Fedora 14 A very smooth release!

After trying Fedora 14 x86_64 I am quite impressed, it has to be the first Fedora release I have used that has worked without a single issue out of the box.

Furthermore the performance seems better than Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10. I have never viewed Fedora as something suitable as a main OS but given it is working far better than Ubuntu 10.x the temptation is hard to resist.

As an experiment I am using Fedora 14 exclusively on my Samsung R510 laptop and I am pleased to say the battery life puts Ubuntu to shame.

Something that I have always liked with Fedora is its simple feel and less bloat when compared to openSUSE and Ubuntu, this makes it perfect for my laptop which I only use to browse the internet and check my emails.

I havent been following the Fedora Project much as of late but it seems like there has been a shift in their goals. Looking at their project home page (which is looking very slick) I see Fedora being portrayed as something for the casual user with an emphasis on stability.

Maybe they have realized if Fedora is more stable, more people will use it.

In any case Fedora 14 seems like a solid release and a job well done.

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Fedora 14 64 bit Install Flash Player Square 64 bit in 4 easy steps

This quick easy 4 step process makes the assumption no prior Flash Player plugins have been installed.

Open a terminal and type the following commands,

cd Downloads

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_2_p3_64bit_linux_111710.tar.gz

tar -xf flashplayer10_2_p3_64bit_linux_111710.tar.gz

su -c mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins

Restart Firefox and experience Flash in 64-bit.

For more details concerning Flash Player "Square" visit, http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/square/

I suggest bookmarking this page and keeping an eye out for updates.


16/12/2010 - Important email received from Adam.W Fedora QA Community Monkey

I recommend not installing the 64-bit Flash plugin for several reasons.

See, https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F14_bugs#Strangely_distorted_sound_in_Flash-based_sites_and_applications_when_using_Adobe_64-bit_Flash_plugin

and the warnings at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash#64-bit_Preview_Release ,

and follow the instructions at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash#32_bit_wrapped_version to install the 32-bit version wrapped instead.

It is nice to see the fedora community (and a Red Hat employee) demonstrating an active interest in the users as well as the product.

Thank you for the email.

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Fedora 14 How to make Samsung Fn Brightness buttons work

If you own a Samsung R510 the most important feature that does not work in Fedora 14 are the brightness buttons. Ubuntu users are fortunate to have a repository that enables Fn functionality, please see https://launchpad.net/~voria/+archive/ppa

I will be using files provided by this repository to enable brightness control in Fedora 14 on my Samsung R510.

Please make sure your Fedora system is fully up to date before proceeding. If you are not sure open a terminal and run the following command,

su -c yum -y update

If advised to reboot, please do.

Are you ready?

Open a terminal and type the following,

su -c yum install kernel-devel gcc

This will download some required tools. Next, edit the 95-keyboard-force-release.rules file.

su -c nano /lib/udev/rules.d/95-keyboard-force-release.rules

Look for the following line

ENV{DMI_VENDOR}=="[sS][aA][mM][sS][uU][nN][gG]*", ATTR{[dmi/id]product_name}=="*E252*|*N120*|*N128*|*N130*|*N140*|*N148/N208*|*N150*|*N150/N210/N220*|*N220*|*N308*|*N310*|*N510*|*NB30*|*NC10/N110*|*ND10*|*Q210/P210*|*R410P*|*R425/R525*|*R428/P428*|*R460*|*R463*|*R468/R418*|*R480/R431/R481*|*R509*|*R518*|*R519/R719*|*R520/R522/R620*|*R528/R728*|*R530/R730*|*R530/R730/P590*|*R560*|*R580*|*R580/R590*|*R59/R60/R61*|*R59P/R60P/R61P*|*R710*|*R720*|*R780/R778*|*SR58P*|*SR700*|*SR70S/SR71S*|*SX22S*|*X118*|*X120*|*X460*", RUN+="keyboard-force-release.sh $devpath samsung-other"

Add R510/P510 as highlighted

ENV{DMI_VENDOR}=="[sS][aA][mM][sS][uU][nN][gG]*", ATTR{[dmi/id]product_name}=="*R510/P510*|*E252*|*N120*|*N128*|*N130*|*N140*|*N148/N208*|*N150*|*N150/N210/N220*|*N220*|*N308*|*N310*|*N510*|*NB30*|*NC10/N110*|*ND10*|*Q210/P210*|*R410P*|*R425/R525*|*R428/P428*|*R460*|*R463*|*R468/R418*|*R480/R431/R481*|*R509*|*R518*|*R519/R719*|*R520/R522/R620*|*R528/R728*|*R530/R730*|*R530/R730/P590*|*R560*|*R580*|*R580/R590*|*R59/R60/R61*|*R59P/R60P/R61P*|*R710*|*R720*|*R780/R778*|*SR58P*|*SR700*|*SR70S/SR71S*|*SX22S*|*X118*|*X120*|*X460*", RUN+="keyboard-force-release.sh $devpath samsung-other"

Press Ctrl-X to exit nano, followed by Y to save the file.

Edit your kernel grub entry,

su -c nano /boot/grub/grub.conf

and add the following, acpi_backlight=vendor as illustrated below.

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda1
# initrd /boot/initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda1
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.35.10-74.fc14.x86_64)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35.10-74.fc14.x86_64 acpi_backlight=vendor ro root=UUID=........... rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.35.10-74.fc14.x86_64.img
title Fedora (2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64 ro root=UUID=............ rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

Press Ctrl-X to exit nano, followed by Y to save the file.

Now we are going to download and compile the kernel module responsible for making the brightness buttons work.

mkdir samsung

cd samsung

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16953763/samsung-backlight.c

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16953763/Makefile

make

This will compile the samsung-backlight kernel module. The next step is to copy the module to your kernel.

su -c cp samsung-backlight.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/

su -c depmod -a

su -c modprobe samsung-backlight

Reboot your laptop and try out the FN brightness buttons.

Note:  You will have to rebuild / insert the samsung-backlight kernel module every time your kernel is updated.

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