Notes on Installing & Configuring Fedora+Gnome3 (This WILL void the fedora warranty!)

[sillav]

The following "guide" consists of my own notes for setting up various laptops with Fedora & Gnome 3, along with some added comments to make it a bit more interesting/useful for others to read. If you break your computer by following these directions you can rest easy, because I offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee that when you break it, you get to keep the pieces.

Installing Fedora

Use a gparted live cd/usb for to create a disk layout if you don't already have one. All my setups are very simple: 4 or 5 primary partitions (possible with gpt) with a 1 mb bios boot, 15-30 GB for root, swap partition that is equal to ram plus 5 MB, and the rest home. If I've got a fifth partition on there it will be for other operating systems (usually the last stable version of fedora). Everything that can be is formatted to ext4. Reboot with a fedora netinst or dvd and follow the prompts.

Configuring Fedora

The number of things Fedora installs...

Step 1 - Remove or disable Fedora packages & services

Install yumex, then remove unnecessary/unwanted packages. What is unnecessary/unwanted will vary depending on your needs, your disk setup, the languages you use, your hardware, and how many different people use the computer. You can use lspci -vv to help identify the hardware you have, then remove any firmware packages that you do not need or will reasonably expect to need in the next 12 months. For example, if you've got a laptop, chances are you only need the firmware for your wireless card not all the other wireless cards out there. Same for graphics. You can also take a look through the installed applications and try removing those you don't want/like (e.g., gnome-documents, gnome-logs, gnome-games, planner, etc...). What follows is an example of what can be removed (excluding firmware), which you should modify to your tastes:

abrt*, aisleriot, anaconda (keep anaconda-yum-plugins), anthy, at, audit, audit-libs-python (keep audit-libs), authconfig-gtk, b43*, baobob, bridge-utils, brlapi, brltty, btparser, btrfs-progs, cadaver, checkpolicy, cheese, cjkuni-uming-fonts, coolkey, dmraid*, eekboard, empathy, espeak, fcoe-utils, fedora-release-notes, festival*, firstboot, fpaste, fprintd, fprintd-pam, gdb, gnome-dictionary, gnome-documents, gnome-dvb-daemon, gnome-games*, gnome-packagekit, gnome-panel*, gnome-search-tool, gnome-system-log, gnome-system-monitor, gucharmap, ibus*, im-chooser*, imsettings*, iok, irda-utils, jomolhari-fonts, joystick kasumi, khmeros-*, libcacard, libchewing, libfprint, libgadu, libhangul, libhbalinux, liblouis*, libpinyin*, libpurple, libreport*, libsemange-python, libsilc, (keep libthai), libtranslit, libtranslit-icu, lkug-fonts, lohit*, m17n*, mcelog, microcode_ctl, mousetweaks, mutt, nhn-nanum*, openssh-server, orca, paktype-naqsh-fonts, packagekit-command-not-found, packagekit-gstreamer-plugin, paratype-pt-sans-fonts, pcsc-lite-*, planner, plymouth*, policycoreutils*, procmail, python-brlapi, python-meh, quota, rpcbind, sendmail, selinux-policy*, setools libs, setools-libs-python, setroubleshoot*, sil-*-fonts, smc-*, smolt, smolt-firstboot, speech-dispatcher*, spice*, sushi, talk, telepathy-farstream/-gabble/-haze/-idle/-salut (keep the other telepathy-*), thai-scalable*, tigervnc*, totem* (except pl-parser), tree, vim*, vino, vlgothic-*, wqy-zenhei-fonts, vino, vinagre, yp-tools, ypbind

What does the above get rid of?

Languages,fonts and tools for all languages except English. Tools/utilities and services for complex disk setups (encryption, lvm, raid). Command line tools and programs. Crappy gnome applications. Selinux and automatic bug reporting, as well as associated libraries and tools. Fingerprint reading. Everything to do with accessibility. Plymouth (graphical boot).

Why remove stuff you don't need/use?

1. Reduce chances of problems down the line (bugs, vulnerabilities, etc). If it's not on the system it can't cause you problems.
2. Reduce need to upgrade/bandwidth. Why constantly upgrade packages you don't need or use?
3. Reduce clutter. Applications tend will often create icons/launchers which will get in the way of the applications you actually use.
4. “Simplify, simplify” – Henry David Thoreau

Step 2 - Disable stuff that can't be removed & confirm what's been removed is disabled

selinux

nano /etc/selinux/config

change to/confirm SELINUX=disabled. Then open up /etc/default/grub, and add selinux=0 to the kernel line options. Like so:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="root=/dev/sda2 rootfstype=ext4 quiet libahci.ignore_sss=1 raid=noautodetect selinux=0"

plymouth & grub

nano /etc/default/grub

remove rhgb from kernel line option, change timeout to 0, then update grub's config

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Next remove plymouth from the initrmfs using dracut:

dracut -f -H -o plymouth

systemd services

If you didn't create a simple disk partition setup when you installed, disabling some of these services might break your system. If you've only got primary partitions, don't use raid or encryption, you should be ok. List running services with the following command: systemctl list-units --type=service

ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/mdmonitor-takeover.service 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/livesys-late.service #only on live-cd 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/livesys.service #only on live-cd 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/fedora-storage-init.service 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/fedora-storage-init-late.service 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/fedora-wait-storage.service 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/udev-settle.service 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/fedora-readonly.service 
ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/fedora-loadmodules.service

Linking the service files to /dev/null not only stops them from starting at boot (see how to disable systemd services), but stops them from running ever. If you're unsure about whether you need service start by disabling it first then seeing if anything starts it up, or something that ought to work doesn't. Somewhat safer, though you can also revert the changes above by deleting the symlink you create.

Reboot

[sillav]

Step 3 - Fix Gnome & Improve its Performance

If you try to use Gnome 3...

Disable autostarted gnome stuff

run gnome-session-properties and uncheck (or delete) the following:

at-spi d-bus bus, authentication agent, backup monitor, caribou, files, gnome login sound, gsettings data conversion, tracker file system miner, tracker store, user folders update

Install packages needed to fix gnome

dconf-editor, gnome-tweak-tool, faenza-icon-theme, google-droid-*, gnome-shell-extension-remove-accessibility-icons/-window-navigator

Fix fonts

gnome-tweak-tool, Fonts: default=droid sans-10, document=droid-sans-10,monospace= droid-sans-mono-10, window title=droid-serif-bold-9, hinting=full, antialiasing=rgba

Enable installed extensions

gnome-tweak-tool, Shell extensions, enable all of them. Allso, some great extensions aren't yet available in the fedora respositories, so check online for more. I like:
frippery shutdown menu
quit button

Use a decent icon theme

gnome-tweak-tool, Theme, Icon theme = faenza (fedora is nice too)

Tweak the Shell

gnome-tweak-tool, Shell, Show-date=on, arrangment of buttons=minimize & close

Fix crappy application overview menu

I dislike duplication. If I have access to the system settings in my username at the top right, I don't want an icon for it in my application overview. If I can access the printer setup via the control panel, I don't want to see it in my application menu. If it is in my favourites, I don't want to see it in my application menu. To fix: Copy applications desktop file from /usr/share/applications to ~/.local/share/applications (you'll have to create the directory). Ignore the error. Make it executable. Open up the .desktop file in your ~/.local/applications directory using gedit, and somewhere close to the top, just above the name but below the first line, add 'NoDisplay=true'. Rinse, repeat.

I also like to do this for rarely used applications that I maybe don't want in my application overview, but still want easy access to. E.g., 'devede'. I create a second directory called ~/.MyApps/Applications and put copies of the desktop files in here, then another copy in ~/.local/share/applications/ with the NoDisplay=true setting. Create bookmarks in nautilus to the ~/.myapps/Application folder. End result looks like this:

Activities Overview Simpified...


Make the delete key... wait for it... delete stuff again!

dconf-editor, >org>gnome>desktop>interface, can-change-accels=true. Then open nautilus, create a new folder, highlight it, open edit menu, hover over 'move to trash',press delete twice, exit edit menu, try to delete folder using delete key, set can-change-accels=false


Disable monitoring, tracking, and tweak various other gnome-settings
dconf-editor , change the following..

>apps>telepathy-logger (false)
>org>freedesktop>tracker>miner>files> enable-monitors (false)
>org>gnome>desktop>applications>lockdown>disable user switching (true)
>org>gnome>desktop>applications>screensaver>user switch enabled (false)
>org>gnome>desktop>applications>session>idle-delay 1800
>org>gnome>gnome-session>show fallback warning (false)
>org>gnome>login-screen>disable user list (true)
>org>gnome>settings-daemon>plugins>a11y-keyboard>active (false)
>org>gnome>settings-daemon>plugins>a11y-settings>active (false)
>org>gnome>settings-daemon>plugins>gsdwacom>active (false)
>org>gnome>settings-daemon>plugins>housekeyping>active (false)
>org>gnome>settings-daemon>plugins>smartcard>active (false)
>org>gnome>settings-daemon>plugins>updates>active (false)
>org>gnome>shell>enable app monitoring (false)

Add colour profile

Obtain a copy of your monitor's colour profile (it's an icc file). You can buy fancy tools to calibrate them, but I'm not a graphics designer so the one that Lenovo ships with my computer is fine. You just have the extract the icc profile from the .exe it comes bundled in. I used the instructions from here. Add a colour profile using the colour menu in the gnome control panel. Gimp will automatically pick this up as well, which is nice.

Change 'Open Search Providers' in Shell Overview

I use duckduckgo, instead of google for privacy reasons. And I add a dictionary to easily look up words (I removed gnome-dictionary because I add this instead, and we don't have two tools the machine that do the same job).

cd /usr/share/gnome-shell/open-search-providers
cp google.xml duckduckgo.xml
mv google.xml dictionary.xml
nano duckduckgo.xml.

Change the following lines to match

<ShortName>Online Search</ShortName>
<Description>DuckDuckGo Search</Description>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="https://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}"/>

Save and exit.

nano dictionary.xml

<ShortName>Dictionary</ShortName>
<Description>Lookup word online</Description>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&amp;va={searchTerms}"/>

Save and exit. Note that anytime gnome -shell is updated you're going to have to delete the google.xml file again.
Restart the shell (alt+F2 & r)

[sillav]

Step 3 Install Applications & Configure

Installing from the Fedora Repositories...

Autoplus

su -c 'yum -y --nogpgcheck install http://dnmouse.org/autoplus-1.4-5.noarch.rpm'

choose flash, mp3-codecs, dvd-codecs, virtualbox, skype

Chromium

cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/spot/chromium-stable/fedora-chromium-stable.repo
yum install chromium

Everything Else

This is just a little code snippet to make my installations go a bit easier, you might want to change it. Phatch nautilus is a cool app for working with large folders of pictures, testdisk is a useful tool, calibre is required if you have an ereader, vlc is better than totem (which we removed when purging packages).

yum install testdisk keepassx vlc vlc-extras audacity-freeworld devede calibre phatch nautilus-phatch wesnoth gbrainy wine anki pychess gramps unrar

Configure Firefox

1. Install the following addons: https everywhere, adblockplus, flashblock
   
2. Under preferences, content, change fonts to droid sans, under advanced uncheck allow sites to choose fonts, and change all to droid-sans, except monospace which will be droid-mono.
   
3. In about:config, make the following changes:

geo.enabled = false
browser.sessionhistory.max_entries = 5
dom.storage.enabled = false
browser.display.use_document_fonts = 0
browser.cache.offline.capacity = 0
browser.cache.offline.enable = false
network.prefetch-next = false (may cause pages to load slower)
intl.locale.matchOS = false
browser.download.manager.scanwhendone = false
clipboard.autocopy = false
gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled = false
network.http.sendRefererHeader = 1
keywordURL = "https://duckduckgo.com/?q="

Configure Transmission
Enable a blocklist. >edit>preferences>privacy, paste in this

http://list.iblocklist.com/?list=bt_...chiveformat=gz

then update.

Step 4 - Tips & Tweaks


I just spent an hour configuring Fedora...

Enable Thinkpad Trackpoint Scrolling

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.x/20-thinkpad-trackpoint.conf

Copy and paste the following:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
MatchProduct "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint|USB Trackpoint pointing device|Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Save and exit. Restart X for changes to apply.

"Improve" fonts

Follow these instructions to enable infinality fonts. Better is always subjective.

(slightly) Improve disk performance

nano /etc/fstab

Add noatime to the root filesystem, and relatime to the home partition. E.g.,

UUID=f8a<snip>28f / ext4 noatime,defaults 1 1
UUID=7d4<snip>1f8 /home ext4 relatime,defaults 1 2

Save and exit. Restart for it to take effect.


Disable ipv6

ipv6 is being loaded?

What follows is a bit of a kill-it-with-fire approach, since I'm not clear which of the below are not strictly necessary.

1. Blacklist the module
   

   nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

   Add the following, save and exit.
   

   blacklist ipv6
   install ipv6 /bin/true

2. In gnome's control panel, open the network configuration, highlight the interface you use, under the ipv6 tab change to ignore.
   
3. In firefox, about:config, find network.dns.disableIPv6, set to false.
   
4. Disable the kernel ipv6 parts
   

   nano /etc/sysctl.conf

   add the following, save and exit.
   

   net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1

5. Disable the systemd ipv6 firewall service
   

   ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system/ip6tables.service

6. Disable it in the network config file
   

   nano /etc/sysconfig/network

   add the following, save and exit.
   

   NETWORKING_IPV6=no

Use all your ram before your swap

nano /etc/sysctl.conf

add the following, save and exit

vm.swappiness=10

Reboot. Enjoy.

Useful Links:
http://www.harald-hoyer.de/personal/...5-to-3-seconds

[nonamedotc]

Just so that anyone who reads this is clear about what's being done -

Is there a specific reason who you use symlinks to /dev/null instead of systemctl disable to get rid of unwanted services? (Suggestion: May be you could add a note in the appropriate place?)

Nice guide by the way!

[sillav]

Just so that anyone who reads this is clear about what's being done -

Is there a specific reason who you use symlinks to /dev/null instead of systemctl disable to get rid of unwanted services?

Nice guide by the way!

When you disable it, it just means you don't explicitly start it at boot. But other services can still start it at a later point, so it doesn't prevent the service from being run. By linking it to /dev/null it not only starts it from running at boot time, but any other service or application that attempts to start the service will just fail silently as the call is redirected to null. I'll add a note. Thanks for the suggestion.

And thanks

[hadrons123]

Good stuff, but can you add this topic in the fedora wiki?

[stevea]

....
Use all your ram before your swap

nano /etc/sysctl.conf

add the following, save and exit
vm.swappiness=10

Reboot. Enjoy.

Andrew Morton sets his workstation vm.swappiness parameter to 100. “My point is that decreasing the tendency of the kernel to swap stuff out is wrong. You really don’t want hundreds of megabytes of BloatyApp’s untouched memory floating about in the machine. Get it out on the disk, use the memory for something useful.”

I'd think more than twice before I set swappinness to 10.

[sillav]

I'd think more than twice before I set swappinness to 10.

Greetings stevea,

Reasonable people can disagree, as shown by the rest of the thread that you quote Andrew Morton from. This quote however, comes from 2004, and twelve years is a long time, much has changed in hardware and in Linux. We have a lot more memory now, and much better power management. A lower swappiness will tend to provide a more responsive desktop system for end users, on laptops it will also let the disk spin down more often. If you have an SSD drive, you would be highly recommended to reduce swappiness, if only to increase the life of the drive! As SSD's change and improve, that recommendation might too become dated and no longer apply.

More recent opinion supports the idea of reducing swappiness. I tend to respect the opinion of Arch and when it comes to performance, and they categorically state that lowering the swappiness value will increase performance. There is also a very comprehensive article about swappiness is here,which again, supports the idea of reducing swappiness to increase performance. Lastly, there is Ubuntu's swap faq which says:

The default setting in Ubuntu is swappiness=60. Reducing the default value of swappiness will probably improve overall performance for a typical Ubuntu desktop installation. A value of swappiness=10 is recommended, but feel free to experiment. Note: Ubuntu server installations have different performance requirements to desktop systems, and the default value of 60 is likely more suitable.

Leaving it at the default of 60 is fine, so is changing it to 20. I'm comfortable with setting my swappiness level at 10, and don't even think once about it anymore. But I would agree that everyone else should think twice about everything I've said in the above, and take very seriously the satisifaction guarantee.

[Dan]

Appropriate warning added to the title. <....>

[sillav]

Appropriate warning added to the title. <....>

Are you referring to this warranty:, because it kind of sounds like the 'if you break it you get to keep it' one I already referred to.

3. LIMITED WARRANTY. Except as specifically stated in this agreement
or a license for a particular component, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT
PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, THE SOFTWARE AND THE COMPONENTS ARE
PROVIDED AND LICENSED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. Neither the Fedora Project nor Red Hat warrants that the
functions contained in the Software will meet User's requirements or
that the operation of the Software will be entirely error free or
appear precisely as described in the accompanying documentation.
USE OF THE SOFTWARE IS AT USER'S OWN RISK.

All joking aside, I wasn't aware Fedora offered a warranty, or that it could be removed by fiddling with the stickers on the bottom or what not. If the above quote isn't the warranty, would you mind linking to it for me? Thanks!

[Dan]

The only warranty I know of is the one you've already referenced. All the debris ... belongs to you. I only reiterate for the noobs and those folks uninitiated to the "way of the fedora." For it is a fascinating and powerful art ... but not without consequences for the unprepared. <....>

[csillva]

I would like to know what at-spi d-bus bus means because it has no description and I need to know what I'm going to disable (stop loading during the boot). The same for caribou?

# yum info at-spi
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto
Available Packages
Name : at-spi
Arch : i686
Version : 1.32.0
Release : 8.fc17
Size : 221 k
Repo : fedora
Summary : Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface
URL : http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/
License : LGPLv2+
Description : at-spi allows assistive technologies to access GTK-based
: applications. Essentially it exposes the internals of applications for
: automation, so tools such as screen readers, magnifiers, or even
: scripting interfaces can query and interact with GUI controls.

Just guessing here, but based on above I would say if you use any assistive technologies you should not uncheck that.

# yum info caribou
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto
Installed Packages
Name : caribou
Arch : x86_64
Version : 0.4.2
Release : 1.fc17
Size : 464 k
Repo : installed
From repo : fedora
Summary : A simplified in-place on-screen keyboard
URL : http://live.gnome.org/Caribou
License : LGPLv2+
Description : Caribou is a text entry application that currently manifests itself as
: a simplified in-place on-screen keyboard.

My keyboard and mouse desktop lacks a touchscreen, so disabling this makes sense for me.

The part about autoplus should be updated due to those commands not working. Some forum members have shared the latest rpm.