My machine is a desktop, providing me with a set of applications, and access to the internet. I want lots of nice tools for word processing, graphics and programming.
I want to be able to upgrade the system without disturbing my personal files, or any applications I may have installed. This mostly will affect the way I partition the hard drives. Red Hat and Fedora can upgrade themselves by various means. These do not work perfectly. I prefer to be able to blow away the OS partition so that I can replace it with a new system, possibly something other than Fedora.
An additional partitioning concern is that I want to be able to remove and replace the second hard drive without causing a major disturbance in how the machine is setup. This means that the OS and the /boot, /var and /tmp filesystems must be on the main hard drive. It would be nice if the home directories were there too, but not absolutely necessary.
| Partition | Size |
| / | 200GB |
| swap | 60GB |
| /home | 500GB |
| /usr/local | 1240GB |
| Total: | 2000GB |
I am using the 2TB drive as my primary drive, and the 500GB as the backup. I would have prefered this the other way around, but the 500GB already has backup stuff on it.
My /home backup will be written to my double layer DVD. The DVD has a capacity of 8.5GB, so this limits the size of whatever I back up. I compress my backups.
I used to have a /tt /var partition. This would allow me to receive faxes. I no longer expect any.
Here is my new partitioning scheme. The following stuff is output from fdisk and df.
[root@rev RevLinux]# /sbin/fdisk /dev/sda Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000848cf Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 409602047 204800000 83 Linux /dev/sda2 409602048 532482047 61440000 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 532482048 2883031039 1175274496 83 Linux /dev/sda4 2883031040 3907028991 511998976 83 Linux Command (m for help): q [root@rev RevLinux]# /sbin/fdisk /dev/sdb Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xf5ce2ad1 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 63 976768064 488384001 83 Linux Command (m for help): q [root@rev RevLinux]# exit exit [howard@rev RevLinux]$ df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on rootfs 201585632 9866092 181479540 6% / udev 1019044 0 1019044 0% /dev tmpfs 1026436 272 1026164 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 1026436 696 1025740 1% /run /dev/sda1 201585632 9866092 181479540 6% / tmpfs 1026436 0 1026436 0% /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs 1026436 0 1026436 0% /media /dev/sdb1 480719056 153014784 303285072 34% /backup /dev/sda3 1156832872 10030616 1088038532 1% /usr/local /dev/sda4 503963880 15161472 463202460 4% /home /dev/sda1 201585632 9866092 181479540 6% /tmp /dev/sda1 201585632 9866092 181479540 6% /var/tmp /dev/sda4 503963880 15161472 463202460 4% /home [howard@rev RevLinux]$
Once, way back in the prehistoric past, I would have kept the /boot filesystem within the first 512MB of the hard drive. Back in the days of '486's, the BIOS did not support large boot partitions.
I used to connect to the internet through a 56K modem. I assumed that that security was not an issue.
One fine day, just as I disconnected from the internet, I noticed that my hard drive was spinning frantically. I was running top and I noticed that egrep was using up a lot of CPU and memory. I tried to use ps, but permission was denied. I logged in as root and I ran ps again, and I found the following line...
egrep -ri "mastercharge|visa" /homeThis command scans through /home and prints out each line in each file containing the sequence ``mastercharge'' or ``visa''. The search is case insensitive.
I had been scanned and cracked. I had to reformat my hard drive and re-install everything.
There are several morals to this tragic little tale...
My backup plan is to write the /home partition to a file in the /backup directory, each day. This will be an archive of some kind. Periodically, I will write these backup files to CD. There is no need to write ISO9660 file systems to the CD-ROM. Any type of file can be recovered from the CD.
On Red Hat 12, my backup format is gzipped tar, which I write directly to the CD-ROM. Fedora Core 3 will be writing to a DVD, which means no more gzipping, I hope.
I have been warned that if any of my data gets corrupted, and I would lose all the data after the corrupt sector. Unfortunately, my data does not fit uncompressed on a CD-ROM. I need the DVD-RW!
Apparently, bzip2 will lose the corrupt sector, but recover everything downstream of it. This format could be hard to recover if it is written directly to the CD-ROM.
I have also used dump. I was warned that this backs up the actual filesystem. It you recover one of these backups onto another filesystem, you could be in for a disaster.
I have notes later on on Xen. Installing it on a machine that requires a working serial port and floppy drives is disaster. I did not know this and I installed it.
There has been no mention of Xen for Fedora since version 10. Good riddance.
Boot the Fedora 15 DVD. Tell it you want to Install or upgrade and existing system.
I was given the option to test my media (my DVD) before continuing, and I did.
Fedora's installation window came up, welcoming me to Fedora. A series of selection windows came up. The fonts look funny, with the n's and s's looking sort of cut-off.
There is what it looked line in the window labeled ``Please Select a Device''...
| Device | Size (MP) | Mount Point | Type | Format | |
| Hard Drive | |||||
| sda (/dev/sda) | |||||
| sda1 | 200000 | / | ext4 | yes | |
| sda2 | 60000 | swap | yes | ||
| sda3 | 1147729 | /usr/local | ext4 | ||
| sda4 | 499999 | /home | ext4 | ||
| sdb (/dev/sdb) | |||||
| sdb1 | 476937 | /backup | ext4 | ||
| free | 2 |
When you create partitions on a new hard drive, the installer tries very hard to create extended partitions.
The free space thing makes no sense to me. I was unable to allocate the space when I installed an earlier Linux. There was no free space with Fedora 15..
The next thing it did was prompt me about the partitions it was about to reformat. Okay. Partitions reformatted!
I selected /dev/sda1 for my Grub boot loader, and I set a boot loader password.
I want to install everything. Why does Fedora not have an ``install everything'' button?
For installation of Fedora, I selected ``Graphical Desktop''. My other choices were ``Software Development'', ``Web Server'', and ``Minimal''.
I can add additional repositories to my DVD, but I did not. My basic install is entirely off the DVD. I can search yum, later.
I clicked ``Customize now''.
I installed just about everything. I strongly recommend installing the alternate desktops KDE and XFCE.
I did not go nuts installing extra fonts, or the virtualization environment.
For languages, I provided UK English, and French support. There was no mention of Canadian English.
So far, I hate it. I cannot wait to get FVWM back up and running.
The objective if Gnome 3.0 is to unclutter everyone's desktop. I am not sure this is a problem. Some people like to work this way. If they get their work done, who cares? Meanwhile, it seems to take a maximum number of mouse clicks to get from one application to another.
Also, I do not approve of the eye candy. Most of the time, you use the user interface to locate your files and launch applications. Any resources consumed by the window manager are not available for your application. This could be a problem if your application is a resource hog.
Historically, Linux is a way to keep using older computers. KDE always has required a new, fast machine. Now, Gnome requires a new, fast machine.
I have never liked KDE much. I don't like excessive eye candy. I never found the interface to be all that intuitive, although I might, if I used it more.
Since I was having problems with Gnome 3.0, I have used it a bit.
The new version of KDE loads very fast. This is a huge improvement. I was able to customize KDE with my favourite apps attached to the toolbar. Once you have an app running, it replaces the icon with the running app. This is a nuisance if you like running multiple terminals like I do. Otherwise, it is a convenient feature.
There is a round thing at the top right corner of my screen called a ``Toolbox''. If I were serious about KDE, I would investigate this.
XFCE works fine. I can find all the administrative tools. If you are familiar with Microsoft Windows, XFCE is precticable. It loads quickly.
If you are not a long term Linux geek, I strongly recommend XFCE.
Actually, I run the FVWM2 window manager. I have been running this since 1996, and I have everything configured exactly the way I like it. It is small, fast and stable. If you are not a long term Linux user, FVWM is probably more hassle than you want.
I installed it using yum. No problems.
Since I have not yet figured out how to make Fedora 15 connect to the network automatically on booting, I need a network icon too.
I installed stalonetray. again, using yum. I added the following line to my FVWM buttons...
*FvwmButtons (Swallow (UseOld) stalonetray `Exec stalonetray & nm-applet`)
The program nm-applet was the network tool in Gnome, and is still used as part of XFCE. Now, it works fine in FVWM. The stalonetray also picks up my email tool, sylpheed, showing when I have received email.
I can grab these using yum.
I hit ``Next'' when prompted. Installations off the DVD should be done in an hour or so. Online installations take a long time. I launched my DVD installation at around 12:30pm, and it completed well before 1:30pm.
When you are prompted to reboot, take the DVD out of the drive.
A set of configuration windows came up.
Historically, I get asked about security and firewalls and my video and sound configuration. Nothing happened this time.
I logged in as me.
I configured "Users and Groups" by launching system-config-users.
Fedora's default behaviour is to set up each user with their own personal group. Group write access therefore is harmless. If the user writes to a directory with a shared group, they can share data.
I do not have any other real users to worry about. The group prg will be able to access general filesystems like /usr/local/src.
There is no video configuration at install time. There is a personal Gnome configuration where you set resolution for your Gnome session. This has no effect on other sessions like FVWM.
My Samsung P2250 was identified as a Samsung Electric Company 22''. The resolution was set to 1920x1080. It appears I can reset the resolution to 1600x1200, but it looks weird on the monitor.
From the window manager, I have installed the following packages...
Fedora installs GDM as the graphical login tool. The login window shows a user list. A user list is a bad idea most of the time. On any system, it allows unauthorized people to see your user list. This is half of what a cracker needs to hack into your system. If your user list is large, a lot of people are going to need more time to scroll through the list and find themselves.
I searched the internet for a solution to this. I found a bug report on the GDM site stating that this is a do-not-use-GDM issue and that they need to fix it. This is an issue going back at least to Fedora 10. You would think they would have fixed it by now.
The solution, meanwhile, is to run KDM. Create or edit the following file with the following data...
[root@rev RevLinux]# vi /etc/sysconfig/desktop DISPLAYMANAGER=KDE [root@rev RevLinux]#
This makes KDM the default login window. Fedora 15 does not display the user list, but it does display the last user. You will need to open the login manager, go to the ``Convenience'' window, and turn off the previous user display.
SEcurity Enhanced Linux, according to Wikipedia 3 is...
a Linux feature that provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies, including United States Department of Defense-style mandatory access controls, through the use of Linux Security Modules (LSM) in the Linux kernel.
It adds security levels not available from the original UNIX file permissions. The security is described as more ``granular'', meaning that you have more security settings to play with.
I am not totally sold on this. SElinux can be a nuisance when it prevents applications other features from working. In my case, it prevented KDM from recording what window manager it opened on its previous session, and it shut down Google Chrome outright. In the past, I have switched SElinux to permissive mode.
I am not sure who is being protected by all this stuff, and what they are being protected from. If the threat is sloppy users, I don't need this feature on a personal laptop, for example.
Okay, we need security.
Run the SElinux troubleshooter. If SElinux denies access to something you need, follow the instructions provided by the troubleshooter. So far, I have got everything working.
Don't just mindless follow the instructions. Ask yourself why your application needs the access it is being refused, especially if it seems to be working okay. Perhaps you have a security problem.
You can update and upgrade your software by typing...
# yum upgrade
I recommend connecting to high speed internet and doing this, shortly after your install. Definitely, this fixed my problems with accelerated video and Gnome 3.
Subsequent upgrades may be feasible over your wireless connection. The first one definitely need high speed access.
Up until now, Fedora's tool for managing services has been system-config-services. This allowed you to log in as root, turn stuff on and off, and make things turn on at boot.
No more.
You can still turn things on and off. Boot services are configured from the command line as follows...
# systemctl enable httpd.service # systemctl enable network.service
I want my network to be continuously active, since my desktop is a server.
I have an HP Deskjet 6940 connected to my router. I have worked out the IP address, and entered into /etc/hosts as HP6940.
I launched the print configuration program, I added a printer and I told it to search for HP6940. It found the printer and set it up.
I had problems with Fedora 12, but these are fixed.
Linux and Fedora are Free Software (http://www.gnu.org). Most multi-media formats are proprietary. The primary problem with multi-media on Linux is the ideological assumption that you should not have non-free sofware on your computer. If you are a fanatical Free Software person, your multi-media experience will be limited.
If this is less critical for you, you can search the internet for Fedora multi-media. There are several sites that will tell you what to install.
I love xfig. I use it go generate vector graphic. I can use its transfig package to convert the graphics from .fig format to PostScript or to various bitmap formats.
My Epson scanner is now recognized by sane, and my Epson's program iscan, which I downloaded. I installed the following...
iscan-data-1.12.0-3.noarch iscan-2.28.0-2.i386 iscan-plugin-gt-f700-2.1.2-1.i386The install of iscan-2.28.0-2.i386.rpm did not work because both yum and rpm claimed that I was missing a dependency - libltdl.so.3.
# rpm --install iscan-data-1.12.0-3.noarch.rpm
# rpm --install iscan-2.28.0-2.i386.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
libltdl.so.3 is needed by iscan-2.28.0-2.i386
# rpm --install --nodeps iscan-2.25.0-1.i386.rpm
# rpm --install iscan-2.25.0-1.ltdl7.i386.rpm
Note how I used the -nodeps switch.
Then, I checked my libraries, and I found libltdl.so.7. I created a symbolic link called libltdl.so.3.
# ls -l /usr/lib/*ltdl* /usr/lib/libltdl.so.7 -> libltdl.so.7.2.1 /usr/lib/libltdl.so.7.2.1 # ln -s /usr/lib/libltdl.so.7.2.1 /usr/lib/libltdl.so.3 # ls -l /usr/lib/*ltdl* /usr/lib/libltdl.so.3 -> /usr/lib/libltdl.so.7.2.1 /usr/lib/libltdl.so.7 -> libltdl.so.7.2.1 /usr/lib/libltdl.so.7.2.1
Also, I used yum to install xsane. Both iscan and xsane are supposed to run within the GIMP, but neither does. They do a preview, then the scanner locks up. They both run fine on their own.
My modem is at /dev/ttyS0. I can search for it. One of the Red Hat Bibles told me how to do this.
# wvdialconf /etc/create
What wvdialconf actually does is create a configuration file for wvdial. The command wvdial is a system for connecting to the internet through a modem. I do not use it anymore, except for detecting the modem.
I tried creating a symbolic link to the modem, /dev/modem. This worked, but it was erased when I rebooted the computer. It appears, only /dev/ttyS0 is reliable.
On my system, the floppy disk is part of a storage module with all sorts of USB ports. I had two problems making this work.
Fedora regards the 
floppy drive as obsolete.
The required kernel module is no longer loaded at boot time. I
added the following lines to the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local...
# I want the floppy disk to work /sbin/modprobe floppyThis is executed when the computer boots.
The second problem is that /dev/fd0 does not work as a mountable device. The device that actually does work is different. I created the directory /mnt/floppy. I attached the following line to my /etc/fstab...
/dev/fd0u1440 /mnt/floppy auto users,noauto,rwThe text auto tells Linux to figure out what filesystem the floppy was formatted in. The text users allows ordinary users to mount floppies, but with a couple of safetyh features in place, notably the noexec switch that disallows executing any commands off the floppy.
The file /etc/rc.d/rc.local is the last script that is executed upon booting. This allows administrators to do local customization at boot time. I have not modified it this time.
The lines beginning with the # key are comments, ignored by the computer.
The network was configured by my install program. I added my printer to /etc/hosts, so that I could call it HP6940.
I want to run web pages from my personal account. Apache can be fairly easily made to offer up html files sitting in the user's public_html directory. Apache's default behavior is not to do this.
The version of Apache on Fedora Core 3 has considerably tighter security than on previous distributions. This is due largely to the SELinux feature we turned on, above.
For Fedora 15, the Apache configuration directory is /etc/httpd/conf. Load the file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf, and search for the string public_html. There are two lines of code, separated by a few lines of comments as follows...
<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
#
# UserDir is disabled by default since it can confirm the presence
# of a username on the system (depending on home directory
# permissions).
#
UserDir disable
#
# To enable requests to /~user/ to serve the user's public_html
# directory, remove the "UserDir disable" line above, and uncomment
# the following line instead:
#
#UserDir public_html
</IfModule>
You want to comment out UserDir disable, and uncomment UserDir public_html as follows...
# UserDir disable
UserDir enable all
...
UserDir public_html
Leave all the other stuff in, of course.
I enabled CGI scripts written in Perl.
Under the lines about UserDir, there is a commented out section...
#<Directory /home/*/public_html> # AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit # Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec # ... #</Directory>
Uncomment this, and add ExecCGI to the end of the Options line.
Search httpd.conf for the line...
#AddHandler cgi-script .cgiUncomment it, and add .pl to the end of it so that we can execute Perl scripts.
I halted and restarted httpd.
# /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart
SElinux did not allow access to my public_html, but it's logging routine provided instructions for disabling this. I followed them, and it worked.
I want to provide controlled write accesss to /usr/local/src. This makes it easier to install software from source, and keep the source distribution online with any modifications I had to make to get it to compile.
I change the group ownership of the directory of prg, and I turned on the sticky bit, so that anything written to the directory would belong to prg.
# chgrp prg /usr/local/src # chmod 1775 /usr/local/src
Now, I need the /usr/local/lib directory to be included in the library search path. I need to configure and run /sbin/ldconfig. Create the file /etc/ld.so.conf.d/usrlocal.conf. Add the line...
/usr/local/libIssue the command...
# /sbin/ldconfig -v
In the past, I have had WordPerfect installed on this machine. AbiWord reads WordPerfect files. Open Office reads WordPerfect files. I did not try Kword.
WordPerfect requires all sorts of old libraries to work. Installing these might screw up the rest of the system. WordPerfect is old. I do not use it anymore. It is not worth the effort or the risk.
My libc5 notes are obsolete, because I did not install libc5. They are kept here for reference only. Do not toss out your old Linux install media. Do not use them unless you have to.
When you run a number of old applications and tools, they exit with the error ``file not found''. This can be caused if libc5 is required. This is not installed on Red Hat 7 and up. As of Red Hat 8, I am not bothering to install it.
Libc5 can be useful. If you have WordPerfect 8 or openwin installed, you need it.
For Red Hat 7.2, I located and installed the following rpms...
ld.so-1.9.5-11.i386.rpm libc-5.3.12-31.i386.rpmThe ld.so rpm is required as a dependency of libc-5.3.12-31
Now, you must open up /etc/ld.so.conf, and add the line...
/usr/i486-linux-libc5/lib...to the end.
Run /sbin/ldconfig -v to set up the library path.
I often have one of these with a Linux install of new hardware.
When I first installed Fedora 12, it would not boot. The BIOS message came up, the all I saw was a gray, flashing cursor. There was no sign of Linux. I had already installed Fedora 10 on this machine.
I put a message up on the Toronto Linux User Group message base asking about this. Someone replied that the machine probably was confused about which hard drive was to have the bootloader. I needed to disconnect my old IDE drive during the install process.
Eventually, I looked at my BIOS and determined that the IDE drive was being recognized as a boot device, and that the SATA drive was not being recognized. There was a screen in the BIOS that allowed me to swap this. Everything worked fine after that.
On my Red Hat 8 install, I completed everything, and I booted the system up. I transfered data from my old 2GB hard drive, and I shut down.
I replaced the 2GB drive with my 6GB drive and rebooted. It took quite a lot of frustration before I realized that the 6GB and 40GB drives had a set of partitions with the same labels. I fixed this from the install shell using the command e2label
When I installed my new sound card, all the hard drive numbers changed. I did not notice or understand what happened until the system completed booting and started complaining that it could not find some partitions. The root partition, /home and /usr/local showed up properly because of the drive labels. The drive labels look a little weird, but this is very robust.
I think my SCSI burner failed after my first Fedora Core 3 install. This messed up all sorts of things including my USB devices. I had a persistent error message about no disk being in the drive, which I traced to my CF card reader. My sound card failed too. I removed the SCSI burner and reddid the install. Everything worked fine afterwards.
The first time I installed Fedora 6, my serial port and my floppy disks did not work. I am still using a serial modem, so this put me of the internet. I assumed I had hardware problems and I ripped stuff out and tried all sorts of new hardware, up to an external modem with a USB to serial converter. Eventually, I found out that the problem was Xen. When Xen runs, you lose your serial port and your floppy drives.
I did not install my SCSI card. These notes are for historical interest, only.
I forget what it was like installing my SCSI card for my CD writer. When you install Linux, all this stuff works, if you can figure out what they are called. Since I installed Red Hat 7.0, I have connected an old Sun Desktop pack with a 9GB SCSI hard drive. I wanted to write stuff out to CD.
I plugged in the desktop pack, then I halted and restarted the computer. Linux and Kudzu autodetected and configured the device at boot. Now, all I had to do is figure out what the damn thing is called!
The naming convention in Linux SCSI is as follows...
| hard drives | /dev/sd[a-z], /dev/sd[a-c][a-z], /dev/sdd[a-x] |
| CD-ROMs | /dev/scd[1-7] |
| Tapes | /dev/st[0-7] |
The Sun hard drive I was playing with turned out to be /dev/sda1. I am not quite sure how this corresponds to the logical device number 2, which was dialed up on the back.
I saw no sign of Xen on Fedora 10. These notes are for historical purposes only, and as a warning!
Fedora 6's default is to install a Xen compatible kernel and run the Xen daemon. This allows ``paravirtualization'', and it messes up the serial port and the floppy drives. An ordinary person running Fedora as a desktop has no need for virtual environments but very likely wants floppies and modems. Xen is a pain in the butt.
You need to install the non-xen kernel, and you need to configure GRUB so it boots this kernel. The Fedora 6 DVD contains several kernels. You probably installed kernel-xen-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.i686.rpm. You want to search for and install kernel-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.i686.rpm.
In addition, I installed kernel-devel-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.i686.rpm and kernel-headers-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.i386.rpm.
Update /boot/grub/grub.conf, setting default=0. This causes GRUB to boot the first of the two kernels listed. The RPM install updated GRUB.