source code availability is part of the GNU license, the GNU project claims that software defined as open source is not the same as free software because it can encompass semi-free programs and even some proprietary programs. See http://www.opensource.org for a description of open-source software.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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New Features in Fedora 12 - IV

Creating your own spins
The same tools that the Fedora Project uses to build packages and create live CDs and installation CDs are themselves distributed with Fedora. That means that anyone can use those tools to create their own installation package sets, and then turn those package sets into their own repositories. Using those repositories, you could then create your own CD or DVD images to later install or run live.

The Pungi project (http://fedorahosted.org/pungi) was created for Fedora to build the Fedora system itself. The pungi package contains the pungi command and related configuration files. You can use the pungi command to fashion your own installation trees that result in installable ISO images.

The Fedora Live CD project (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD) has produced tools for building your own live CDs from Fedora software repositories. The primary tool for creating those live CDs is called livecd-creator. Refer to the Live CD HOWTO
(http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo) for information on using livecd-creator.

A nice recent addition to livecd-creator for Fedora is that you can create kickstart files to direct the creation of live CDs. This means that the same format you use to automate installs with anaconda can be used to save the package list and other settings you use to create your live CDs.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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New Features in Fedora 12 - III

Getting custom Fedora spins
Fedora used to be released as a set of CDs or a DVD containing all the Fedora packages that could be installed from those media. The results of new tools first added in Fedora 7 for creating custom software repositories (Pungi) and custom live CDs (livecd-creator) have continued to improve in the form of a growing set of custom spins.

A custom spin of Fedora is a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive image that can be run as a live CD and/or Fedora installer. Official Fedora spins include:

• Fedora DVD — Contains nearly 4GB with a cross-section of desktop, server, and software development software packages that you can install to hard disk. The contents of this disk are similar to what used to be in Fedora Core.

• Fedora CD Set — This six-CD set contains everything from the Fedora install DVD. This is for those who don’t have a DVD drive on their computer.

• Fedora Desktop Live CD (GNOME) — From this single, 700MB live CD you can run a GNOME desktop Fedora 12 system. An install icon on the desktop then lets you install that desktop system to your hard disk.

• Fedora Desktop Live CD (KDE) — Fedora is showing KDE some love by offering a KDE desktop live/install CD of Fedora 12. As with the GNOME desktop, you can select the install icon to install the KDE desktop system to your hard disk.

If you need media to install Fedora on PowerPC (PPC), standard 32-bit PCs (i386) or 64-bit PC (X86_64) computer architectures, you can download ISO images for those media either using either Bittorrent (http://spins.fedoraproject.org) or an official Fedora public mirror site (http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org).

Unofficial custom spins are also available from Fedora. The term spin means a compilation of software from the Fedora software repository, combined into the form of one or more bootable images, typically to fit on a CD or DVD, that lets you either run live or install that set of software or both. There are already Fedora Live Developer, Games, Art, Xfce Desktop, Education, and Electronic Lab spins. One example is the Fedora Art Studio spin (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/ArtTeamProjects/FedoraArtStudio).

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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New Features in Fedora 12 - II

PackageKit Software Management improvements
Starting in Fedora 9, PackageKit became the default GUI package for managing software updates and adding software packages. It is a community-developed software management system that has replaced the Red Hat–developed Package Updater and Package Manager applications.

With PackageKit, an icon in the top panel alerts you when software updates are available. Or you can use the PackageKit Package Manager for GNOME to search for and install additional packages.

NOTE: One of the more controversial new features of PackageKit in the latest release of Fedora involves allowing a regular user to install signed packages with PackageKit without entering the root password. After Fedora 12 was released, that feature was reversed. So, once you get the first round of updates for Fedora, you will again be required to provide the root password to install packages.


NetworkManager improvements
In Fedora 12, NetworkManager is the default method of connecting to and managing wired and wireless networks interfaces. New features for NetworkManager in Fedora 12 include extended support for mobile broadband cards. Those improvements include the ability to display signal strength and scanning for available cellular networks. Full IPv6 support was added to NetworkManager for the current release as well.


SystemTap improvements
You can use the SystemTap facility to gather information about your running Linux system. SystemTap includes command-line tools and a scripting language for interacting with live kernels. In the current release of Fedora, the SystemTap project has improved its examples, tools, and documentation in a variety of areas.


KVM virtualization improvements
Many KVM improvements have been added for Fedora 12. Access rights have been adjusted to allow unprivileged users to use KVM. The gpxe feature is added to improve the ability to PXE boot virtual guests. Improvements to storage capabilities include the ability of VM hosts to discover new SAN storage.


RPMfusion.org third-party software repository
Although not specifically a Fedora or RHEL feature, several of the most popular third-party software repositories for these two distributions have banded together into a single RPM Fusion (rpmfusion.org) repository. By most accounts, this has cut down on a lot of the conflicts that existed between those repositories and provided a single access point for grabbing many software packages that are not in Fedora or RHEL due to challenges such as license restrictions.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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New Features in Fedora 12 - I

When it comes to versions of different software projects that come with Fedora, the major components in Fedora 12 include (with version numbers):

• Linux kernel: version 2.6.31
• GNOME (desktop environment): version 2.28.0
• KDE (desktop environment): version 4.3.3
• X Window System (X.org graphical windowing system): version 11, Release 1.7.1
• OpenOffice.org (office suite): version 3.1.1
• GIMP (image manipulation application): version 2.6.7
• GCC (GNU C language compilation system): version 4.4.2
• Apache (Web server): version 2.2.13
• Samba (Windows SMB file/print sharing): version 3.4.2
• CUPS (print services): version 1.4.2
• Sendmail (Mail Transport Agent): version 8.14.3
• vsFTPd (secure FTP server): version 2.2.0
• INN (Usenet news server): version 2.5.0
• MySQL (database server): version 5.1.39
• BIND (Domain Name System server): version 9.6.1

TIP: These features are constantly being updated. Fedora ships with tools to help keep your system up-todate with the latest versions of software.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Moving Toward Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Red Hat has not yet officially announced the features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, which is expected to be released some time in 2010. However, since the previous major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, several critical features have been replaced with new software projects in Fedora. So, even though there is no official feature list yet, learning at least some of the following current Fedora features should help you gear up for RHEL 6:

• Package Management — Expect tools such as pup (Package Updater) and pirut (Package Manager) to be replaced with PackageKit. The PackageKit facility includes features for installing and updating packages. New panel icons let you watch activities of PackageKit as it manages and installs software.

• Network Interfaces — Although NetworkManager was available in RHEL 5, expect it to be the default tool for managing network interfaces in Fedora. NetworkManager is particularly good at managing wireless interfaces and VPN connections.

• Encrypted File Systems — Among the many security features being tested in Fedora before they land in RHEL is the ability to encrypt file systems. Speaking of file systems, you can also expect ext4 to be the default file system type in RHEL 6.

• Virtualization — With Red Hat’s purchase of Qumranet, developers of Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) technology, you can expect virtualization support to shift from Xen to KVM in RHEL 6. KVM has already been included in several releases of Fedora.

These are just a few of the many features in the latest release of Fedora that you can look for in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Why Choose Fedora?

To distinguish itself from other versions of Linux, each distribution adds some extra features. Because many power features included in most Linux distributions come from established open source projects (such as Apache, Samba, KDE, and so on), often enhancements for a particular distribution exist to make it easier to install, configure, and use Linux. Also, because there are different software packages available to do the same jobs (such as window managers or a particular server type), a distribution can distinguish itself by which packages it chooses to include and feature with its default installations.

Fedora is continuing the Red Hat Linux tradition by offering many features that set it apart from other Linux distributions. Those features include:

• Cutting-edge Linux technology — In Fedora 12, major features include the GNOME 2.28 and KDE 4.3 desktops, Firefox 3.5, OpenOffice.org 3.1, new Ext4 file system support, and the latest Linux kernel.

• Software packaging — Red Hat, Inc. created the RPM Package Manager (RPM) method of packaging Linux. RPMs allow less technically savvy users to easily install, search, manage, and verify Linux software. With RPM tools, you can install from CD, hard disk, over your LAN, or over the Internet. It’s easy to track which packages are installed or to look at the contents of a package. Because RPM is available to the Linux community it has become one of the de facto standards for packaging Linux software. Tools such as yum and PackageKit, which are built to take advantage of RPM technology, have been added to Fedora to extend your ability to install and update packages. Those tools can point to online repositories, so the latest software packages are often only a click away.

• Easy installation — The Fedora installation software (called anaconda) provides easy steps for installing Linux. During installation, anaconda also helps you take the first few steps toward configuring Linux. You can choose which packages to install and how to partition your hard disk. You can even get your desktop GUI ready to go by configuring user accounts, keyboard, mouse, and even your network connection. With Fedora 12, you can install directly from a running live CD, or choose from several different installonly media.

• UNIX System V–style run-level scripts — To have your system services (daemon processes) start up and shut down in an organized way, Fedora and RHEL support the UNIX System V mechanism for starting and stopping services. Shell scripts (that are easy to read and change) are contained in subdirectories of /etc. When the run level changes, such as when the system boots up or you change to single-user mode, messages tell you whether each service started correctly or failed to execute properly. New system start-up technology, such as Fastboot and Upstart technology are being introduced to help developers transition their services to faster boot-up technology.

• Desktop environments (GNOME and KDE) — To make it easier to use Linux, Fedora comes packaged with the GNOME and KDE desktop environments. GNOME is installed by default and offers some nice features that include drag-and-drop protocols and tools for configuring the desktop look and feel. KDE is another popular desktop manager that includes a wide range of tools tailored for the KDE environment, such as the Konqueror Web browser. You can try out separate Fedora live CDs for GNOME and KDE, and then install software from those CDs directly to your hard disk.

• GUI Administration tools — There are some helpful configuration tools for setting up some of the trickier tasks in Linux. Several different GUI tools provide a graphical, form-driven interface for configuring networking, users, file systems, security and initialization services. Instead of creating obtuse command lines or having to create tricky configuration files, these graphical tools can set up those files automatically.

• Testing — The exact configuration that you get on the Fedora distribution has been thoroughly tested by experts around the world. Because Fedora is now represented by a single huge software repository, the most intensely tested software will be that which is offered in official CD and DVD versions of Fedora.

• Automatic updates — The software packages that make up Fedora are constantly being fixed in various ways. To provide a mechanism for the automatic selection, download, and installation of updated software packages, Fedora relies primarily on the yum facility.

With the addition of yum software repositories on the Internet that include Fedora packages, whole sets of RPM software packages can be updated with a single yum update command. The PackageKit facility provides graphical tools with Fedora to install from multiple software repositories on the Internet (as opposed to local CD or DVD media. A desktop applet automatically alerts you when updated packages are available to download and install.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Choosing between Fedora and Enterprise

If you bought this book to try out Linux for the first time, rest assured that what you have on the DVD and CDs with this book is a solid, battle-tested operating system. There is still a lot of overlap between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, many of the newest features of Fedora 12 provide a way to test out much of the software that is slated to go in later editions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Although Fedora may not be right for everyone, Fedora is great for students, home users, most small businesses, and anyone just wanting to try out the latest Linux technology. Larger businesses should seriously consider the implications on support, training, and future upgrade paths before choosing whether to go the Fedora route or sign on with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Also, businesses should be willing to deal with more frequent upgrades, because release and support cycles are much shorter with Fedora than with RHEL.

Despite its lack of formal support, however, Fedora is being used today in many businesses, schools, and homes around the world. In whatever way you plan to ultimately use Fedora, it is without a doubt a good way to learn and use the latest Linux technology as it is released to the Linux community and before it makes its way to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Many companies and organizations don’t choose between Fedora and RHEL, but instead offe a mixed environment. The most critical servers may run Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with a full support contract with Red Hat. In the same location, Fedora may be used for desktop systems or office-based file and print servers. Organizations that have features similar to those in RHEL without the cost can use CentOS (which is a rebuild of RHEL source code).

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Red Hat shifts to Red Hat Enterprise Linux

The major shift of attention to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the focus of Red Hat, Inc.’s commercial efforts has been on the horizon for some time. Some characteristics of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are:

• Longer release intervals — Instead of offering releases every 6 months or so, Enterprise software has closer to an 18-month to two-year update cycle. Customers can be assured of a longer support cycle without having to upgrade to a later release.

• Multiple support options — Customers will have the choice of purchasing different levels of support. All subscriptions will include the Update Module, which allows easy access to updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. The Management Module lets customers develop custom channels and automate management of multiple systems. The
Monitoring Module allows customers to monitor and maintain an entire infrastructure of systems.

• Documentation and training — Manuals and training courses will center on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux products include offerings for both server and desktop operating systems. The base RHEL server system is designed for small server deployment, while RHEL Advanced Platform aims at large installations that can benefit from features such as storage virtualization and high-availability clustering. Standard desktop and workstation versions of RHEL Desktop are available.

Each system in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family is meant to be compatible with the others. There are Basic, Standard, and Premium editions of these Enterprise systems. While Basic offers only software downloads, standard and premium editions offer hard copy documentation and additional technical support.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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What Is Fedora?

Having directories of source code floating extraneously around the Internet was not a bad way for hackers to share software. However, for Linux to be acceptable to a less technical population of computer users, it needed to be simple to install and use. Likewise, businesses that were thinking about committing their mission-critical applications to a computer system would want to know that this system had been carefully tested and well supported.

To those ends, several companies and organizations began gathering and packaging Linux software together into usable forms called distributions. The main goal of a Linux distribution is to make the hundreds (or even thousands) of unrelated software packages that make up Linux work together as a cohesive whole. Popular Linux distributions include Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Slackware, Damn Small Linux, Gentoo, and Mandriva. For many years, the most popular commercial distribution was Red Hat Linux.

In September 2003, Red Hat, Inc. changed its way of doing business. That change resulted in the formation of the Red Hat–sponsored Fedora Project to take the development of Red Hat Linux technology into the future. But what does that mean to individuals and businesses that have come to rely on Red Hat Linux?



Red Hat forms the Fedora Project
With the latest Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions, the promises Red Hat made to the open source community and to Red Hat’s commercial customers have solidified. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux product offering has become a solid, reliable system for mass deployment of Linux in large organizations. The Fedora Project has evolved into an excellent cutting-edge Linux distribution with a massive number of high-quality software packages available to Fedora users.

A few years ago, things didn’t look so rosy.

The announcement of the Fedora Project by Red Hat, Inc. at first prompted more questions than answers about the future direction of the company and its flagship Red Hat Linux product. In fact, it seemed that nothing named Red Hat Linux even existed anymore. Instead, what was Red Hat Linux would be reflected by Linux distributions coming from two paths:

• Fedora Project (http://www.fedoraproject.org) — An open source project, beginning from a Red Hat Linux 9 base, that produces its own Linux distribution. While the project is sponsored by Red Hat, Inc., there is no official support for the Linux distribution (simply called Fedora) that the project produces.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (http://www.redhat.com/rhel) — An official set of commercial Linux products from Red Hat, Inc. that are offered on an annual subscription basis. Red Hat backs up its Enterprise product line with technical support, training, and documentation.


The primary results of the Fedora Project are sets of binary and source code packages (distributed as DVD or CD images) containing the Linux distribution referred to as Fedora. Before its name was changed to Fedora, that distribution was being tested simply as the next in the series of Red Hat Linux distributions (presumably, Red Hat Linux 10).

The name change from Red Hat Linux to Fedora Core (and later to just Fedora) wasn’t the only difference between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, however. Red Hat, Inc. also changed its association with Fedora in the following ways:

• No boxed sets — Red Hat decided to not sell Fedora through retail channels. The evershortening release cycle was making it difficult to manage the flow of boxed sets to and from retail channels every few months, and Red Hat believed that early adopters of Linux technology were clever enough to get the software themselves.

• Short guaranteed update cycle — Critical fixes and security patches will be available for each Fedora release for a much shorter period of time than on RHEL products. As a result, users will have to upgrade or reinstall the system more often.

• No technical support offerings — There are no technical support programs available from Red Hat for Fedora. Even so, by sponsoring the Fedora project, you get a form of free support as Red Hat staffers fix bugs and integrate the latest Linux technology.

• No Red Hat documentation — The set of manuals that came with the previous Red Hat Linux product was not brought over to Fedora. Instead, a series of small taskoriented documents are being collected for the project in article format. The Fedora Documentation project (http://docs.fedoraproject.org) is, however, following a path to release Red Hat documentation under an open source licence so that
the Fedora Project can develop and distribute that documentation.

By not creating a whole support industry around Fedora, that project is free to produce software release on a much shorter schedule (usually a six-month release cycle). This allows Fedora users to always have the latest software features and fixes included with a recent version of the operating system. But the Fedora Project is more than just the Fedora Linux release. It is really a collection of projects (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Projects) that also includes the following:

• One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) — The Fedora Project is working with Red Hat, Inc. and the OLPC project (http://www.laptop.org) to provide laptops to children around the world. Fedora software is being used as the foundation for the software part of OLPC.

• Fedora Ambassadors and Marketing — Focuses on spreading the word about Fedora to the world. Ambassadors have been assigned to different parts of the U.S. and to countries around the world to represent Fedora to their areas. The marketing project is helping to encourage presentations, developer conferences, and other initiatives to publicize Fedora.

• Fedora Live CD Tools — The Fedora Live CD initiative centers on a set of tools under the name livecd-creator. Using livecd-creator, the Fedora Project produces its own official Fedora live CDs. A live CD provides a means of running a Linux system on a computer without installing it to hard disk. It offers a great way to try out Fedora without disturbing anything installed on your hard disk. Because livecd-creator is itself an open source project, you can use the tools to create your own live CDs. Many advances to the live CD technology have occurred in recent releases of Fedora, including liveUSB versions and integration with kickstart files.

• Fedora Artwork — Creates the graphics used with Fedora (backgrounds, logos, login screens, and so on), primarily using tools that are distributed with Fedora.

• Fedora Documentation — Besides seeking to release Red Hat documentation under an open source license and maintaining it publicly with the Fedora Project, the Fedora Documentation Project is pursuing other initiatives. Those include assigning beat writers (to cover various software topics) and editors (to clean up and manage documentation contributions).

For information on the status of these and other Fedora projects, you can refer to the Fedora Weekly News (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN). If you are interested in contributing to any of the Fedora projects, the Fedora Projects page mentioned earlier is a good place to start. The Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) provides oversight and guidelines for which projects to accept into Fedora. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Development/SteeringCommittee for more on FESCo.

Third-party repositories for Fedora containing software packages that Red Hat won’t distribute due to licensing or patent issues have also grown and stabilized lately.

As the end-user forum of choice for Fedora users, Red Hat has endorsed the FedoraForum.org (http://www.fedoraforum.org) site. That site already has more than 149,000 members and over 1,260,000 posts you can search for answers to your questions.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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Ten cool things to do with Fedora 12 Linux

Just because Fedora is a serious operating system doesn't mean it can’t be fun too. Here is a list of ten fun and useful things to do with Fedora.

1. Customize your desktop — Not only does Linux support multiple desktop environments including GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and Moblin, but you can customize the look and feel of each desktop environment.

2. Launch Fedora 12 live on your PC — Insert the live CD that, reboot, and start using Fedora from nearly any PC. Fedora won’t touch the contents of your computer unless you tell it to. If you like Fedora, select the Install button to install Fedora to your hard disk.

3. Run thousands of applications — From the official Fedora repository or a boatload of other repositories, you can choose from thousands of free applications, including hundreds of games, with just a few mouse clicks.

4. Get online — Get on the Internet using the NetworkManager and then browse the Web, send e-mail, chat, and even video conference. With NetworkManager, even getting connected to wireless networks is simple. Share files using FTP or Bittorrent swarming network transfer software.

5. Manage music collections — Launch Rhythmbox to gather, organize, and play music from your hard disk, CDs, or network file systems. Try new ways to stream audio and video.

6. Publish your ideas — Choose from dozens of publishing tools to create documents (OpenOffice.org Writer), hard-copy page layouts (Scribus), and vector graphics (Inkscape). Then publish your work on paper or the Web.

7. Share an Internet connection, securely — Fedora can be set up as a router and a firewall. With a home or small office LAN setup, you can use Fedora to share an Internet connection among multiple Linux, Windows, or Mac systems. Then set up a firewall in Fedora to protect your LAN from intruders.

8. Run Windows applications or Windows itself — By adding the wine software packages, you can run many Windows applications right from a Fedora desktop. Use virtualization to run Windows, UNIX, or other versions of Linux on the same PC.

9. Create a home server — Learn to configure a Web server (Cha, FTP server and a mail server. Then use that knowledge to create a public Internet server. Your server can run from your home Internet connection. Or, you can share printers, disks, and other resources between all your home computers.

10. Create presentations — Start up OpenOffice.org Impress to create presentations from scratch or using templates. Tailor presentations to display as slide shows, view onscreen, or print on paper.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux

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