I have mentioned in my previous post containing GNOME 3 screenshots (which I should say is a thing of beauty) that I’ve installed Fedora 15.
During the pre-installation customization page, I clicked some of the familiar items that I would normally install eventually:
Applications
- Design Suite (contains GIMP and OptiPNG, plus more)
- Office/Productivity (contains LibreOffice)
- Sound & Video (checked Amarok)
Development
- Development Tools (checked cmake and PyLint)
- Fedora Eclipse
- Java Development
- Web Development (checked Django)
Servers
- Mail Server (SendMail)
- MySQL Database (checked php-mysql)
- PostgreSQL Database
- Printing Support
- Server Configuration Tools
- Web Server (mod_python, mod_ssl, php, php-ldap)
Here’s my post-installation setup:
Update
Updating for the first time also installs the GPG keys, which are needed so you won’t get errors regarding unsigned packages when you use the “fedora” and “updates” repositories of Fedora. In our terminal, as root, type:
yum update |
RPM Fusion
From the RPM Fusion website site:
RPM Fusion provides software that the Fedora Project or Red Hat doesn’t want to ship. That software is provided as precompiled RPMs for all current Fedora versions and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5; you can use the RPM Fusion repositories with tools like yum and PackageKit.
RPM Fusion is a merger of Dribble, Freshrpms, and Livna; our goal is to simplify end-user experience by grouping as much add-on software as possible in a single location.
To install both the free and non-free repositories, simply download and double-click the RPM Fusion free for Fedora Rawhide and what will become Fedora 15 (Alpha, Beta and snapshots) and RPM Fusion nonfree for Fedora Rawhide and what will become Fedora 15 (Alpha, Beta and snapshots) from the RPM Fusion Configuration page.
Google Chrome
Download the rpm file from the Chrome download page. Installing it is as easy as double-clicking the file.
Mozilla Firefox
Azureus
This is what I use to download torrents.
yum install azureus |
p7zip
For operating with the 7z file archiving format.
yum install p7zip |
Filezilla
For transfering files between machines.
yum install filezilla |
pgadmin3
For PostgreSQL database administration.
yum install pgadmin3 |
VLC
For watching videos without worrying about the file formats:
yum install vlc |
Unrar
For extracting RAR file archives.
yum install unrar |
Grip
CD-ripper with database lookup/submission to share track information over the net, supports OGG and FLAC and adding ID3v1/v2 to MP3s.
yum install grip |
Skype
They now have Skype 2.2 Beta for Linux. Simply download and double-click the RPM installer.
PulseCaster
This is what I use for recording Skype calls.
yum install pulsecaster |
vsftpd
Secure, fast FTP server
yum install vsftpd |
Alacarte
To create custom application launchers.
yum install alacarte |
Tomcat 6
yum install tomcat6 |
PHP
Some PHP modules that I need for web development.
yum install php-xml |
Sun JDK
Download Java SE SDK RPM Installer from the Java SE Downloads page and execute the similar commands as root:
Run the Java JDK binary:
chmod +x /home/randell/Downloads/jdk-6u25-linux-i586-rpm.bin sh /home/randell/Downloads/jdk-6u25-linux-i586-rpm.bin |
Install Java JDK java, javaws, libjavaplugin.so (for Firefox) and javac using alternatives –install:
alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_25/jre/bin/java 20000 alternatives --install /usr/bin/javaws javaws /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_25/jre/bin/javaws 20000 alternatives --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so libjavaplugin.so /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_25/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so 20000 alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_25/bin/javac 20000 alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_25/bin/jar 20000 |
Add the following JAVA_HOME environment variable to /etc/profile:
export JAVA_HOME="/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_25"
MySQL Workbench
For designing databases visually.
yum install mysql-workbench |
Calibre
For converting e-books to different formats and for managing your e-book collection.
yum install calibre |
bash auto-completion
yum install bash-completion |
chmsee
HTML Help viewer for Unix/Linux (for viewing .chm files).
yum install chmsee |
Development files for Qt toolkit
To develop applications using the Qt toolkit. And include the graphical configuration tool as well.
yum install qt-devel qt-config |
GStreamer non-free plugins
From the Fedora Unity Project:
GStreamer is a multimedia framework used by many media players including rhythmbox, banshee, totem, listen, exaile and others. Due to legal issues support for various non-free formats , including mp3 files, aren’t included with GStreamer by default. You can add support for mp3 and other formats by installing an add-on package from the third party repository rpm.livna.org
yum install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg phonon-backend-gstreamer |
FFMpeg
yum install ffmpeg ffmpeg-libs |
DVD playback
yum install libdvdread libdvdnav lsdvd |
Aptana
Downloaded Aptana 3 from http://www.aptana.com/.
GnomeTweakTool
One of the things that weren’t immediately obvious when I was setting-up Fedora 15 was the ability to easily change the font sizes for applications, documents and windows. Googling led me to GnomeTweakTool, which allows us to customize “advanced” GNOME 3 options.
yum install gnome-tweak-tool |
After installing TweakTool, I customized my fonts as follows:
- Document font: Sans 10
- Monospace font: Monospace 10
File Management Preferences
From a Nautilus window, go to Edit > Preferences. I modified mine to reflect the following changes:
- Default View > View new folders using: List View
- Icon View Defaults > Default zoom level: 66%
- List View Defaults > Default zoom level: 33%
Favorites
I customized my Favorites to include these frequently used applications:
- Chrome
- Firefox (added by default)
- Terminal
- Files (added by default)
- Amarok
- Eclipse
- Empathy
- Take Screenshot
Terminal
Edit > Profile Preferences > Colors > Foreground and Background
- Use colors from system theme: Unchecked
- Built-in schemes: Green on black
Text Editor
Edit > Preferences
- View
- Line Numbers > Display line numbers: Checked
- Current Line > Highlight current line: Checked
- Right Margin > Display right margin: Checked
- Bracket Matching > Highlight matching bracket: Checked
- Editor
- Tab Stops
- Tab width: 4
- Insert spaces instead of tabs: Checked
- Automatic Indentation > Enable automatic indentation: Checked
- File Saving
- Create a backup of files before saving: Unchecked
- Autosave files every: 5 minutes
- Font & Colors > Color Scheme: Oblivion
- Tab Stops
* I’ll simply update this post if ever I come across software I use that I forgot to list here.
Wow. You make wanna change my Debian install
Yo, JM!
According to the GNOME 3 FAQ page, “Computers purchased in the last 4 or 5 years should be more than capable of running GNOME 3. The GNOME 3 desktop does require hardware accelerated graphics in order to provide a cutting-edge experience however, and the complete GNOME 3 experience will only be available on computers capable of this. Do not worry though: GNOME 3 comes complete with a fallback interface which will provide an excellent experience in the absence of hardware acceleration, and which incorporates many of the improvements that can be found in GNOME 3.” Source: http://www.gnome3.org/faq.html
The updated Fedora 15 release notes also confirms the requirements from their download page: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/15/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Welcome_to_Fedora_15.html#sect-Release_Notes-Hardware_Overview.
You can always try it out to feel the difference. =)
Thanks a lot for the article, i’m a newbie to linux
thanks for sharing. I have just got Fedora 15 installed on my computer. I switched from Ubuntu
You’re welcome, Saeed & Andy!
@Andy, may I ask what made you switch from Ubuntu?
Great info!
This is exciting fedora stuff , Mr.Randell . I really like the way you’ve arranged the pieces of software . But the commands you used for installing gstreamer gave me the following error .
(Its pretty much because of their non existence in the repositories )
No package gstreamer-plugins-bad available.
No package gstreamer-plugins-ugly available.
No package gstreamer-ffmpeg available.
Can you give an alternate command so that i can install gstreamer ?? Morover , i had installed fedora with a Live CD and wise into install Eclipse and a LAMP Server . Please put up new a post on doing so
ADVANCED THANKS
@Unni, you need to install RPM Fusion to install the gstreamer plugins as I mentioned at the top of this post. =)
thank you very much your incite to the usage of fedora 15 is very helpful
Of course, I can’t answer for Andy above, but I also just switched from Ubuntu. Here’s a few of my reasons. I thought I might gain more experience in the linux world by trying different distros, plus I just wanted to try different ones. I’d say I’m an advanced newbie at this point. I just discovered the whole world of linux last year with Ubuntu. I had thought there was Mac and Windows period. Anyway, I had seen screenshots of the new Ubu desktop with the dash and didn’t like it. Imagine my surprise when I booted up the Fedora live cd and saw the dash there as well. Then, I had read Ubu would be removing the choice for the classic interface. Lastly, reading different articles, it didn’t sound like the developers were all together with where they were going.
Thanks for all the tips.
I installed Fedora 15 yesterday and I’m actually really surprised how easy it was to set up as opposed to the last time. Everything is going smoothly and I’m enjoying the whole experience, as a former Ubuntu user I was happy to let things go along without any problems but I realised that for me, it wasn’t enough and that I wanted to learn something else.
Fedora is a fantastic Linux distro.
Hi,
great post-installation notes.
was not using fedora since fedora 8, this helped a lot, thanks!
moeb
One thing you cannot do without: A Taskbar
Install and run: “gnome-panel –replace”.
This will give you a top and a bottom panel; the top one covered over by the default panel.
Install and run: “dconf-editor”
Edit: org -> gnome -> gnome-panel -> layout -> toplevels -> top-panel
Set option to auto-hide the top panel, and that gets it out of the way at the top.
Alt/right-click on the bottom panel and choose the Options;
set Background to “Solid Color”; choose black (rgb:000); set Style to 60% transparant.
Alt/right-click and choose ‘Add to panel’; search for ‘Main Menu’ and ‘Add’;
Alt/right-clock on the new ‘Main Menu’ icon, and select ‘Move’, than drag the icon to the leftmost corner on the taskbar.
Add other items as needed.
To startup the newly configured taskbar upon login:
run ‘gnome-session-properties’ and Add ‘gnome-panel –replace’
Recently updated to Fedora 15. Very good info for a novice person to GNOME3. Thanks
Hi!
I have not had much success getting rhythmbox, flash/firefox, and skype to all share the audio devices. Any pointers or suggestions? F15
Thanks,
Bobby
Have you been able to get grip to work? I don’t get any sound on F15 and F16. I can’t figure out why.
I like the program, but I guess it’s not being updated anymore. I submitted a bug report, but it will not be fixed, since grip is a dead project.
I like it because it rips and converts quickly and easily, has a nice lookup capability, and it’s easier to switch between tracks than vlc or rhythmbox.