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Fedora Core 2 Tips and Tricks (v0.5)
Last modified: Monday March 23, 2026

This is based on my Fedora Core 1 Tips and Tricks page. With Fedora Core 3 out now this page is unlikely to be maintained going forward. Recent changes are highlighted in yellow. I have also begun on a Fedora Core 3 Tips and Tricks page.

Add support for other repositories

 Fedora comes with a ton of software but there are still plenty of packages of interest to most users that are not included for a variety of reasons. This is where you find the MP3 plug-in and a ton of other packages. A nice side effect of setting it up this way is that the Red Hat Network Alert icon on your GNOME desktop will also let you know of updates to these user contributed packages as well.

Before you add repositories it's probably a good idea to make sure your system is fully up2date first. Adding support is easy, just add the following lines to your /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources You'll need to add the second line to include the fedora.us repository as the they work together hand in hand. 

# Macromedia Flash plug-in only
apt macromedia http://ruslug.rutgers.edu macromedia/apt/fedora/2 macromedia
# User contributed archives
yum livna-stable http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/2/i386/yum/stable/
apt fedora-us-stable-fc2 http://download.fedora.us fedora/fedora/2/i386 stable
For security reasons the packages in these repositories are GPG signed to protect their integrity so you'll need to get and install the public keys: 
# rpm --import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY
# rpm --import http://www.fedora.us/FEDORA-GPG-KEY
You can browse the packages available there at http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/2/i386/RPMS.stable/ and http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora/2/i386/RPMS.stable/

Install MP3 Plug-in

 Since you've been following along this next step is about as easy as it gets. Just use up2date  to automatically install the MP3 plug-ins for XMMS and Rhythmbox like this: 
# up2date xmms-mp3 gstreamer-plugins-mp3 libmad libid3tag
One thing you'll need to do is fire up xmms and go to Options -> Preferences then choose Audio I/O Plugins. In that list scroll down and find the MPEG Layer 1/2/3 Placeholder Plugin and disable it. Then enable the new plug-in you just downloaded which is listed as MPEG Layer 1/2/3 Player. Now MP3s should play just fine.

While you're there I also recommend the XMMS Status Plug-in found at http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/apt/redhat/en/i386/fc1/RPMS.newrpms/xmms-status-plugin-1.0-2.i386.rpm. Just download it and install it with: 

# rpm -ihv xmms-status-plugin-1.0-2.i386.rpm
Then fire up XMMS then with your mouse on the XMMS window hit CTRL-V. Choose General Plugins then click on Enable plugin and hit Configure to customize it to your tastes. From then on you'll have a docked control panel for XMMS.

Install Macromedia Flash/Shockwave plug-in

 If you set up the repositories correctly above you should just need to do this: 
# up2date flash-plugin
You can get more information about this plug-in at http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/macromedia/site_ru.html. Before the plug-in gets installed you'll need to agree to the terms of the license.

Install DVD player

 For now the Freshrpms repository works ok with up2date  so all you will need to do is this: 
# up2date libdvdread libmad ogle ogle_gui
This will install the ogle DVD player. However at this point the ogle doesn't actually work for me. Right now Mplayer seems to play DVDs just fine. /dev/dvd pointing at the device name for your DVD drive. If you don't know the device name you can usually find it easily in the dmesg  output that's been saved during your last boot. Here's how I found it on my Toshiba laptop: 
# grep -i dvd /var/log/dmesg
hdb: HL-DT-STCD-RW/DVD-ROM GCC-4240N, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdb: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
# ln -s /dev/hdb /dev/dvd
Now you'll have the Ogle DVD player under the Sound & Video menu.

Install MPlayer Media Player

 I haven't found a repository that has mplayer that will work cleanly with up2date  without causing additional problems. If you know of a repository that does have a good version of mplayer please let me know below.

At some point you're probably going to want to play a QuickTime, AVI or ASF file so you'll want the MPlayer media player. Fortunately with the Livna/Fedora.us repositories it's also very easy to download and install. 

# up2date mplayer mplayerplug-in mplayer-gui mplayer-skins mplayer-fonts
This command line will download the whole kit and kaboodle. Restart your web browser after that whole mess is done installing and you'll also have a plug-in for Mozilla so you can play embedded content. I recommend that if you want to play content from a command line that you use the gmplayer  version which will include a skin-able control panel.

Install RealPlayer 10 Media Player

 If you have a better way of installing a Real Medial player please let me know if in the comments section below.

First start by using up2date  to install the optional package openmotif21 then download the RealPlayer10 package from the following location:

RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm
Then install the RPM from the command line: 
# up2date openmotif21
# rpm -ihv RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm
Then whenever you want to view something just use /usr/bin/realplay . Here is a link to a cute test video to make sure it's working for you.

If audio is working but you have a black screen then it's possible your video card doesn't support XVideo. You can turn it off by clicking on Tools  -> Preferences then choose the Hardware tab and disable Use XVideo .

Install Java J2RE and Mozilla Plug-in

 It's also very handy to have the Java run-time environment available and most importantly a Mozilla plug-in so you can view dynamic content. It's unfortunate that Mozilla will actually crash if you go to a site containing Java and you don't have the plug-in installed.

The best site for the plug-in is the Dag Wieers repository. I would normally recommend just putting it in your up2date sources but I've had problems with conflicting packages. In this case I recommend you just go to the site and download and install just the packages you need. Just go to http://dag.wieers.com/packages/j2re/ and download the latest j2re and mozilla-j2re  packages as appropriate for your system. Then just install them as follows: 

# rpm -ihv j2re-1.4.2-8.1.fc2.dag.i586.rpm mozilla-j2re-1.4.2-9.1.fc2.dag.i586.rpm

Install NTFS driver

 If you need access to NT file systems you'll probably want to download the Linux ntfs driver. There is a site that maintains pre-built modules for all released Fedora kernels at http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/fedora2.html. A pre-built ntfs module usually appears just a few days after a new Fedora kernel gets released. Be sure to match your kernel version and processor type. If you're not sure what version you're running do this: 
# uname -r -p
For example if you're using the latest kernel (as of this writing) which is 2.6.5-1.358 and the i686 (even if it's an AMD) processor then you will want to download and install it as such: 
# rpm -ihv kernel-ntfs-2.6.5-1.358.i686.rpm
Once installed the ntfs driver will be a dynamically loadable module and you can mount NT file systems with mount -t ntfs -o nls=utf8 /dev/hdXX /mnt .

Other Useful Resources

 I've tried to not just copy other people's tips so I've included a list of other people's tips and tricks I've found to be useful. There should be little or no overlap.
The Unofficial #fedora FAQ - Great place that contains a wealth of information about Fedora Core.

Fedora-List Mailing List - The official discussion group for issues with the final releases of the Fedora Core Linux distributions.

Fedora Multimedia Installation HOWTO - I discovered this great resource after I wrote this. This document goes into more detail than mine so it's a great resource.

Performance Tweaking - Make Linux behave more like XP and delay starting services until later to give the appearance of a faster booting system.

Unofficial Fedora Core 2 Guide for Beginners - A very extensive list of how to do various things in Fedora Core 2. Good source for beginners.

Linux.com | Fedora Core 2: Making it work - Here is an article going over a few other suggestions on making Fedora Core 2 work a little better.

- Another nice set of instructions to get Fedora Core 2 up and running quickly and easily. Includes a few things I didn't.