Fedora 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Bible

Fedora 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Bible Improvements

Fedora 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Bible represents the continuing development of Red Hat Linux Bible , which I began in 1999. About every six months since Red Hat Linux 6.1, I've followed new versions of Red Hat Linux with updates of this book. Red Hat, Inc., split its Red Hat Linux development efforts into two tracks: the Fedora Project and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) product. This book now covers the latest of those two Linux distributions: Fedora Core 6 and RHEL 4. By learning the features in Fedora Core 6, you will also be preparing yourself for the soon-to-be-released RHEL 5.

The foundation for Fedora Core, RHEL, and this book rests on the tradition begun with Red Hat Linux. The enhancements included in this edition reflect that foundation, plus some bold new cutting-edge Linux technology.

As this book, too, is meant to reflect a progression of Red Hat Linux, I have included a variety of enhancements from the previous book in this series, Red Hat Fedora 5 and Enterprise Linux 4 Bible . The following list describes new features of this book over the previous edition:

• Fedora Core 6 on DVD - We provide Fedora Core 6 on DVD with this edition. You get everything you need to install the complete Fedora Core 6 distribution. This is the official, bit-for-bit, installation DVD that is distributed by the Fedora Project.

• Fedora Core 6 Live/Install CD - Before you install Fedora Core, you can try out a live version of Fedora Core 6 by booting the first CD that comes with this book. While that CD is running, you can use it to prepare your computer to do a permanent installation. That same CD doubles as a CD for doing a network install of Fedora Core 6.

• Fedora Extras CD - A lot of fun and useful applications that didn't make it into Fedora Core have been packaged into RPMs under the Fedora Extras banner. A wide selection of hundreds of packages from Fedora Extras repositories (built specifically for Fedora Core 6) is available from the Fedora Extras CD that comes with this book.

• Fedora Extras Software - As a Fedora user , you can benefit from huge improvements in the Fedora Extras software repository (both in size and quality). Throughout the book I have added descriptions of software from many of these Fedora Extras packages.

• Installing Fedora - Of the new installation features for Fedora 6 described in this book, descriptions of how to get and install software that comes from outside of Fedora Core during the initial install process is probably the most important. You can now grab packages from any Fedora software repository (Fedora Extras, livna.org, and so on) to install during the initial installation process. Some changes in how partitioning is done are also described in Chapter 2.

• After installation - Most of the complaints I've gotten about the book in the past related to a particular piece of hardware not working. Often, the problem isn't discovered until after the release goes out, so there's no way it can be covered in the book. I added a paragraph in Chapter 2 on how to approach problems with non-working hardware to give some direction on how to deal with this issue.

• GRUB splash screen - I added a quick note on how to add your own custom splash screen to the GRUB bootloader, so you can see an image you choose on the boot screen when Fedora first boots up.

• Automounting removable media - It seems that every release of Fedora changes the way that the mounting of removable media (CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives , and so on) is handled. The default in Fedora Core 5 was to mount removeable media by volume name (such as /media/FC6-disk ). Now, they seem to have gone back to the old style (such as /media/disk ). The bottom line is that you should just look in the /media directory to see where a removable medium is mounted when descriptions in the book call for you to identify a disk's mount point.

• Enhanced Fedora theme - The Fedora project has again enhanced its artwork. So, you will notice that screenshots of backgrounds and login screens throughout Chapter 3 include new uses of Fedora logos and other thematic elements.

• GNOME and KDE improvements - Although GNOME (2.16) and KDE (3.5.4) represent minor upgrades, both include lots of bug fixes and smaller enhancements. GNOME has improved browsing features and screen saver previews. KDE has improved HTML browsing features in its Konqueror file manager.

• 3D desktop effects (AIGLX) - With Fedora Core 6, you can get an early look at the future of desktop eye candy . Limited support for 3D accelerated desktop effects (such as dragging wobbling windows and having workspaces spin on a cube) have been added to Fedora and are described in Chapter 3.

• Software packaging and update tools - In Chapter 5, I describe some of the new features in graphical software update (Package Updater) and installation (Package Manager) GUI tools. As with initial installation tools, the GUI tools you use to install software after initial installation have been enhanced to get software from repositories outside of Fedora Core.

• New update applet - A new software upgrade applet (called puplet ) was added to Fedora Core 6 to automatically alert you (on the desktop) when software updates are available.

• Verifying software package integrity - Although not a new feature in Fedora, I added a new section to Chapter 5 on using the rpm command to install keys and check the validity of software packages before you install them.

• DOSBox - DOSBox is an application for running DOS applications in Linux. Thomas Blader (the tech editor for this edition) suggested that I cover it in the section on running applications from other operating systems in Chapter 5. It installed easily from Fedora Extras and ran well when I started it. So, I dropped the description of DOSemu and added a quick description of DOSBox to Chapter 5.

• Xen virtualization - With Xen, you can have multiple operating systems running within Fedora. Although still in development, I added a description of how to install Xen and set up a guest operating system in Fedora Core to Chapter 5.

• Fedora Games SIG - I noticed that a lot of games have been packaged for Fedora Extras recently. Behind the gaming boom in Fedora is the Fedora Games Special Interest Group, which I talk about in Chapter 7.

• Firefox in; Mozilla out - The Mozilla suite (Web browser, e-mail client, news reader, and so on) was dropped from Fedora Core 6. So I dropped Mozilla descriptions from Chapter 9 and enhanced the sections on using the Firefox Web browser (which is developed by the Mozilla project to replace the browser part of the Mozilla suite).

• Disk Use Analyzer - For viewing graphical representations of your disk space, the GNOME project added the Disk Use Analyzer window. So I added a description of that window to Chapter 10.

• Ethereal now Wireshark - The Ethereal tool for monitoring Internet traffic changed its name to Wireshark. Descriptions of that application were changed in Chapter 15 to reflect that change.

• Printer Configuration - Descriptions of the Printer Configuration window in Chapter 17 were updated to reflect changes to that utility. In particular, Printer Configuration changed its interface to now be more in line with the CUPS facility, resulting in better printer detection and configuration features.

• DNS Risks - Domain Name System examples included in Chapter 25 didn't really address some of the risks of setting up and maintaining your own DNS server. I added a section to that chapter to help you understand the type of attacks DNS servers are subject to and the security risks those attacks represent.

• Fedora on a MAC - Apple's move to computers based on Intel architecture makes it possible to install Fedora on these newer Mac machines. I've added a description of how to do that in Chapter 26.

• Debugging Services - In the "Checklist for Running Network Services" section of Appendix B, I added a section on techniques for debugging services that don't start up properly.

• RHEL 5 - With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 expected out soon, I added information on where to get RHEL5 Beta software to try out and a short description of some new features for RHEL5.

Besides new features just described, procedures throughout the book have been tested and corrected to match changes that have occurred to Fedora Core 6 software in this version.