Waiting for the Miracle

Fedora 17 is a miracle, its a Beefy miracle. Just tried out Alpha and its looking great. Waiting to get hold of it and hopefully to help in the process.
Today I am just ironing out my online presence with having a similar face everywhere. Uploaded my hackergotchi...

I have also dabbled with Gimp and Inkscape to make a wallpaper in anticipation of the new release. Hope you like it.

1600 x 968

You all are free to use the wallpaper in any ways you like just would love to hear your comments. If you feel anything offensive or inappropriate, comment...

P.s.:
The hotodog i got from Mairin Duffy http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/hotdog/hotdogs-wallpaper-trans.png and the fedora stars constellation from Nicu B. much better artists http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/artwork/clipart/fedora_stars.svg

Noob's first step towards Geek

Weekend project - do what geeks love to do. Compile my own operating system!!!

I am taking my first step towards geekdom just fresh out of noobhood. Well this is not the first step. The first step was installing linux and there was never any looking back. What's the next logical next step, installing softwares from source tarball. Not an easy task but been there done that. Was it easy not at all, there have been lots of hits and misses. Now its time to take up the task of compiling the operating system whole.

Why to compile your OS???



Gee that's a tough one. Why would you go through a long, bitter process of downloading source code, fulfilling dependencies, compiling the source code to find that you misspelt a command and lost half an hour to get an result.

Because I can do it, I can learn while am at it. Learn how stuff works, how to break and rebuild it, and to be focused while doing it so. There are other reasons to you can read it at LFS official site. So not re-inventing the wheel.

Enough of idioms lets get down to business, I am trying to install LFS v7.0 on a VirtualBox. I tried using Fedora live cd but it doesn't have gcc installed. I am now using a custom built OpenSUSe from SUSEStudio without graphical user interface.

Linux God

This post took a lot of time coming because it has grown from a weekend project to a weekends project. Linux God give me power to complete this benediction. With my exams coming on and thesis in way I dont kno when can I complete it. Wish me luck, please I need it a lot.

Things to do after installing Fedora

Fedora is a great OS. Its Linux as it should be free and usable, at the cutting edge but completely stable. But it still lets a lot to be wanted such as the non free software, libraries which are essential in day to day life. Few nitty gritties installed and the make a wonderful environment to work and play.

1) Installing RPM Fusion, Livna Repos

Though most of the free softwares and codecs are quite capable of running the show, few restrictive and non free blobs such as mp3 support, VLC media player are the need of life. Most of these are not found on the official repos. These can be installed through the RPM Fusion repo. Livna repo is only needed for libdvdcss. Livna exist only for that package.

Adding or removing packages in Fedora is done through graphical frontend to yum, PackageKit. It is not possible to install yum repo through PackageKit. In order to install the RPM Fusion and Livna repo run in terminal;

yum --nogpgcheck install http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

2) MP3 support

Rhythmbox is the standard music player included in Fedora. Other players include Amarok, Audacious, etc.. The list goes on and on. In case of standard gnome install the default player is rhythmbox. For it to play mp3 gstreamer-plugin-ugly is needed.To install that,

yum install gstreamer-plugin-ugly

As pointed out by Kevin Kofler same command is also to be used in case of KDE and Amarok.

You can also install these plugins from the GUI by searching for them in the Add & Remove Software or PackageKit.

3) Install VLC

Totem is good but VLC is the best. Its open-source, light weight and so full of nifty features that you dont need anything else for all your media needs. It also supports many video codecs of the block.
yum install vlc

There are many features that can be done with VLC. You can read about it here.

 4) Install Flash player

Flash player was supposed to be dead but it isn't. It still drags on and you have to install it to use your favourite video site or online gaming site. Open source gnash is just not upto the mark to be used on an daily basis.


To install Adobe repo

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

In order to install Flash plugin

yum install flash-plugin

Thanks mr.Edrk for this heads up. 

You can also download Flash plugin RPM from its website here.


5) Configure backup


Fedora comes pre-installed with a great backup software Deja-Dup. Its easy to use and easier to configure. Configure a twice weekly backup to maintain sanity and do a regular backup in background and secure your files.


That rounds off the 5 things to do after installing Fedora. I enjoy using Fedora and these tips make my life easier. There are many tips and tricks and this unofficial faq is a great place to know about it. Please add your tips and tricks in the comments and I will be grateful and will add them here.

Updates:

I always wanted GUI for installation of softwares and codecs for Fedora. I didn't know they existed before seeing the comments. Thank you all for the update. All the codec installation can be done using GUI scripts such as autoplus, Fedora utils. Other great way to manage your GNOME desktop is by using gnome-tweak-tool. Great thing about File Roller the default archive manager is that it is extendable. Rar file support can be installed just by installing unrar 

yum install unrar

ThinkPad Week 2

As I had written in the previous post my laptop has returned from its sojourn to Mumbai. My sister had reinstalled Windoze to try to get internet but that too didn't work out. There was some problem with the USB modem and I was not involved in it. So this was the to-do list I had...

• Reinstalling Fedora.
• Getting all the features to work right how I want it to work.
• Trackpoint
• Synaptic Touchpad
• Two finger scrolling
• Middle button gesture
• Pinch-zoom

I have the work cut out for the week as I want to understand and learn about the options as I make it work. Hopefully I will be able to do it...

Wish me luck.

Beautiful Nature - Wallpapers

Hey guys, Happy new year!!!

This is the first post of the new year. I am bringing you few wallpapers to adorn your computer screen. I will add to it as soon I take few more pictures. I love nature in all its blossom and fall. These few pictures I took looks brilliant on my desktop. I hope you like it too.

Source

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Please comment if you like it...