The Deep End | Paul Venezia » October 2006

October 30, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Suddenly, Fedora Core 6

TAGS: ./configure && make && make install, Systems

I was planning on upgrading my Dell D800 to Fedora Core 6 at some point. I just didn't expect it to be yesterday.

Due to the fickle finger of fate, the 80GB 2.5" drive in the D800 decided to develop amnesia right in the middle of running tests on a collection of blade systems at the ANCL lab. Figures.

A quick trip to CompUSA, a new 80GB drive and an hour later, FC6 was installing. It's very pretty. A few things are relatively annoying, some traceable to Fedora/RedHat, and some to other sources. Here's my quick punchlist of problems and resolutions:

1) config.h? We don't need no stinking config.h

Yeah, it's not there. Lots of drivers and tools won't compile properly even with kernel-devel installed. Just grab a copy of config.h from a recent kernel and drop it into /lib/modules/[KERNEL REV]/build/include/linux.

2) System beep is painful, at least on this system.

I'm still unsure as to what's happening here. I just disabled it.

3) Cisco VPN Client 4.8 won't build

This is the config.h problem. See above.

4) nVidia drivers won't build

Yep, config.h problem. See above. The official nVidia drivers are significantly better than the provided xorg 'nv' driver. Well worth the effort. Also, ensure that xorg-x11-server-sdk is installed before installing the nVidia drivers. I used the x86-1.0-8776 rev without problem.

5) Repos haven't caught up yet

It'll be a little while before all your packages are in your favorite repos. I just tossed in Livna and haven't had a problem so far.

6) What do you mean 'another copy of yum is running'?

The new yum-updatesd daemon is set to run at startup and will prevent a manual yum call. chkconfig --level 345 yum-updatesd off and service yum-updatesd stop will fix that permanently. I turned it back on after I had all my packages installed, since it kinda makes sense to do so.

Other than these items, it's been pretty clean sailing today, and I've been stressing the system something fierce, though I haven't had much chance to play with the new features. I did note the fact that the Broadcom BCM4306-based 802.11b/g card was detected and configured automatically. Finally.

A great site for locating packages and tips for FC6 is Mauriat Miranda's Install Guide, which has links for a bunch of FireFox plugins, repos, et al.

Posted by Paul Venezia on October 30, 2006 11:36 PM