Fedora 16 pre/post-installation setup

This is pretty much the same as my post for Fedora 15, but I modified some details to make sure everything is relevant for Fedora 16.

I also converted the steps that requires downloading and installing into one executable command, whenever possible. I also added the -y option to the yum commands so we can skip the questions if we really want to install the packages since most of the time we type ‘yes’ anyway.

These are the packages I chose during the pre-installation setup:

Applications

• Design Suite (contains GIMP and OptiPNG, plus more)
• Office/Productivity (contains LibreOffice)
• Sound & Video (checked k3b)

Development

• Development Tools (checked cmake and PyLint)
• Java Development

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)

Base System

• Administration Tools
• System Tools

And 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 -y 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 14, 15 and 16 and RPM Fusion nonfree for Fedora 14, 15 and 16 from the RPM Fusion Configuration page.

Google Chrome

yum -y install lsb # dependency
rpm -ivh http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_i386.rpm

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox add-ons that use.

Azureus

This is what I use to download torrents.

yum -y install azureus

p7zip

For operating with the 7z file archiving format.

yum -y install p7zip

Filezilla

For transfering files between machines.

yum -y install filezilla

pgadmin3

For PostgreSQL database administration.

yum -y install pgadmin3

VLC

For watching videos without worrying about the file formats:

yum -y install vlc

Unrar

For extracting RAR file archives.

yum -y 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 -y install grip

Skype

rpm -ivh http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-beta-fc10

PulseCaster

This is what I use for recording Skype calls.

yum -y install pulsecaster

vsftpd

Secure, fast FTP server

yum -y install vsftpd

Alacarte

To create custom application launchers in Gnome 3.

yum -y install alacarte

PHP

Some PHP modules that I need for web development.

yum -y install php-gd php-mbstring php-pgsql php-xml

MySQL Workbench

For designing databases visually.

yum -y install mysql-workbench

Calibre

For converting e-books to different formats and for managing your e-book collection.

yum -y install calibre

chmsee

HTML Help viewer for Unix/Linux (for viewing .chm files).

yum -y install chmsee

Development files for Qt toolkit

To develop applications using the Qt toolkit. And include the graphical configuration tool as well.

yum -y 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 -y install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg phonon-backend-gstreamer

FFMpeg

yum -y install ffmpeg ffmpeg-libs

DVD playback

yum -y install libdvdread libdvdnav lsdvd

JavaHL

To avoid this error in Eclipse and Aptana.

yum -y install subversion-javahl

Oracle JDK

Download and install the Java SE SDK RPM from the Java SE Downloads page

rpm -ivh http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/7u1-b08/jdk-7u1-linux-i586.rpm

Then setup Java JDK java, libjavaplugin.so (for Firefox), javac, and jar using alternatives –install:

alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/jdk1.7.0_01/jre/bin/java 20000
alternatives --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so  libjavaplugin.so /usr/java/jdk1.7.0_01/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so 20000
alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/java/jdk1.7.0_01/bin/javac 20000
alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/java/jdk1.7.0_01/bin/jar 20000

Add the following JAVA_HOME environment variable to /etc/profile:

export JAVA_HOME="/usr/java/jdk1.7.0_01"

Aptana

Download and extract Aptana 3 from http://www.aptana.com/.

wget http://download.aptana.com/studio3/standalone/3.0.6/linux/Aptana_Studio_3_Setup_Linux_x86_3.0.6.zip
unzip Aptana_Studio_3_Setup_Linux_x86_3.0.6.zip

GnomeTweakTool

Customize advanced GNOME 3 options and easily change the font sizes for applications, documents and windows.

yum -y install gnome-tweak-tool

After installing TweakTool, I customized my fonts as follows:

• Document font: Sans 10
• Monospace font: Monospace 10
• Window title font: Cantarell 10

Startup services

Make sure Httpd and MySQL starts up on boot.

chkconfig --levels 235 httpd on
systemctl start mysqld.service
systemctl enable mysqld.service

Make personal user space accessible to apache user

First, add apache user to user group. Execute a command similar to this:

usermod -a -G randell apache

Then modify the permissions of the user directory with:

chmod 770 /home/randell/

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
• gedit
Files (added by default)
• Rhythmbox
• 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
  • Display line numbers: Checked
  • Display right margin at column: 80
  • Highlight current line: Checked
  • Highlight matching brackets: Checked
• Editor
  • Tab Stops
    • Tab width: 4
    • Insert spaces instead of tabs: Checked
    • Enable automatic indentation: Checked
  • File Saving
    • Create a backup of files before saving: Unchecked
    • Autosave files every: 5 minutes
  • Font & Colors > Color Scheme: Oblivion