Fedora install steps

Following my previous post about Debian, here is a kind of cryptic script with the steps I used for installing Fedora 19 on a Lenovo s400 laptop. I have /home in a separate partition, so all the configs and bells and whistles are already in place.

####Add user sudoers file: (or at install, put root password blank) su usermod -aG sudo vic

use always sudo for admin things! root does not have a log of commands!

####Get the screen backlight to work sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Add acpi_backlight=vendor to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX= line at the back before the quotes.

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

There is a bug with radeon catalyst drivers on the backlight. If problems occur, remove acpi_backlight=vendor from grub. You will need to pump up the backlight every time you power up the laptop.

####Install Catalyst + Intel propietary hybrid graphics driver As instructed in this ask.fedoraproject question, we are going to download the driver, compile and install it. This has a caveat: every time the kernel is updated, we will need to reinstall the driver.

  1. Install dependencies: sudo yum -y update && yum install gcc kernel-devel kernel-headers gimp-help-en gimp-help-common XFree86-Mesa-libGL libstdc++ libgcc XFree86-libs fontconfig freetype zlib

  2. Add backlight parameters to grub to eliminate blackscreen issue (seen before).
  3. Download and extract: sudo mkdir ./AMD && cd ./AMD sudo wget https://www2.ati.com/drivers/beta/amd-catalyst-13.8-beta2-linux-x86.x86_64.zip sudo unzip '/path/to/AMD/amd-catalyst-13.8-beta2-linux-x86.x86_64.zip' sudo bash '/path/to/AMD/amd-catalyst-13.8-beta2-linux-x86.x86_64.run' --extract

  4. Edit needed flags on the code: gedit '/path/to/AMD/fglrx-install.xxxxxx/common/lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/firegl_public.c' change line 284 from
root = KCL_create_proc_dir(NULL, "ati", S_IFDIR);

to

root = KCL_create_proc_dir(NULL, "ati", S_IFDIR|S_IRUGO|S_IXUGO);
  1. Install bash ./ati-installer.sh --arguments --install aticonfig --initial -f aticonfig --px-dgpu

  2. You can make shell scripts to change from Intel to AMD gpu and viceversa:

To check which GPU is in use:

#!/bin/bash
#Show current GPU (High- or Low-Performance mode) as notification
aticonfig --pxl | while read SPAM_OUT; do notify-send "$SPAM_OUT"; done

High-Performance mode:

#!/bin/bash
# Activate discrete GPU (High-Performance mode), must re-start X to take effect
echo "To switch to discrete GPU (High-Performance mode) please enter password. This will set the GPU to High-Performance mode and restart the X-server, logging you out and closing all your open applications."
sudo aticonfig --px-dgpu
sudo service gdm restart

Low-Performance mode:

#!/bin/bash
# Activate integrated GPU (Power-Saving mode), must re-start X to take effect
echo "To switch to integrated GPU (Power-Saving mode) please enter password. This will set the GPU to Power-Saving mode and restart the X-server, logging you out and closing all your open applications."
sudo aticonfig --px-igpu
sudo service gdm restart

####Enable rpmfusion repos su -c 'yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm'

####Fix font rendering sudo yum install freetype-freeworld from rpmfusion echo "Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault" >> ~/.Xresources

####Faience icons theme download icons from https://code.google.com/p/faience-theme/ and paste them into ~/.icons/

####Install google chrome from their web. The .rpm installs the google repo.

####Install steam sudo gedit /etc/yum.repos.d/steam.repo

Inside that file:

[steam]
name=Steam RPM packages (and dependencies) for Fedora
baseurl=https://spot.fedorapeople.org/steam/fedora-$releasever/
enabled=1
skip_if_unavailable=1
gpgcheck=0

####Install sublime-text vim subl.sh

Inside that file:

#!/bin/bash
SHORTCUT="[Desktop Entry]
Name=Sublime Text 2
Comment=Edit text files
Exec=/usr/local/sublime-text-2/sublime_text
Icon=/usr/local/sublime-text-2/Icon/128x128/sublime_text.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Categories=Utility;TextEditor;"
SCRIPT="#!/bin/sh
if [ \${1} == \"--help\" ]; then
/usr/local/sublime-text-2/sublime_text --help
else
/usr/local/sublime-text-2/sublime_text \$@ > /dev/null 2>&1 &
fi"
 
curl -L "https://c758482.r82.cf2.rackcdn.com/Sublime%20Text%202.0.2%20x64.tar.bz2" -o "/usr/src/Sublime Text 2.tar.bz2"
cd /usr/src
tar -xvjf "Sublime Text 2.tar.bz2"
cd "Sublime Text 2"
mkdir -pv "/usr/local/sublime-text-2"
mv -fv * "/usr/local/sublime-text-2/"
echo "${SCRIPT}" > "/usr/local/bin/subl"
chmod +x "/usr/local/bin/subl"
echo "${SHORTCUT}" > "/usr/share/applications/sublime-text-2.desktop"
ln -s /usr/local/sublime-text-2/sublime_text /usr/bin/sublime-text
 
echo "Finish!"

chmod +x subl.sh sudo ./subl.sh

####Install jitsi from their webpage The .rpm installs their repo

####Install skype If you are using x86_64 then you need to manually install some of the dependences:

sudo yum -y install libXv.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 qt.i686 qt-x11.i686 pulseaudio-libs.i686 pulseaudio-libs-glib2.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686

Download skype rpm package from their web and install:

yum install downloaded-skype.rpm

####Install intellijIdea from their page They have no repo so far

####Gnome problem with super key (it’s needed to press fn+super, and it’s already changed on the bios with no luck) Using dconf-editor, change org.gnome.mutter.overlay-key variable to “Super_R”

####Nautilus problem: no second button->new file. solution: touch ~/Plantillas/"Documento vacío"

####Handful of packages: sudo yum install git vim tmux weechat gparted alacarte firefox thunderbird steam owncloud-client fritzing redshift VirtualBox gimp gpick darktable guake htop terminator unetbootin gparted xchat meld pitivi vlc cmus texlive inkscape kst arduino units gtk-redshift redshift ruby-devel dbus-python colordiff

####Install ruby gems: sudo gem install rake jekyll rdiscount tempdir bundler

Víctor Cuadrado Juan

I'm Víctor Cuadrado Juan, a developer and FOSS enthusiast, in love with Linux. Currently living in Nürnberg, Germany. Feel free to waste your precious time around here, or to contact me.