Fedora Linux

for 'Fedora Linux: A complete guide to Red Hat's community distribution.').

If the button in the lower-righthand corner of the screen reads Forward, there is one more step. Click on that button to proceed to the the sound card check screen.

On this screen, click on the Play button (labeled ) and adjust the volume slider until you hear a guitar strum on the right, left, then the center channel of your sound system. If you don't hear anything, check your speaker power, physical volume control, and sound connections (if you have multiple sound cards, use the device tabs on the left side to switch between them), clicking Play after each adjustment (or just select the Repeat checkbox).

If you can't get sound working at this point, don't worry; you may just need access to some of the advanced mixer controls, which you can experiment with later (see Lab 2.6, 'Configuring Sound ').

Click Finish. Congratulations, Fedora is installed and ready to use!

1.3.2. How Does It Work?

The Fedora Core installer is named Anaconda . It shares code and technology with several other tools, including:

yum, pup, and pirut

Tools for adding and removing software (see Chapter 5).

kudzu

A tool that checks the system at boot time to see if any hardware has been added or removed, and adjusts the system configuration appropriately.

system-config- component

Graphical tools to configure individual system components.

Because the hard disk is in an unknown state and the CD is not writable during the installation session, Anaconda uses a ramdisk an area of memory configured to act like a disk driveas the filesystem while it is running. After interacting with you to get the configuration details, Anaconda partitions and formats the hard disks and mounts them. It then starts installing RPM packages containing the selected software. Finally, it reboots the system.

Each time the system boots, the init script /etc/rc.d/init.d/firstboot is executed. If the file /etc/sysconfig/firstboot does not exist, the Python script /usr/sbin/firstboot is executed to ask the initial configuration questions.

Once the configuration details have been saved, the firstboot script exits and the normal boot sequence continues.

1.3.3. What About...

1.3.3.1. ...rerunning the firstboot process to reset the system configuration?

You can rerun the firstboot script by adding reconfig to the boot parameters when the system is started (boot parameters are entered in the same way as runlevels are during the boot process; see Lab 4.5, 'Using Runlevels'). The sequence of steps used during a reconfiguration is slightly different and longer from that used when the script executes for the first time; for example, you can change the system's default language during reconfiguration.

If you are not using a bootloader password, then any user with physical access to your computer can reset the password of any account on the system using the reconfig boot argument.

1.3.3.2. ...getting help if I encounter problems during (or after) installation?

Fedora is a community-based project, and the Fedora community is very helpful. The best places to turn for help are the Fedora Forum and the Fedora mailing lists. You can also access help using IRC (see Lab 9.2, 'Using IRC ,' for more information).

1.3.4. Where Can I Learn More?

? The Fedora Core release notes: http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/

? The Anaconda web page: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/anaconda-installer/

? The manpages for kudzu and yum

? The Fedora Forum: http://fedoraforum.org

Chapter 2. Using Fedora on Your Desktop

Fedora Linux provides a solid desktop computing environmentincluding a graphical user interface, communication tools, and office applicationsthat goes well beyond the traditional definition of an operating system. This chapter focuses on using Fedora in the desktop role.

Where possible, the labs in this book include instructions for performing tasks using both the graphical user interface and the command line. If you are not familiar with entering Linux commands, see Lab 4.1, 'Using the Command Line.'

2.1. Getting Started Using the Fedora Graphical User Interfaces

Fedora Core provides two attractive and easy-to-use graphical user interfaces (GUIs): KDE and GNOME. Each of these GUIs should be a comfortable adjustment for the majority of Windows and