Fedora Linux

Fedora Linux

Preface

Welcome to Fedora Linux : A Complete Guide to Red Hat's Community Distribution . I've based this book on the premise that the best way to learn Linux is to use it; each lab deals with a specific task or problem and starts with solutions. It then expands the discussion to explain the principles underlying the solutions and shows you where you can learn more about the topic if you want to dig deeper. Although the labs do build on each other in some small ways, I expect that most readers will jump from lab to lab according to their needs and interests rather than read the book linearly from front to back. Where appropriate, I have have included both graphical user interface and command-line techniques; use whichever approach suits your needs and style.

This book is written for experienced computer users, regardless of their previous experience with Linux. It covers both desktop and server configurations, and is ideally suited to an administrator or power user migrating to Fedora Linux from another environment, such as Windows, Mac OS X, or Unix.

This book is targeted at Fedora Core 6 but will also be useful to users of Fedora Core 5 and Fedora Core 7. Fedora is more than an operating system; it includes a wide range of applications, programming languages, and tools, and many of these packages are the subject of their own books. This book does not cover each topic in exhaustive detail; instead, it is designed to give you the most critical information in an accessible format and show you how the packages work within the context of Fedora.

At the time of writing, Fedora Core 6 was being finalized; my apologies for the inevitable little discrepancies between the screenshots and descriptions in this book and the final version of Fedora Core 6

How This Book Is Organized

Each chapter in this book contains a number of labs. Each lab covers a task or problem and contains four sections:

How Do I Do That?

A description of techniques that may be used to accomplish the task or solve the problem

How Does It Work?

An explanation of how the solution and the underlying technology work

What About...

An exploration of related concepts and ideas

Where Can I Learn More?

Pointers to additional information if you want to dig into the topic in greater detail

The labs are grouped into 10 chapters:

Chapter 1, Quick Start: Installing Fedora

Covers the installation of Fedora Core using a variety of installation media and methods.

Chapter 2, Using Fedora on Your Desktop

Introduces the use of Fedora on the desktop, including the use and customization of the GNOME and KDE graphical user interfaces and the configuration of basic features such as the display and printing.

Chapter 3, Using Fedora on Your Notebook

Deals with the issues specific to using Fedora on a notebook computer, including power management, hopping between networks, and configuring external video for presentations.

Chapter 4, Basic System Management

Covers basic system management tasks, including user and group administration, file management, remote access, and service configuration.

Chapter 5, Package Management

Discusses package managementadding, removing, and updating softwareand shows you how to take advantage of the thousands of packages available through Fedora's software repositories.

Chapter 6, Storage Administration

Deals with storage administration using logical volume management and RAID arrays. It also covers data backup, including unattended overnight backups.

Chapter 7, Network Services

Is the server chapter. It covers the Samba file server (compatible with Windows systems), as well as DHCP, DNS, web, email, and print services. Web-based applications including Wikis and webmail round out the coverage.

Chapter 8, Securing Your System

Deals with security using Fedora's security facilities including SELinux, PAM, and ACLs.

Chapter 9, The Fedora Community

Discusses the Fedora community and how you can become involved.

Chapter 10, Advanced Installation

Deals with advanced installation options, including resizing a Windows partition to make room for Fedora, automating the installation process with Kickstart, and using Xen virtualization.

What You Need to Use This Book

Since this is a hands-on book, you'll want to have a computer available on which to run Fedora. Although you can use these labs with a production system, it's a good idea to use a noncritical machine so that you can freely experiment. And although it's not required, a good Internet connection is very helpful because it makes it easy to obtain software updates.

If you have Fedora installed, that's greatbut if you don't, Chapter 1 will take you through the process.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, and directories.

Constant width

Indicates commands, options, switches, the contents of files, or the output from commands.