Fedora

Fedora

Fedora is a fast, stable, and powerful GNU/Linux distribution for everyday use built by a worldwide community of friends. It's completely free to use, study, and share.

New users

If you're new to linux and you want to use fedora then an excelent place to start is easyLife. It sets up essential software, installs some commonly used properitary software, installs codecs, installs and configures flash, sets up properitary drivers, sets up oracle java and much more. It's only recommended if you are an inexperienced user or if you're REALLY lazy.

Basic setup

Althought the default fedora installation contains most of the stuff it needs it's always usefull to add the following essentials: sudo yum install wget nano git gcc clang gnome-tweak-tool vim -y This installs some basic software that is sadly not packaged with Fedora by default

Codecs

By default fedora doesn't have a lot of codecs installed you can fix this by running

sudo yum install gstreamer{1,}-{ffmpeg,libav,plugins-{good,ugly,bad{,-free,-nonfree}}} ffmpeg -y

Although this adds a lot of codecs non-free codecs will not be installed this way using the default repos (see RPMFusion and redo this command).

How to use yum

Yum is very easy to use compared to aptitude, pacman etc. It has three basic commands that you need to remember:

• yum install
• yum search
• yum remove

Basics

The yum command supports a range of wildcards etc. For example: if you want to install all the gstreamer plugins all you need to do is yum install gstream*plugin* By adding the -y flag you skip the confirmation process and yum will assume yes for most questions.

RPMFusion

The RPMFusion repos add non-free software to fedora. This includes a lot of codecs, steam, etc. Installing RPMFusion is extreemly easy:

su -c 'yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm'

Flash

Flash is not installed by default and is officially not recommended due to the fact that it's non-free software. If you do wish to install the Flash player plugin anyway then please follow these steps.

Firefox

x86_64 (64-bit)

sudo yum install http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-x86_64-1.0-1.noarch.rpm -y

x86 (32-bit)

sudo yum install http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm -y

Installing the plugin

sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux
sudo yum install flash-plugin -y

Checking the plugin in Firefox

Type the following text in the Firefox address bar:

about:plugins

Also check the Adobe Flash Player test page

Installing the plugin on Chromium web browser

Follow all of the instructions in the Enabling Flash Plugin section. Then:

On 64-bit, create a symbolic link that tells Chromium how to find the 64-bit plugin:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib64/chromium-browser/plugins/libflashplayer.so

On 32-bit, create a symbolic link that tells Chromium how to find the 32-bit plugin:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins/libflashplayer.so

Exit all Chromium windows and restart Chromium. In the Chromium address bar, type "about:plugins" to check whether the plugin loaded. You may have to re-run Chromium with the --enable-plugins command line switch to force Chromium to re-scan its plugins folder.

Installing Gnash

There is a free and open source alternative called Gnash available in Fedora's software repositories. Gnash can play flash videos but the audio portion of flash is often under the MP3 format which is patent encumbered. Since Gnash uses Gstreamer, you can install the gstreamer codecs from RPM Fusion

sudo yum install http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm  -y
sudo yum install gstreamer{1,}-{ffmpeg,libav,plugins-{good,ugly,bad{,-free,-nonfree}}} ffmpeg -y

Gnash is very modular and includes plugins for Mozilla and Konqueror as well as a desktop player. You likely want the Mozilla plugin.

sudo yum remove nspluginwrapper -y
sudo yum install gnash-plugin -y

If you use Konqueror as your web browser,

sudo yum install gnash-klash -y

If you would like to have a desktop flash player,

sudo yum install gnash -y

Why use Fedora?

• Default repo's only contain [free software]
• More bleeding edge software.
• RHEL-based.