Fedora Core 2 Installation Notes [Archive]

rkl

11th July 2004, 01:24 PM

Some comments about that installation guide:

* It should be noted that disc 4 of the FC2 install is rarely needed and the rescue CD is not essential either (you have "linux rescue" as an option when you boot from CD 1). Also, no mention of the DVD version, which I find is the best if you have a (work :) ) T1 connection to download and burn it like I do - best, because once the package installation starts, it can run unattended until the end.

* You only need to use a third party partition tool if you're intending to keep your existing setup (e.g. Windows) and create FC2 on a new partition that isn't yet available. If you don't want to keep Windows or you are using a separate hard disk to install Linux, then Disk Druid inside the FC2 installer will be all you need.

* Why select "Everything" w.r.t. packages - this installs 7GB of software on your hard disk, much of which you won't ever use and also runs even more unwanted services. It just adds to the post-install customisation time as you have to hack out (via "chkconfig <service> off") stuff you don't want to run at boot.

* Any decent ISP should have their own NTP server - you should use that in preference to "clock.redhat.com".

* OK, why do you have to do a reboot straight after the first time you log in as root? That one's got me puzzled, since you've already just rebooted straight at the end of the FC2 install (so the GRUB bootloader will have been tested already for instance). If you are going to reboot after your first login, the obvious place you've not put it in is just after you run "yum update" (because that will download a kernel update and you'll need a reboot to activate that).

* Why am I supposed to set up the "Ximian Evolution mail client", but later on download and install Thunderbird? Surely, you'd do one or the other, but not both?

* For ease of management, I prefer to install all my software as RPMs and yet you suggest avoiding that immediately and dumping a .tar.gz version of firefox on your system, when an "official" RPM is available at http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora/2/i386/RPMS.stable/firefox-0.9.1-0.fdr.3.i386.rpm

* Real Player 9 for FC2 is available as an RPM at ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/apt.unl.edu/apt/fedora/all/RPMS.stable/RealPlayer9-9.0.7.151-6.fdr.0.i386.rpm