These instructions are for installing Gnu/Linux on a PC where Windows XP Professional is already installed. Although this should result in a dual boot system, be aware that, as with any installation, the existing Windows Operating System and data could be overwritten and lost!

Boot from the first CD.

Select graphical mode installation.

Run the media test if it hasn't been done before.

Select English as the installation language.

Select UK keyboard.

Select Install Fedora Core.

Select Workstation installation type.

Select Manual partition with Disk Druid and create the following partitions

Use GRUB as the boot loader. Change the first lable from other to Windows XP.

Set the hostname to jenny.10forbes.close.

Select no firewall.

Select English (Great Britain) as the default language. Deselect English (USA).

Select Europe/London and System clock uses UTC on the timezone screen.

Enter a root password.

Select Customize software packages to be installed.

Change the software selection as follows.

• Add KDE to the selection (I prefer it to GNOME).
• Deselect vim-common and vim-enhanced from the Editors (I will compile and install the latest version myself).
• Select gftp and pan from Graphical Internet.
• Deselect mutt from the Text Based Internet (again I prefer to compile and install the latest version myself).
• Select gnucash from Office/Productivity
• Select kdegames and xboard from Games and Entertainment.
• Select sendmail-cf from Mail server.
• Select Kernel Development.
• Select KDE Software Development.
• Select System Tools.

Click next and continue with the install.

Reboot!

Contents

Configure and run yum to update any RPM packages that are out of date.

First find a mirror to update from. Using the default Fedora site is antisocial, and because of the amount of traffic that uses it you will get slow and unreliable downloads.

Edit /etc/yum.conf and in the [base] and [updates-released] sections, replace the baseurl= lines with

 baseurl=http://.../core/$releasever/$basearch/os/
 ...
 baseurl=http://.../core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/

where http://.../core/ is your chosen mirror.

Then download and install any updates

 # yum update

Enable the yum daemon, which uses a daily cron job to get the updates automatically.

 # chkconfig yum on
 # service yum start

Clean the old yum headers occaisionally with a monthly cron job to run.

 yum clean oldheaders

Use yum to install the following packages.

 # yum install cdrdao
 # yum install mysql
 # yum install mysql-devel

Set up yum to maintain from some third party repositories. Add the following to /etc/yum.conf.

 [freshrpms]
 name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - freshrpms
 baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/freshrpms/
 gpgcheck=1

 [dag]
 name=Dag RPM Repository for Fedora Core
 baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/fedora/$releasever/en/$basearch/dag/
 gpgcheck=1

 [fedora.us]
 name=Fedora US
 baseurl=http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.stable
 gpgcheck=1

Import the RPM GPG keys.

 # rpm --import http://freshrpms.net/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt
 # rpm --import http://dag.wieers.com/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt
 # rpm --import http://www.fedora.us/FEDORA-GPG-KEY

Now use yum to install bittorrent, flash and firefox.

 # yum install bittorrent
 # yum install mozilla-flash
 # yum install firefox

Contents

Make KDE the default desktop environment:

 $ switchdesk kde

Sound apears not to work, in fact it does, but extremley quietly. To correct this run alsamixer from the command line, and use the right arrow cursor key to select the VIA DXS settings on the right hand end. Use the up arrow cursor key to set the volume on these (there are four of them).

Sound now works, but these settings will be lost when logging off KDE. To save them enter:

 $ /usr/sbin/alsactl -f /home/steve/.asound.state store

which saves them in a hidden file in my home directory. To load these whenever KDE is started, create ~/.kde/Autostart/sound as follows:

 #!/bin/bash
 /usr/sbin/alsactl -f /home/steve/.asound.state restore

and make this executable:

 $ chmod 755 ~/.kde/Autostart/sound

Customise the shell prompt by adding the following lines to the end of /etc/bashrc.

 COLOR1="\[\033[0;36m\]"
 COLOR2="\[\033[0;32m\]"
 COLOR3="\[\033[0;36m\]"
 COLOR4="\[\033[0;37m\]"
 
 if [ "$UID" = "0" ]; then
        COLOR2="\[\033[1;31m\]"
 fi

 PS1="$COLOR2($COLOR3\u@\h$COLOR2:$COLOR1\w$COLOR2)$COLOR1\\$ $COLOR4"

Change the resolution of the virtual terminals (running on Ctrl-Alt-1 through Ctrl-Alt-6). Edit /boot/grub/grub.conf and add vga=791 to the end of the menu kernel line, e.g.

 kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-30.9 ro root=LABEL=/ hda=ide-scsi vga=790

790 produces a 1024x768 resolution with 32,768 colours. You could use any of the following (if you video card supports them).

Keep /tmp tidy. The following cron entry deletes all files and directories that are more than a week old.

 30 1 * * * find /tmp -mtime +7 -type f -print -exec rm {} ";"; find /tmp -mtime +7 -type d -print -exec rm -rf {} ";"

Contents

Sendmail is a mail transfer agent. MTAs are used to transfer messages between machines. Normally Sendmail will send out any mail with headers showing it as coming from the local domain - in my case 10forbes.close. Some servers may refuse to accept email unless it comes from a server with a real Internet domain. So the following changes to the Sendmail configuration make it look as if the email has come from my Internet domain, stevesearle.com. To do this, the following lines are added to the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file (uncomment - remove dnl ... dnl - and edit where neccessary).

 ...
 MASQUERADE_AS(`stevesearle.com')
 ...
 FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)
 ...

Note that the EXPOSED_USER line in /etc/mail/sendmail.mc will prevent mail sent by root from being masqueraded, this should be removed if this is a problem.

Regenerate the /etc/mail/sendmail.cf with (note the sendmail-cf package must be installed for this to work, and no warnings are displayed if it isn't installed.

 # make -C /etc/mail

Restart sendmail.

 # service sendmail restart

Create a .forward file to ensure that any mail to root gets read. Ensure that it is only writable by the user, otherwise it will be ignored.

 # chmod 644 ~/.forward

Contents

Mount any NFS exports from other machines, by editing /etc/fstab and adding the appropriate lines, e.g.

 hayley:/backups        /backups        nfs     rsize=8192,wsize=8192

This would mount angie's /backups directory under /backups on this machine. (Permission would have to be granted on angie via the /etc/exports file to allow this.) Don't forget to create the /backups directory on the local machine.

Contents

I run an old machine as a backup device. A backup folder is NFS exported to the rest of the network, and each machine runs a cron tar job to back up various files and directories.

Contents

These instructions have been derived from the excelent SpamAssassin-ClamAV-Procmail-Howto.

Download Clam AntiVirus to /tmp.

Create a user group and user.

 # groupadd clamav
 # useradd -g clamav -s /bin/false -c "Clam AntiVirus" clamav

Install.

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xzf clamav-0.80.tar.gz
 $ cd clamav-0.80
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Edit both /usr/local/etc/clamd.conf and /usr/local/etc/freshclam.conf and remove or comment out the Example directive.

 ...
 # Comment or remove the line below.
 # Example
 ...

Create /etc/init.d/clamd as follows.

#!/bin/bash

 TMPDIR=/tmp
 PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

 case "$1" in
	start)
		echo "Starting ClamAV..."
		if [ -S /tmp/clamd ]; then
			echo "ClamAV is already running!"
		else
			/usr/local/bin/freshclam -d -c 10 --datadir=/usr/local/share/clamav
		  	/usr/local/sbin/clamd
	  	fi
  		echo "ClamAV is now up and running!"
  	;;
	stop)
  		echo "Shutting down ClamAV..."
	  	array=(`ps ax | grep -iw '/usr/local/bin/freshclam' | grep -iv 'grep' \
	   		| awk '{print $1}' | cut -f1 -d/ | tr '\n' ' '`)
	   	element_count=${#array[@]}
   		index=0
	   	while [ "$index" -lt "$element_count" ]
		do
 			kill -9 ${array[$index]}
		   	let "index = $index + 1"
	   	done
   		array=(`ps ax | grep -iw '/usr/local/sbin/clamd' | grep -iv 'grep' \
   			| awk '{print $1}' | cut -f1 -d/ | tr '\n' ' '`)
		element_count=${#array[@]}
	   	index=0
		while [ "$index" -lt "$element_count" ]
		do
			kill -9 ${array[$index]}
			let "index = $index + 1"
		done
		if [ -S /tmp/clamd ]; then
			rm -f /tmp/clamd
		fi
		echo "ClamAV stopped!"
	;;
	restart)
		$0 stop && sleep 3
		$0 start
	;;
	*)
		echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
		exit 1
 esac
 exit 0

Make it executable and start it.

 # chmod  755 /etc/init.d/clamd
 # /etc/init.d/clamd start

Make it start at boot up and stop at close down.

 # ln -s /etc/init.d/clamd /etc/rc2.d/S20clamd
 # ln -s /etc/init.d/clamd /etc/rc3.d/S20clamd
 # ln -s /etc/init.d/clamd /etc/rc4.d/S20clamd
 # ln -s /etc/init.d/clamd /etc/rc5.d/S20clamd
 # ln -s /etc/init.d/clamd /etc/rc0.d/K20clamd
 # ln -s /etc/init.d/clamd /etc/rc1.d/K20clamd
 # ln -s /etc/init.d/clamd /etc/rc6.d/K20clamd

Schedule the following command to run regualry to check for viruses.

 /usr/local/bin/clamscan -ir --stdout /

Contents

Uptimed is used to keep track of the highest uptimes my GNU/Linux computers have.

Download it, and build and install it with

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xjf uptimed-0.3.1.tar.bz2
 $ cd uptimed-0.3.1
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Then add the following to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit to create a unique id each time the server is booted.

 echo "Creating unique uptime daemon bootid..."
 /usr/local/sbin/uptimed -b

Now add these lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.local to start the uptime daemon.

 echo "Starting uptime daemon..."
 /usr/local/sbin/uptimed

Rename uptimed.conf-dist

 # mv /usr/local/etc/uptimed.conf-dist /usr/local/etc/uptimed.conf

then edit this to set the EMAIL and SEND_EMAIL variables.

Reboot and enter:

 $ uprecords

to see how long the server has been up for.

Contents

Download various perl modules as follows. The SSLeay stuff is needed to use SSL with Webmin. You need to be on-line for this.

 # perl -MCPAN -e shell
 cpan> install MD5
 cpan> install Bundle::CPAN
 cpan> reload CPAN
 cpan> install Crypt::SSLeay
 cpan> force install Net::SSLeay
 cpan> exit

Contents

Install Webmin, an excellent browser based tool for administering and configuring the system.

The tarball should be un-tarred in /usr/local or similar, as this is just configured in the directory it was un-tarred in.

 # cd /usr/local
 # tar -xzf webmin-1.130.tar.gz
 # cd webmin-1.130
 # ./setup.sh

Contents

Download and install Vim, the best editor around.

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xjf vim-6.2.tar.bz2
 $ cd vim62
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Add the following line to your /etc/bashrc, to make Vim the default editor for mutt, crontab, etc. The "-f" will prevent it forking when invoked, and will avoid the update encoding warning when editing an email.

 export EDITOR="gvim -f"

Contents

Mutt is my email client of choice. Dowload it and build it with

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xzf mutt-1.4.2.1i.tar.gz
 $ cd mutt-1.4.2.1
 $ ./configure --enable-pop --enable-imap --with-ssl
 $ su -c "make install"

Now install urlview, a utility that will fire up the browser to display any URLs in any emails.

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xzf urlview-0.9.tar.gz
 $ cd urlview-0.9
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"
 $ su -c "cp url_handler.sh /usr/local/bin"

/usr/local/bin/url_handler.sh needs to be edited to select the preferred browser. Change any occurances of /usr/X11R6/bin/netscape to /usr/bin/firefox.

Contents

Install MPlayer which is brilliant for watching mpegs, etc. Build and install it with

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xjf MPlayer-0.92.tar.bz2
 $ cd MPlayer-0.92
 $ ./configure --enable-gui
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Download one of the skins, un-tar it to ~/.mplayer/Skin, and rename the directory it creates within this to default.

Copy a .ttf file from somewhere on your system to ~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf, and set this to be the default font using the preferences when you first run the gui version. Enter gmplayer to run the gui version.

Contents

Keychain is a script that makes the use of ssh-agent to ssh into other machines without entering passwords simple and easy. This section was put together with using Kimmo Suominen's Getting started with SSH. Download and install Keychain with

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xjf keychain-2.0.3.tar.bz2
 $ cd keychain-2.0.3
 $ su -c "install -m0755 keychain /usr/bin/keychain"

Generate a public/private dsa key pair.

 $ ssh-keygen -t dsa
 $ ssh-keygen -t rsa

Enter a passphrase when prompted. Then copy the public keys to all the machines you wish to connect to.

 $ scp .ssh/id_dsa.pub steve@emma:

On the machine you wish to connect to, add the contents of the file you have just copied to authorized_keys in .ssh directory. Also make sure that only you can write to the .ssh directory and the authorized_keys file.

 $ cd     
 $ cat id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
 $ chmod go-w .ssh .ssh/authorized_keys

Now alter ~/.bash_profile to run keychain when you log in. If it is not already running, it will be started and you will be prompted for the passphrase, but then this will be remembered until the machine is rebooted.

 keychain ~/.ssh/id_rsa ~/.ssh/id_dsa
 . ~/.keychain/${HOSTNAME}-sh

Contents

VNC is remote control software that allows you to interact with other computers on the network. I use it to manage the Windows boxes on the network.

Extract the source tarball and ./configure and make. To install, switch to root and enter

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xzf vnc-3.3.7-unixsrc.tar.gz
 $ cd vnc-3.3.7-unixsrc
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "./vncinstall /usr/local/bin"

Launch a VNC server on the target machine, and then run vncviewer on the client to take control.

 $ vncviewer

Contents

Install rdesktop an an open source client for Windows NT Terminal Server and Windows 2000/2003 Terminal Services. Download and install.

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xjf rdesktop-1.3.1.tar.gz
 $ cd rdesktop-1.3.1
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

To connect to server angie as administrator with a 1024x768 screen resolution, use

$ rdesktop -u administrator -g 1024x768 angie

Contents

HTML Tidy is a great application for tidying up HTML source code. Download it to /tmp and build and install with

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xzf tidy_src.tgz
 $ cd tidy/build/gmake
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Contents

I use KDirStat to monitor diskspace and identify what it is being used for. It is a great utility that graphically represents file sizes, so that you can easily identify where and who the largest used of filespace are.

Download it to /tmp and build and install with

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xjf kdirstat-2.4.0.tar.bz2
 $ cd kdirstat-2.4.0
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Contents

I use mozex to intercept mailto: links in Mozilla and Firefox and open up a mutt email dialog. Click on the link on the installation page to install. This seems to be needed to be done from both Mozilla and Firefox.

Then in Mozilla, go to Tools -> Options -> Extensions -> mozex -> Options. Select Intercept clicks: mailto, set Directory for temporary files to /tmp and set Mailer: to konsole --schema Linux.schema --vt_sz 132x60 -e mutt mailto:%A?subject=%S&cc=%C&body=%B.

For Firefox, you need to edit ~/.mozilla/firfox/default.*/prefs.js and add the following lines

 user_pref("mozex.command.aim", "");
 user_pref("mozex.command.download", "");
 user_pref("mozex.command.ed2k", "");
 user_pref("mozex.command.ftp", "");
 user_pref("mozex.command.irc", "");
 user_pref("mozex.command.mailer", "/usr/bin/konsole --schema
 Linux.schema --vt_sz 132x60 -e mutt mailto:%A?subject=%S&cc=%C&body=%B");
 user_pref("mozex.command.news", "");
 user_pref("mozex.command.source", "/usr/local/bin/gvim %t");
 user_pref("mozex.command.telnet", "");
 user_pref("mozex.command.textarea", "/usr/local/bin/gvim %t");
 user_pref("mozex.general.tmpdir", "/tmp");
 user_pref("mozex.intercept.ftp", false);
 user_pref("mozex.intercept.irc", false);
 user_pref("mozex.intercept.mailto", true);
 user_pref("mozex.intercept.news", false);
 user_pref("mozex.universal.command", "");
 user_pref("mozex.universal.schemes", "");

Contents

Install K3b is brilliant CD and DVD burning software. Download and install.

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xjf k3b-0.11.9.tar.bz2
 $ cd k3b-0.11.9
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Contents

I use Log Tool to colorise logfiles to make them easier to read.

Download it to /tmp and build and install with

 $ cd /tmp
 $ tar -xzf logtool-1.2.7.tar.gz
 $ cd logtool-1.2.7
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ su -c "make install"

Contents