Fedora 20
Fedora 20 is working for us ! This article is written using the Joomla! article manager, through Chrome, running on the Fedora 20 operating system, just like we did in the past with Windows XP. If RE: can make this work, so can you.
But, believe us, we had some help. And there is pleanty of assistance on the Internet regarding Linux in general and Fedora specifically. A person can probably learn to do heart surgery by surfing the Internet and reading everything that one could find on that subject. So here we go ....
Did we mention that Fedora 20 is FREE ? ....
Useful Information
Linux
www.linux.org ~~ The home of Linux. Beginners tutorials and so much more.
www.linux.com ~~ The home of the Linux Foundation.
www.tecmint.com ~~ Linux How To Guide. We like the Linux Commands menu section.
Fedora
fedoraproject.org ~~ The home of the Fedora Project.
Fedora Installation Guide
Post Installation Guide ~~ We have noted the additions that we made to Fedora 20 below.
Fedora Linux Essentials ~~ Detailed info on a lot of Fedora issues and questions.
If you surf around on these sites, they will answer the vast majority of your questions, if not all.
Why Fedora 20 ?
Do a Google search for " which Linux distro ". There are tons of different Linux distributions. Read about them and see if they fit your needs. We ultimately weighed out Fedora, Umbuntu and Mint and settled on Fedora.
A major reason for us was that RE:'s main IT Consultant and the founder's BFF, has worked with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for years. Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat. Most of what is in Red Hat today, started out in Fedora. Because of that Fedora is as progressive as any distro out there. Hopefully, ahead of the curve and making the latest and greatest stuff. We liked that a lot.
Our Set Up
Most importantly, we are keeping Windows XP operational and installing Fedora 20 to learn Linux and wean ourselves off of the Windows OS. So, we set up a Dual-Boot on our main desktop system.
Here are some absolute requirements before you get started ....
- A good Internet connection. Preferably, high-speed, because there is a LOT of stuff to be downloaded here. RE:'s business is the Internet. We are wireless to our desktop systems, and if our connection goes down, we hot-spot our phones. We always have a way to be connected, 24 / 7 / 365.
- The ability to back up your existing system hard drive information somewhere. We have 6+ terabytes of storage space ( external drives are getting very cheap ). We use SyncBack Free all of the time.
- The ablity to have and create space on your system hard drive for the Linux installation. Actually, the last time that we bought a 500GB internal drive, we partitioned it initially, to be able to install Linux in the future. The future is now for RE:. Buy a new system drive or a new external drive if you need to, and backup your data, in advance, so it is safe and sound.
- Your Windows installation disk. You might break your existing Windows installation during this process and you may need to re-install it.
- You must have about a day to reserve to this foray. You actually need a week or so because you need to read the info above, so you know what you are doing. When you get ready to roll, you can do all of this in 6 to 8 hours. The actual installation takes about 3 hours to crank through the process. The other time is to prepare for the installation. And this time isn't totally hands on. We deep cleaned our kitchen area and mopped it's floor during this process.
Our final Linux distro installation choice was Fedora 20 w/ the Design Suite spin, in the x86_64 architecture. Fedora Spins are special distributions designed for different end user requirements. The Design Suite spin comes equiped with GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Bluefish and other software that we use every day. It's perfect for what we do at RE: !
We downloaded the .iso file and burned it to a DVD-R disk using BurnAware Free. RE: is all about free stuff whenever possible.
We set the following 7 partitions on our 500GB hard drive specifially for Fedora -- 1GB for /boot at the begining of the drive ( this can be as small as 512MB ), 20GB for / ( root ), 10GB for /home, 10GB for /files ( not required, but will be handy for us as we progress with Linux ), 6GB for /var, 4GB for /tmp and 5GB for the swap file on a different internal hard drive. 56GB in total. This will give us pleanty of space for future upgrading and use for about a year or so. We did our install. Reserve about an hour. Read up on this stuff as you may want your installation differently.
Our Additions
After our installation, we made the following install additions, in order ( Google search some of this if you need ) ....
Wget
Our specific Broadcom PCI Wireless Card Driver / Firmware ( It's all about the connection speed, isn't it ? ).
FastestMirror Plugin
Axel
RPMFusion Repositories
Livna Repository
( At this point we did the Fedora Yum Updates. This takes around an hour depending on your connection. )
Yumex
Google Signing Key
Chrome
VLC
Adobe Flash
Hurdles
Our installation so far has a major operating glitch. Many moons ago, we bought a graphics card for our main system, that has been difficult to overcome with Fedora 20. It is causing Fedora to lock up at various times. The solution is finding the driver / firmware for it, installing it and making it work correctly.
This isn't necessarily as easy as it sounds. We have tried several potential fixes, but they haven't fully worked out as advertised. So, we are reading more about our specific problem and will continue to try to get it alleviated.
Our Plan
We are learning Linux and are going away from Microsoft, for good, as soon as possible. We have already successfully weaned ourselves off of Microsoft Office, and we shall do the same with Microsoft Windows !
We will be adding more to this article as we learn more. It will get better, so stay tuned ....
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