[Nottingham] New Fedora install

[Michael Leuty]

On Monday 20 Sep 2004 20:46, lists at voila.fr wrote:
> All,

Bonsoir, Monsieur. Ça va?

> Can one mix using yum and apt? Or should I just stick with yum?

Dunno, but why risk it? Yum does it for me.

> In yum.conf I've only got one server :
> How do I get others to choose from? (is there netselect for yum like
> there is for apt)

Hie thee to www.fedorafaq.org wherein much useful advice is to be found.

In particular, replace your /etc/yum.conf with

http://www.fedorafaq.org/samples/yum.conf

You can uncomment the gpgcheck lines if you import the relevant GPG 
keys, as detailed in the FAQ.

> up2date has found several packages that need updating - can this be
> trusted? Should I do one at a time?

You can trust up2date, but "yum update" will do it for you as well. 
Occasionally there is a slight time lag during which the up2date icon 
flashes red but the yum repositories haven't yet received the updates.

The first time you use yum there is a long wait as it downloads all the 
headers. Thereafter every time you use yum it rechecks the 
repositories. If you just want information, or to download software you 
know hasn't been updated very recently add the option -C and it will 
read the headers from its cache.

> Installing new software (like Firefox or OpenOffice) thats in testing
> - any experiences? Does one have to do the equivalent to a
> dist-upgrade?

Firefox 9.3 is currently available using yum with the above yum.conf. 
Some of the more bleeding edge repositories (commented out of that 
yum.conf at first) may have newer versions, but there is always a risk 
of getting your dependencies in a twist. Sticking with the basic 
repositories of base, updates, fedora extras and livna should be safe. 
I've not found a newer RPM for OOo than 1.1.1.
http://www.fedoratracker.org/ may help you track down rare and beautiful 
RPMs.

> Finally up2date recommends a newer kernel. I've had troubles in the
> past with NVidia and installing another kernel - recommendations /
> nightmares / results.

The current recommended kernel is 2.6.8 which is more secure but has a 
bug which prevents burning data CDs except as root, and prevents 
burning audio CDs at all. Best to install the 2.6.7 kernel as well 
using kernel-2.6.7-1.494.2.2.i686.rpm (Google to find it) and reboot 
into 2.6.7 when you want to burn CDs. Install using -ivh and not -Uvh 
or you will obliterate your current kernel.

Bien amicalement,

Mike

-- 
Michael Leuty
Nottingham, UK