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Exploring Fedora 10 (Cambridge)

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PCQ Bureau
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Free and OpenSource, that's the term we always think of when it comes to

Fedora (or Linux). This automatically means there will be no support for MP3,

DVD, AVI and YouTube video as they will require non-open source plugins. Still

you can enable Fedora 10 for playing these multimedia files format and enjoy

your time. Comparing with the last release of Fedora, the current one comes with

quite a few enhancements and hardware support. Initially we installed both GNOME

2.24 and KDE 4 to get a look and feel of both the desktops, and trust me they

didnt disappoint at all.

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Desktops



In Fedora 10 you get to choose from four different desktops. Apart from GNOME
and KDE, one gets LXDE and Sugar. The LXDE desktop is a new project; it is light

weight and fast specially meant for lower end computers, as it keeps the

resource utilization low as compared to other desktops. The concept of 'Sugar

Desktop' originally came from OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. The OLPC

project was started to provide low cost laptops to children in developing

nations, and will be powered by stripped down version of Fedora Linux and Sugar

interface. The goal of sugar interface is to provide easy, fast and social

experience to users. In KDE 4.1, the Kwin desktop manager now provides support

for desktop effects and compositing which you have to enable manually. But KDE

Live does not have Compiz/Beryl. Well in GNOME you also find desktop effects

which need to be manually enabled.

Multimedia Applications



By default you will not be able to play all the songs you have in your existing
Windows collection; but yes you can play them after certain tweaks. The codec

installation helper 'codenia' is replace by the Packagekit in Fedora 10. And

hence whenever multimedia players such as Totem or Rhyembox try to play a

multimedia file, whose plugin is not installed, it automatically searches the

required plugins in its repository and installs them. Yes, you need to have

Internet connection to your desktop or laptop, else it's of no use. We also

tried installing VLC player which of course most of us want to. As usual this

was not on Fedora 10's list, hence we installed the rpmfusion and then installed

VLC through YUM. For installing the rpmfusion, we execute the following command:

Direct Hit!

Applies To: Linux users



Price: Free


USP: Learn to use the rich new features
in Fedora 10



Primary Link: fedoraproject.org


Google Keywords: fedora 10


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# rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm





# rpm -Uvh






http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Using Fedora 10



We installed it on an Intel Core2 Duo machine with 512 MB RAM and the
installation was smooth, and similar to its earlier release. It very well

detected all the hardware and everything worked fine. We also compared the

installation time and booting time with its predecessor Fedora 9. For this we

installed Fedora 9 on the same system on which Fedora 10 was installed, without

changing any hardware. Surprisingly there was hardly any difference between the

two. Both the distros took almost half an hour to install and took approximately

same amount of time to boot. The installation was done with default package

selection. But what's worth mentioning here is that the number of default

packages to be installed in Fedora 9 was 928 whereas in Fedora 10 it was 1070.

Next we installed Fedora 10 64-bit on HP Pavilion dv6000 for checking the

performance on a laptop. As most of the laptops these days come with a processor

that supports 64-bit OS, and also as a 64-bit open source OS doesn't cost you

any extra penny, so its worth having one. The installation process was smooth

and was over within 20 minutes. After the system got restarted, there was no

text booting sequenceand was removed by a three phase graphical sequence. Some

difference there with the previous distro. When the login screen prompted us, we

tried the finger print scanner which didn't work at all. However, we logged

ourselves in by providing username and password.

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The File Sharing Preferences window has made it

easier for desktop users to share files over the network.

Like the previous distro, this also failed to detect the NVIDIA graphics

card. Hence we were required to download the driver from NVIDIA's site and then

install it. It worked fine afterwards. However, you could face the same problem

with Windows as well for some specific graphics cards. The support for webcam is

pretty much enhanced and this was proven when it promptly detected the laptop's

in-built web cam. Even applications such as 'Cheese Web Cam Booth', which use

this hardware, accessed it without any problem. Later we installed Skype, for

making calls and checked both input and output sounds. Skype is only available

for 32-bit OSes, so we had to forcefully install 32-bit pulseAudio sound driver.

But things didn't work as per expectations. After doing some research we found

it was the pulseAudio driver creating problems. Hence uninstalling the

pulseAudio, and working with ALSA solved the problem. Everything was perfect

after this step.

Similar to Add/Remove Programs in Windows,

Fedora also has a feature to manage programs easily.
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 Wireless connectivity was good and we got the laptop connected to a WPA

secured WiFi with ease. You also have the option for connecting to hidden

wireless networks which is indeed going to find favor with a lot of people. This

feature was missing in the previous versions of Fedora, where manually

connecting to these hidden wireless devices was a pain. Now since terror is at

its peak these days, you better make your organization's WiFi system hidden,

which makes it hard for others to access.

You have to install NVIDIA drivers manually.

Compared to Windows, you still get lesser features.

Overall, this distro proves itself to be a good competitor to others and is

definitely worth a try. We have provided Fedora 10 with this month's DVD. Just

boot your machine with the DVD and install it. Who knows, with the economy in

recession and IT budgets taking a hit, you might be tempted to give it a shot

across desktops!

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