Salix – The Bonsai OS – Slackware, XFCE 4.6.1, installer grafic, o aplicaţie per sarcină şi repozitorii proprii, totul într-un Live CD instalabil .  A – uitasem – Firefox 3.5.5 cu flash cu tot; se mişcă rapid – abia poţi să-l vezi ! 

   După ceva aşteptare iată că îşi face apariţia şi versiunea finală de Linux Mint 8 reparând bug-urile prezente în RC (nu foarte multe şi nici prea deranjante – oricum apăruseră între timp update-uri pentru ele) şi fiind verde şi frumoasă ca de obicei (văd că au ales exact wallpaper-ul pentru care am votat şi eu la ei pe blog – foarte bine asa) . Cum de Gloria nu am putut să mă bucur din cauza lui Jaunty, de data asta am de gând s-o savurez cum se cuvine pe tanti Helena care după cum se ştie e bazată pe Karmic Koala . Practic cred că o să redevină distro-ul meu favorit şi o să las deoparte testarea altor distro-uri (oricum lucrul ăsta a început să mă plictisească tot mai mult în ultima vreme) – unul bun şi tare şi e de ajuns ! Şi mă gândesc să reînnoiesc şi versiunea de pe USB – adică RC-ul (căreia îi şade foarte bine acolo unde este) şi astfel totul va fi OK .

   Later edit: Se mişcă perfect, filmele şi flash-urile merg din prima, Compiz-ul nu face niciun fel de probleme, ecranul de boot (meniul de GRUB) e superb cu tema sa verde (mă deprima aia neagră din Koala), n-am zărit niciun fel de bug-uri deocamdată – practic e cel mai bun Linux Mint de până acum şi merită toate laudele .

   Ce senzaţie de uşurare şi satisfacţie mă încearcă acum deoarece nu mai trebuie să caut printr-o mie de distro-uri ca să găsesc unul ca lumea (bine, asta se datorează şi lui Ubuntu 9.10 care este un distro reuşit), iar faptul că se comportă perfect şi pe USB (cu tot cu stocarea persistentă) nu face decât să-i adauge o steluţă în plus !

Fedora Linux versão 12 foi lançado e está disponível para baixar. O Fedora Linux é uma distribuição baseada na comunidade Linux. Fedora é patrocinado pela Red Hat, Inc. O Fedora é considerada como a segunda distro mais popular, atrás do Ubuntu Linux.

Novidades do Fedora 12

Os novos recursos do Fedora 12 são:

* Quase todos os pacotes de software de 32-bits (x86_32) Arquitetura foram compilados para sistemas i686.
* Audio melhorado, suporte a webcam, codec de vídeo com uma versão mais recente do Ogg Theora
* Bluetooth
* Enhanced NetworkManager para gerenciar banda larga
* Muitos melhoramentos (KVM)
* Ext4 padrão de boot e outras partição
* Interface do Moblin
* Novo algoritmo de compressão (XZ, o formato LZMA) em pacotes RPM para atualizações menores e mais rápidas
* Suporte 3D para placas ATI R600/R700
* GCC 4.4, GNOME 2.28, KDE 4.3,2.6.31 kernel Linux, NetBeans 6.7, PHP 5.3, Apache 2, Perl 6 etc

Download do Fedora 12

Você pode baixar o Fedora Linux 12 via web/servidor de FTP ou via BitTorrent (recomendada).

32 bits vs 64 bits versão do Fedora 12
* Para quase todos os PCs selecionar versão d e 32 bits. Por exemplo, a maioria das máquinas com processadoresIntel/AMD. Para uso Destkop. Quase todos os plugins de multimídia e software funciona com 32bit edition.
* Escolha a versão de 64 bits para aproveitar ao máximo os computadores baseados na arquitetura AMD64 ou EM64T (por exemplo, Athlon64, Opteron, EM64T Xeon, Core 2).

Fedora 12 DVD ISO download

• Visite download Fedora ISO image 32 bit i386 DVD ISO (3.0 GB)
• Visite download Fedora ISO images 64 bit DVD ISO (3.3 GB)

Fedora 12 CD ISO download

Total de 5 ISO images (5 CDs):

• Download Fedora Linux 12 CD 32 bit i386 (694M)
• Download Fedora Linux 12 CD 64 bit (698M)

Fedora Linux 12 DVD ISO BitTorrent download

• Download BitTorrent i386 32 bit DVD
• Download  BitTorrent 64 bit DVD
  * Veja lista completa de torrents aqui.
  

Fedora 12 Live CD Download

• Download Fedora Gnome 32 bit Live CD (700M)
• Download Fedora Gnome 64 bit Live CD (700M)
• Download Fedora KDE 32 bit Live CD (700M)
• Download Fedora KDE 64 bit Live CD (700M)

In part 1 I discussed how these days Linux Live CDs usually come with a prebuilt disk image of the distro which is simply copied over to the hard disk during installation. (The “old” method was to rpm/dpkg-install the packages which is much more time-consuming). However my first test wasn’t very successful because I was using the “cp” command to copy files.

Anaconda (the Fedora installer) is smarter than this. It “dd”s the prebuilt disk image to the hard disk and then uses an ext2/3/4 utility called resize2fs to expand it to the correct size.

I changed the previous guestfish script to take this approach.

The new/Anaconda approach is much faster. Our total time is down from over 18 minutes to 2½ minutes (approximately 2 minutes for the “dd”, 2 seconds for the resize2fs, and the rest of the time taken doing the partitioning and LVM creation).

Unfortunately we have to leave Ubuntu behind at this point. Ubuntu ships with a squashfs, and I’m not aware of any way to turn this into an ext3 partition efficiently (except to use “cp” which we showed in part 1 was very slow). The new script only works with Fedora Live CD ISOs.

The new script is after the cut.

#!/bin/bash -

function usage ()
{
    echo "virt-prebuilt.sh live.iso disk.img size"
    echo "  where 'live.iso' is a Fedora Live ISO"
    echo "        'disk.img' is the target disk image"
    echo "        'size' is the target size in Gigabytes"
    exit 1
}

if [ $# -ne 3 ]; then
    usage
fi

# Work out size of target LV.
target_boot_mb=200
target_lv_mb=$(($3 * 1024 - $target_boot_mb - 128))

# Run guestfish.
time \
guestfish -x -a "$1" <<EOF
# The source ISO will be /dev/sda.  The target drive will be /dev/sdb.
alloc "$2" "$3G"
run

# Get to the packed ext3 filesystem.
mkmountpoint /t
mount-ro /dev/sda /t
mkmountpoint /tt
mount-loop /t/LiveOS/squashfs.img /tt

# Make a separate /boot partition on the target disk.
sfdiskM /dev/sdb ",$target_boot_mb ,"
mkfs ext3 /dev/sdb1

# Make the root LV.
pvcreate /dev/sdb2
vgcreate vg_live /dev/sdb2
lvcreate lv_live vg_live $target_lv_mb

# Copy the packed filesystem to the root LV and resize.
time dd /tt/LiveOS/ext3fs.img /dev/vg_live/lv_live
time resize2fs /dev/vg_live/lv_live

# Mount the root filesystem and copy /boot to /dev/sdb1
mkmountpoint /root
mount /dev/vg_live/lv_live /root
mkmountpoint /boot
mount /dev/sdb1 /boot
glob cp-a /root/boot/* /boot
df-h

# Unmount everything and exit.
unmount /root
unmount /boot
unmount /tt
unmount /t

echo Done.
EOF

Anaconda doesn’t just do a straight copy, it also does a whole lot of munging of the filesystem afterwards, including replacing /etc/fstab and rebuilding the initramfs. The script above avoids that so you can only boot it in qemu using an external -kernel and -initrd.

I think this technique is promising. It certainly sounds wonderful to “stamp out” new distro installs in a minute or two. But …

1. Distributions would all have to start shipping filesystem images.
2. Distro-specific munging would have to be kept to an absolute minimum.
3. Get rid of initramfs’s that contain hard-coded details about the specific platform on which they boot (a very good idea in general IMHO).

In part 3 I’m going to compare how this approach compares to others: virt-install, manual installation, kickstart, cobbler, debootstrap and ubuntu-vm-builder.

Previously I took a look at unpacking Fedora and Ubuntu live CDs to find out what’s inside them and to ask the question can we use the prebuilt filesystem image that these live CDs contain to quickly create a Fedora or Ubuntu “all-defaults” virtual machine?

This is my first attempt, and it’s not successful, but it does demonstrate a large and interesting guestfish script doing a non-trivial amount of work.

This script:

1. mounts the prebuilt filesystem from either a Fedora or Ubuntu live CD
2. creates a disk image with a 200 MB /boot partition and a single / (root) logical volume covering the remainder of the disk
3. uses the cp -a command to recursively copy the prebuilt filesystem to the disk

Where it fails is that “cp” isn’t very fast. On my local machine it took 18 minutes to copy all the files across, which means this isn’t a practical “instant install” method. (I didn’t in the end try to boot the final disk image).

In part 2 this week, I’ll look at the approach that anaconda takes: It dd’s the disk image and then runs resize2fs on it to expand it into the available space.

In part 3 I’ll compare this approach to others: virt-install, manual installation, kickstart, cobbler, debootstrap and ubuntu-vm-builder.

The script itself follows after the cut:

#!/bin/bash -

function usage ()
{
    echo "virt-prebuilt.sh live.iso disk.img size"
    echo "  where 'live.iso' is a Fedora or Ubuntu Live ISO"
    echo "        'disk.img' is the target disk image"
    echo "        'size' is the target size in Gigabytes"
    exit 1
}

if [ $# -lt 3 ]; then
    usage
fi

# Make the commands to unpack the ISO.
# See:
# http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/looking-closer-at-fedora-ubuntu-live-cds
case $(basename $1) in
    ubuntu-*.iso)
	mount_cmds="
mkmountpoint /t1
mount-ro /dev/sda /t1
mkmountpoint /fs
mount-loop /t1/casper/filesystem.squashfs /fs
"
	;;
    Fedora-*Live.iso)
	mount_cmds="
mkmountpoint /t1
mount-ro /dev/sda /t1
mkmountpoint /t2
mount-loop /t1/LiveOS/squashfs.img /t2
mkmountpoint /fs
mount-loop /t2/LiveOS/ext3fs.img /fs
"
	;;
    --help|-help)
	usage
	;;
    *)
	echo "$1: unknown ISO image type (must be Ubuntu or Fedora ISO)"
	usage
esac

# Work out size of target LV.
target_boot_mb=200
target_lv_mb=$(($3 * 1024 - $target_boot_mb - 128))

# Run guestfish.
guestfish -x -a "$1" <<EOF
# The source ISO will be /dev/sda.  The target drive will be /dev/sdb.
alloc "$2" "$3G"
run

# This mounts up the ISO filesystem on /fs
$mount_cmds

echo fstab on target:
cat /fs/etc/fstab

# Make a separate /boot partition on the target disk.
sfdiskM /dev/sdb ",$target_boot_mb ,"
mkmountpoint /target
mkfs ext3 /dev/sdb1

# Make the root LV.
pvcreate /dev/sdb2
vgcreate vg_live /dev/sdb2
lvcreate lv_live vg_live $target_lv_mb
mkfs ext3 /dev/vg_live/lv_live

# Mount up the target disks.
mount /dev/vg_live/lv_live /target
mkdir /target/boot
mount /dev/sdb1 /target/boot

# Copy everything across.
time cp-a /fs /target

unmount /target
-unmount /fs
-unmount /t2
-unmount /t1

echo Done.
EOF

Previously I’ve shown you can use guestfish to unpack a Fedora live CD.

I’m interested in whether we can use the contents of these live CDs to mass-install operating systems using libguestfs.

If you imagine that you go through an “all defaults” install of say Fedora or Ubuntu to a new virtual machine, then when you end up with is an identical disk image containing 1-2 GB of default packages and a lot of empty space. Two people asked to go through the same all-defaults install of the same distro would end up with roughly the same content. The details on the disk would be slightly different because some parts of the disk partitioning and ext3 superblocks change slightly depending on the overall disk size. But really those things can be fixed up afterwards using a little repartitioning, lvresize and resize2fs.

Let’s look inside an Ubuntu live CD:

$ guestfish --ro -a ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso

Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
editing virtual machine filesystems.

Type: 'help' for help with commands
      'quit' to quit the shell

><fs> run
><fs> list-devices
/dev/sda
><fs> file /dev/sda
ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'Ubuntu 9.10 amd64
><fs> mkmountpoint /t1
><fs> mount /dev/sda /t1
><fs> ll /t1/casper
total 691049
dr-xr-xr-x  2 root root      2048 Oct 27 14:31 .
dr-xr-xr-x 10 root root      2048 Oct 27 14:31 ..
-r--r--r--  2 root root     37288 Oct 27 14:19 filesystem.manifest
-r--r--r--  2 root root     35354 Oct 27 14:16 filesystem.manifest-desktop
-r--r--r--  2 root root 697778176 Oct 27 14:25 filesystem.squashfs
-r--r--r--  2 root root   5836401 Oct 27 14:20 initrd.lz
-r--r--r--  2 root root   3941696 Oct 16 12:12 vmlinuz
><fs> mkmountpoint /t2
><fs> mount-loop /t1/casper/filesystem.squashfs /t2
><fs> cat /t2/etc/debian_version
squeeze/sid

The file /casper/filesystem.squashfs seems to be a complete Ubuntu installation, and if I’m understanding this correctly the Ubuntu installer will copy this to the newly created filesystem directly. That will be the new Ubuntu installation, plus or minus some config file changes and some extra packages downloaded afterwards from the net.

Here’s the same examination of the Fedora 12 Live CD:

$ guestfish --ro -a Fedora-12-x86_64-Live.iso

Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for
editing virtual machine filesystems.

Type: 'help' for help with commands
      'quit' to quit the shell

><fs> run
><fs> list-devices
/dev/sda
><fs> file /dev/sda
ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'Fedora-12-x86_64-Live
><fs> mkmountpoint /t1
><fs> mount /dev/sda /t1
><fs> ls /t1
EFI
GPL
LiveOS
isolinux
><fs> ll /t1/LiveOS
total 655291
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root      2048 Nov  9 14:45 .
dr-xr-xr-x 5 root root      2048 Nov  9 14:44 ..
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root     23040 Nov  9 14:44 livecd-iso-to-disk
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root      8192 Nov  9 14:45 osmin.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 670982144 Nov  9 14:48 squashfs.img
><fs> mkmountpoint /t2
><fs> mount-loop /t1/LiveOS/squashfs.img /t2
><fs> ls /t2
LiveOS
><fs> ls /t2/LiveOS/
ext3fs.img
><fs> mkmountpoint /t3
><fs> mount-loop /t2/LiveOS/ext3fs.img /t3
><fs> cat /t3/etc/redhat-release
Fedora release 12 (Constantine)

Again I hope I assume correctly that the installer copies ext3fs.img to the hard disk when installing Fedora 12.

So my vague plan, assuming anything I’ve written above is correct, is to take these pre-made filesystem images and allow people to quickly install specific operating system images from a simple tool:

$ virt-press Fedora-12 F12

which would stamp out a Fedora 12 VM in a few seconds and register it with libvirt as “F12″.

I’m not sure this is possible yet …

   Am vrut să văd azi ce mai face Lynx-ul şi am fost plăcut surprins de constatarea că deşi se află într-un stadiu pre-alpha nu dă niciun fel de erori vizibile la instalare şi rulare . Ca diferenţe faţă de Koala nu am zărit într-o primă instanţă decât noul kernel 2.6.32.4, dar şi faptul că driverul proprietar ATI nu se instalează (dar asta e deja ceva normal având în vedere că cei de la ATI au probleme întotdeauna cu kernel-ele mai noi) . Am băgat repede şi un GNOME 3 preview, dar mi se pare ciudăţel, asta în afară de faptul că dacă închizi terminalul se termină automat şi cu el . Dacă ar merge driverul ATI l-aş folosi chiar în locul lui Koala – în felul ăsta şi update-urile ar fi mai interesante şi de ultimă oră .

   A apărut şi versiunea finală de la Fedora 12 şi sper să nu mai mă lovesc şi de data asta de aceeaşi problemă cu repozitoriile de care am povestit aici pe blog . Distro-ul vine cu mai multe noutăţi, dar ceea ce mă intereseza la o prima vedere şi sunt curios să-l încerc este GNOME Shell preview – o aromă a viitorului GNOME 3 – ca atare o să încep să descarc versiunea cu GNOME şi să văd cum se mişcă .

   Ar mai fi poate de spus că Fedora 12 introduce un suport experimental pentru ATI – mai exact pentru plăcile video de la AMD Radeon HD 2400 în sus – interesant aş zice – rămâne de văzut cum se mişcă în fapt, ei spun că pe anumite configuraţii merg şi efectele pentru desktop . Da – şi ar mai fi şi suportul pentru formatul video Theora .

   De când aşteptam eu să treacă şi ZevenOS-ul pe tanti Koala (m-am tot jucat cu versiunile anterioare despre care am scris pe aici pe blog)! Acum ai un look and feel de BeOS combinat cu noile trăsături din Ubuntu 9.10 – ce poate fi mai bun ? Au şi un tool pentru customizare, dar cred că-l instalez aşa cum e şi îl customizez după – dacă reuşesc şi să-i bag un KDE 4.3.3 mă pot declara mulţumit . Principalele trăsături ale versiunii de faţă sunt următoarele:

* a completely new audio subsystem (pulseaudio)
* the switch from HAL to Device-Kit
* Magi-Kit a standard application management layer
* Remaster-Kit for easy iso remastering
* Encode & SUPER Encode an all in all multimedia converting app
* MAGI 2 an application launcher/installer and configuration center
* The typical BeOS like look has been improved with changes to the Deskbar , Icon Theme and GTK-Theme
* Disk-Manager now supports auto-detection of BFS(BeOS) partitions and allows to mount them .

   Am mai scris pe blog despre Austrumi, dar să reiau puţin – ce este Austrumi ? O distribuţie letonă mititică ce se remarcă prin :

• Fastest Linux distribution with 3D support for ATI, Nvidia and Intel video cards
• Contains all necessary basic programs for work and entertainment
• The modern user interface into Latvian, Russian, English, Italian and Greek languages
• Simple boot from CD, flash drive or HDD
• It is fitted out for the servers and workstations .

   Ceea ce mi se pare extraordinar e că la o distribuţie de numai 107 MB ai asigurat suportul 3D (plus Flash-ul integrat, instalare pe USB, teme) . Versiunea de faţă vine cu următorul changelog:

* made 2 new themes for FVWM
* improved wireless configuration tool (OPEN, WEP, WPA and WPA2)
* added dovecot – IMAP and POP3 server
* added ktsuss – graphical version of `su`
* added lxtask – lightweight task manager
* added pkgtools – utilities for handling Slackware packages
* added recordmydesktop – desktop session recorder
* added slapt-get with gslapt – package management system
* added wmhdplop – a hard drive activity monitor dockapp
* added wmmixer – mixer dockapp
* added xtrlock – a very minimal X display lock program
* added xz – compression utility based on the LZMA
* removed aspell added hunspell
* removed aterm added urxvt
* removed bluefish added geany
* updated: abiword, cdrtools, cpio, firefox, flash-player, gimp, gpicview, gv, hardinfo, hiawatha, less, linuxdcpp, mc, mplayer, MySQL, ntfs-3g, Nvidia, pcmanfm, php, squashfs-tools, tightvnc, transmission, wireless-tools, wpa_supplicant, xfonts-terminus, Xorg-server
* updated libs: alsa, cairo, enchant, freetype2, glib2, glibc, gtk2, libacl1, libattr1, libogg, libpcap, libpng, libvorbis, mesa, ncurses, openssl, pango, pixman, readline, slang, sqlite, xlibs
* removed compiz & emerald, metacity, RutilT, wbar
* updated kernel 2.6.30 .

Its been a busy month for new / updated operating system news, first Windows 7, then Ubuntu 9.10, now OpenSUSE 11.2.  Sounds like something a baby sticks in its mouth, but that’s what they’re calling it.

Like most linux distributions they offer a handful of installation methods, from a full blown DVD with all the trimmings, to a pared down Live boot CD so you can fire it up on your computer of choice without affecting what’s already installed.  That way if you like it, simply click install and it’ll help you get it up and running more permanently.  And if you hate it, just chuck the CD in the garbage and reboot.

As an aside, a Live CD is a great thing to carry with you if you’re the type to ever use a public shared PC.  This way you’re nearly guaranteed to be running on a clean, non infected PC.  Unless somebody installed a physical keylogger.

All the various files can be found here:  http://software.opensuse.org/112/en

Some screenshots:

Click to see this fullsize.

Click to see this fullsize.

   Iguana mea dragă a ajuns şi la versiunea finală după mai multe versiuni intermediare (care aşa multe fiind, n-au reuşit totuşi să repare unele bug-uri destul de grele) şi trebuie să spun că înainte de a o testa in extenso (în măsura în care o să am timp – Helena fiind acum pe felie) sunt dezamăgit că KDE-ul e cu două numere în urmă (că atare fiind destul de buggish), de noul look de un verde spălăcit combinat cu un kaki la fel de veşted (cât de mult mi-a plăcut în trecut verdele distinctiv al  lui openSUSE!) şi de teama destul de întemeiată că în această versiune (care nu cred să difere prea mult faţă de ultimul RC – mai vedem pe aici ce şi cum) mă voi întalni din nou cu acel bug care blochează SO-ul definitiv şi irecuperabil . Până la testarea pe hard mai durează ceva vreme, deocamdată să punctez câteva trăsături esenţiale ale distro-ului :

· Linux kernel 2.6.31.5;
· EXT4 filesystem;
· GNOME 2.28.0 desktop environment;
· KDE 4.3.1 desktop environment;
· X.Org 7.4;
· X.Org server 1.6.5;
· New artwork.

   După ce azi dimineaţă scriam pe aici despre apariţia noii versiuni de Linux Mint 8 în varianta RC şi după ce am fâţâit-o niţel prin VM, m-am decis s-o pun şi pe USB şi nu pot spune decât un lucru – e o bombonică (de mentă, desigur) . Revin mai încolo .

3.11.2009 została wypuszczona finalna wersja Mandriva 2010. Wewnątrz znajdziemy m.in. KDE 4.3, GNOME 2.28, OpenOffice 3.1, oraz kernel 2.6.31. Jak zwykle Mandriva zaoferowała wersję społecznościową, jak i obraz instalowanej płyty LiveCD dystrybucji Mandriva One. Ta ostatnia umożliwia nam wybór pomiędzy pulpitem GNOME oraz KDE. Wszystkie obrazy ISO można nagrać także na pendrive’a, a następnie zainstalować system na netbooku pozbawionym napędu optycznego.

   După apariţia lui Ubuntu 9.10 (care e chiar un distro reuşit faţă de predecesorul său) era normal să se ivesca şi derivatele sale mai mult sau mai puţin îndepărtate de original, Linux-ul Mint fiind chiar una din cele mai bune distribuţii bazate pe Ubuntu şi asta deoarece pe lângă design-ul propriu (întotdeauna au avut un artwork de calitate – bazat pe nuanţe de verde aşa cum îmi place mie) vine şi cu o serie întreagă de aplicaţii specifice – mintMenu, mintInstall, mintUpdate, mintUpload – totul ambalat foarte frumos pentru a avea o experienţă plăcută în Linux . Asta e primul RC de la Helena şi să sperăm că nu vor fi prea multe bug-uri de corectat până la apariţia versiunii finale .

It has been a long time since VLinux 1.0 was released – almost 4 years! I had always thought about improvements to the original version but I could not continue working on it until now. I am very satisfied with the reviews it had received. Now, I wish to make it better. It will be effective if I get ideas and suggestions from the people who are using it or who are interested in this area. Specifically, I need suggestions on what packages to include/exclude as I have been almost out of touch in this area.

These are the major areas I am considering working on

• Update with currently available packages.
• Setup a repository from which packages can be updated frequently.
• Complete documentation on the use of the system.
• others..

I am still working on a draft as the release should be. As with any other Open Source project, this would need considerable amount of time and help. If you are willing to provide help in any of the areas related to building packages, live-cd creation, documentation, you are welcome to join. Let me know by leaving a comment or post at the public forums at the group page at bioinformatics.org

The latest version of Fedora, 12 is about to be released in a week or so, and here is how to install it:

Download the Live CD, or the DVD if you wish to. I downloaded the Live CD, and it weighs in at 653 MB, smaller than most other distros that tend to cram the CD with 690 MB and over. Burn the image onto a CD, and then boot your system off the live CD, and you’ll see this screen:

Figure 1: The initial screen on the Fedora 12 Live CD

Now, if you don’t press any key, you’ll get into the login screen (Figure 3). If you do press a key, you’ll view this boot options screen:

Figure 2: Boot Options Menu

Select the second option to test your live media or the third to test your system’s memory. But most probably, you’d want to check just the media, and then after that select the first option to get into the login screen:

Figure 3: The Login Screen

You can choose your language, and then login as the Live System User. You’ll see the Fedora 12 Live desktop in all its glory:

Figure 4: First Glimpse of Fedora 12 Desktop

Now, start the installation procedure by double clicking the Install to Hard Drive icon on the desktop:

Figure 5: Initializing the procedure

Once you fire up the installer, you get to this screen, click Next to proceed:

Figure 6: Installer: First Screen

In the Keyboard Selection screen, choose the appropriate keyboard for your system. I use the default US International keyboard. There are many languages supported:

Figure 7: Keyboard Selection

Click on Next after selecting your keyboard, and the computer name screen comes up. Let it default to localhost.localdomain if your system is standalone, and if you are on a network, ask your network administrator and change it. If you are installing Fedora 12 on your server, give it the domain name you use for the server.

Figure 8: Choosing your domain name: Default for standalone PC

Click on Next and on the next screen, choose your time zone. It is set by default to New York, USA. Hover over the map to locate your time zone:

Figure 9: Choosing your time zone

Remember to uncheck the System clock uses UTC if it is not set that way, else you may see a discrepancy in time by the cutoff between your timezone and GMT. Your selected time zone should appear below the map:

Figure 10: Make sure your time zone is selected and displayed below the map

The next step is to choose a root password. This is a main part of securing your system, so make sure the password is atleast 12 characters long. And use a password with alphabets in both cases and numerals. It is good practice to have a strong password, especially for the root user:

Figure 11: Create a strong password for the root user

The next screen is the disk partitioning. If you are going to dual boot, choose to Use Free Space. This option works well for a fresh installation too:

Figure 12: Use Free Space for a Dual Boot. It works for a fresh install too.

The installer will ask if you want to write the changes in partitioning to disk. Click on Write changes to disk:

Figure 13: Apply the changes in partitioning

The installer will now copy the Live CD image onto the hard disk, and this might take from 40 seconds to 3 minutes:

Figure 14: Copying the image to hard disk

The installer will also install the boot loader. If you have another OS installed, it’ll autodetect it and setup the bootloader. I’m installing this on a fresh Virtual Hard Disk, so I didn’t need that:

Figure 15: Configuring the boot loader

Now, the installer has done its job, and you can either continue using the Live CD, or setup the installed system after exiting the installer:

Figure 16: Installation Completed!

We’re halfway through the install, the harder parts are over though. Now, exit the Live CD:

Figure 17: Quitting the Live CD

After this, restart the system:

Figure 18: Restart the system

Remove the Live CD when it pops out, or while rebooting the system. Once the system restarts with the Live CD inserted, however, you can also choose to Boot from local drive in Figure 2.

The post installation activity starts now, with the welcome screen:

Figure 19: Post Installation: First Steps

Click on Next to view the License Information. Click on Next to accept it:

Figure 20: License Screen

Now, the user creation screen comes up, where you create the non-root user. Don’t use the same password as the root user(allowed, but never recommended) and use a strong password here too:

Figure 21: User Creation

In the next step, set the date and time. You can choose to synchronize it with the NTP(Network Time Protocol) server pool, or set it manually too:

Figure 22: Setting Date and Time

The next step asks you if you want to upload your hardware profile. This is actually a good thing to do, since if your install fails for some reason, the profile can be used to locate the error, or any bugs unique to your profile can be fixed:

Figure 23: Send your hardware profile

After you click Next for the final time, you’ll enter the login screen:

Figure 24: Destination Desktop! The Login Screen

That’s all there is to the installation process. Once you get into the desktop, you can install more packages for the applications that you use.

Note: This install was done over a Virtual Machine using KVM assigned 512MB memory on Fedora 12 RC3. The installation process worked the same way on my desktop, when I installed it alongside a previous install of Fedora 11. The final release is due on November 17, but I doubt there will be any change in the installation process. It’ll just work the same way.

   Cum repozitoriile funcţionează parţial şi asta indiferent de serverul ales (am încercat vreo 10) nu am putut să instalez tot ce vroiam şi ca atare nici să testez cum trebuie noua Mandriva; cu toate astea din ce-am văzut până acum se mişcă bine în varianta cu GNOME, installer-ul e intuitiv şi destul de rapid, fundalurile alea speciale nu sunt incluse în mod default în distro aşa cum se lăudau, nu apar nici după instalarea unui pachet extra – dar mă rog – asta nu ar fi tocmai o problemă . Sper ca până mâine dimineaţă repozitoriile să-şi revină ca să pot instala ce mă interesează şi să pot savura aşa cum trebuie experienţa Mandriva – nu ştiu de ce am impresia (sper să nu mai fiu dezamăgit şi de data asta căci m-am săturat până acum de aşa ceva) că acest distro o să-mi placă tare mult şi cred că îşi va recâştiga locul de vârf în topul preferinţelor mele, loc pe care l-a lăsat cândva liber Mandrake-ul .

   După ce ultimele două RC-uri de la Mandriva au fost nefuncţionale cel puţin pentru mine, am aşteptat azi cu nerăbdare apariţia versiunii finale de la Mandriva 2010 şi pentru prima oară am rulat-o în VM . Concuzii preliminare: KDE-ul se comportă jalnic – cinşpe erori şi aşa mai departe plus că se mişcă foarte greu – sper să apară mai repede în repozitorii noua versiune de KDE 4.3.3 care cică ar fi reparat o grămadă de bug-uri; în schimb GNOME-le se mişcă lejer şi fără nicio problemă care să sară în ochi – în rest se observă un nou artwork care este chiar reuşit . Rămâne să o instalez pe hard – preferabil să încerc cu varianta GNOME că să nu mă enervez aiurea şi apoi să-mi dau seama de ce e în stare cu adevărat .

   Încă un beta de la PureOS – un distro franţuzesc (despre care am mai scris pe aici) bazat pe Debian ce vine în versiunea de faţă cu următoarele schimbări :

- kernel 2.6.30.8 with ext4 support and grub2
- Iceweasel 3.5.3
- Claws Mail replaces Icedove
- ePDFView replaces Evince
- MPlayer replaces VLC
- Pidgin removed
- improved scripts for module management (thank to N. Villa / Linux-live-cd.org )
- Gnome-colors icon theme and Stay-calm wallpaper
- added ntp, xserver-video-geode …

What’s new on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala?

1. New GDM Login (Though I hate it because of its colour)
2. New Default Icons (Pretty cool actually)
3. New Theme (New Wave & Human)
4. Ubuntu One (Online Storage – 2gb free)
5. Mozilla Firefox 3.5
6. Empathy (Supports Voice and Video chat) – You can switch to Pidgin(better looking)
7. Software Center (Replaces Add/Remove)
and more…

What else does Ubuntu 9.10 comes pre-installed with?
1. Open Office – Edit or view your documents, presentations, spreadsheets (Supports Microsoft extensions like .doc, .docx, .ppt and most other extensions)
2. Rhythmbox – Play music, rip cds, share music through DAAP on LAN, sync with Portable Player(iPod, MTP), manage cover arts, update status on Instant Messengers, stream radio online, subscribe to pod casts.
3. Totem Movie Player – It plays movies…duh. Well, it can stream and play videos from YouTube and BBC (which I’ve never succeeded) – Try Minitube for YouTube.
4. Evince PDF Reader – View PDF
5. F-Spot Photo Manager – Edit, upload your photos to Picasa Web, Flickr or SmugMug, 23 or export to Facebook, create DVD photo slideshow and more with extensions.
6. Gimp – Edit pictures or create animation. Check out Meet the Gimp for more tips.

There are many more software which is downloadable from Synaptic Manager or Ubuntu Software Center. Try Ubuntu Live CD or USB now. (You don’t have to install it on your computer, it will just run on your memory/RAM and you can decide later if you would like to install it.)
Checkout 10 things I Like About Ubuntu 9.10 (not by me)
How to make a Ubuntu Live USB?