Red Hat Fedora 4: Unleashed - Softcover

Red Hat Fedora 4 UnleashedAbout the Authors

Andrew Hudson is a regular contributor to Linux Format magazine, the UK's largest Linux magazine. His particular area of expertise is Red Hat–based distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Fedora Project, having worked with the original Red Hat Linux since version 5. Seemingly obsessed with performance, he spends many an evening trying to squeeze more performance out of legacy hardware. Andrew lives in Wiltshire, England, with his wife Bernice who is currently expecting their first child. Andrew does not like Emacs. Andrew can be contacted at andy.hudson@gmail.com.

Paul Hudson is a recognized expert in open-source technologies. He is a professional developer and full-time journalist for Future Publishing. His articles have appeared in Mac Format, PC Answers, PC Format, PC Plus, and Linux Format. Paul is passionate about Free Software in all its forms and uses a mix of Linux and BSD to power his desktops and servers. Paul likes Emacs. Paul can be contacted through http://hudzilla.org.

Bill Ball is the best-selling author of nearly 20 books about Linux, including several editions of Red Hat Linux Unleashed, Que Publishing's Using Linux, and Sams Publishing's SuSE Linux Unleashed. He is a technical writer, editor, and magazine journalist and has been using computers for nearly 30 years. He first edited books for Que in 1986 and wrote one of the first best-selling Linux books, Teach Yourself Linux in 24 Hours, in 1997. He has authored articles and reviews in Linux Journal, developed technical online content for business websites, and developed and released open-source software for the Mac OS and Palm OS platforms. He has been a fan of Linux and XFree86 since 1994 and uses the software on Intel-based PCs, Apple PowerMacs, and MIPS platforms. Bill is an active member of the Northern Virginia Linux Users Group (NOVALUG); teaches Linux courses at Stratford University in Falls Church, Virginia; and lives in the Shirlington area of Arlington, Virginia. He can be contacted through http://www.tux.org/~bball.

Hoyt Duff feels that a good word to describe his life experience is "former"—former senior vice president and senior commercial loan officer for a bank, former community college instructor, former restaurateur, and former special education teacher. He currently meets the needs of his inner ADD child by spending the summer months tending to his family business, a sport fishing pier (the longest on the East Coast), and playing cocktail piano on weekends. Hoyt even finds time to write about Linux as a columnist and regular contributor of reviews and tutorial for Linux Format magazine. Active in the TideWater Unix Users Group (http://www.twuug.org), Hoyt enjoys the regular Linux installfests the most and will attempt to install Linux on anything that moves. Hoyt can be contacted at hoyt@maximumhoyt.com.

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Introduction

Welcome to Red Hat Fedora 4 Unleashed! This book covers the free Linux distribution named Fedora Core and includes a fully functional and complete operating system produced by the Fedora Project, sponsored by Red Hat.

Fedora Core continues the strong legacy left behind by Red Hat Linux and has benefited from contributions from the global open-source community as well as from the sponsorship of Red Hat. This makes it the most exciting Linux distribution currently available, and one that is very easy to get to grips with.

If you're new to Linux and to Sams Publishing's Unleashed books about Linux, congratulations—you've picked one of the best books on the market about Fedora Core. Get ready for an exciting, safe, and productive journey as you read this book and install the included software.

This book provides information to match the latest developments found in Fedora and, as always, includes a free copy of the latest distribution on DVD and CD-ROM. Linux, the kernel of a free operating system, is no longer the new kid on the block because it has been available for more than 10 years now. Linux forms the core of a stable, mature, and secure operating system. From embedded devices (such as PDAs) to laptops, desktops to servers, and mainframes to new 64-bit CPUs, Linux continues to be in the vanguard and a major force in the free software marketplace.

Make no mistake: While Linux has been deployed in many corporate- and enterprise-level environments, it is also steadily advancing toward use on millions of desktops. Thousands of open-source programmers around the world improve, test, and update the Linux kernel and Linux-related software packages. Their efforts have contributed much to the success of Linux for many types of users. Fedora Core incorporates many of these software packages, along with the latest stable version of the Linux kernel. This means you can put Fedora to work right away.

This book contains everything you need to plan, install, configure, maintain, administer, rebuild, and use Fedora. You can use this software at school, at home, or in the workplace. You can also make as many copies of Fedora as you want and freely distribute those copies to anyone interested in using Linux.

After an introduction to Red Hat and the Fedora Core project, you will see to how to set up and plan for an install. You will then get step-by-step directions on how to install Fedora in a variety of ways. Following directions on configuration, you will be introduced to basic system administration, followed by instructions on advanced administration techniques and concepts. Sections on programming, productivity, and multimedia round out the host of skills you'll acquire and learn when you use this book. Keep in mind, however, that this book assumes you have at least some experience with using a computer operating system.

What Is Linux?

Linux is the core, or kernel, of a free operating system first developed and released to the world by Linus Benedict Torvalds in 1991. Torvalds, then a graduate student at the University of Helsinki, Finland, is now a Fellow at the Open Source Development Lab (http://www.osdl.org). He is an engineer and had previously worked for the CPU design and fabrication company Transmeta, Inc. Fortunately for all Linux users, Torvalds chose to distribute Linux under a free software license named the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Note - The free online resource Wikipedia has a great biography of Linus Torvalds that examines his life and notable achievements. It even includes a transcript of his first announcement of Linux. It can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Torvalds.

The GNU GPL is the brainchild of Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation. Stallman, the famous author of the Emacs editing environment and GCC compiler system, crafted the GPL to ensure that covered software would always be free and available in source code form. The GPL is the guiding document for Linux and its ownership, distribution, and copyright. Torvalds holds the rights to the Linux trademark, but thanks to a combination of his generosity, the Internet, thousands of programmers around the world, GNU software, and the GNU GPL, Linux will remain forever free and unencumbered by licensing or royalty issues. See the later section "Licensing" to learn more about the GNU GPL and other software licenses.

Linux, pronounced "lih-nucks," is free software. Combining the Linux kernel with GNU software tools—drivers, utilities, user interfaces, and other software such as The X.Org Foundation's X Window System—creates a Linux distribution. There are many different Linux distributions from different vendors, but many are derived from or closely mimic Red Hat's distribution of Linux—Red Hat Linux.

Note - To see just how many distributions are based on Red Hat Linux, go to http://www.linux.org, click Distributions, and search for "Red Hat-based." At the time of writing, there were 35 distributions that owe their existence to Red Hat Linux.

What Is Fedora Core?

Fedora Core (or more simply, Fedora) is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, created, improved, and distributed by the Fedora Project at http://fedora.redhat.com. The Fedora Project, sponsored by Red Hat, is an open-source project supported by a worldwide community of software developers. Although Fedora is not supported by Red Hat, it incorporates improvements made to the Linux kernel and helps contribute to Red Hat's commercial Linux distributions and software. At the same time, Fedora also benefits from improvements made by Red Hat software engineers to Red Hat's products. Despite this symbiotic relationship, Fedora Core is a free operating system, built entirely from free software, and is guided by a process open to all free software developers.

Roots of Red Hat and Fedora

In 1994, Marc Ewing and Bob Young combined forces to create Red Hat (named after a Cornell University lacrosse team hat) to develop, release, and market an easily installed, easily managed, and easy-to-use Linux distribution. Five years later, Durham, North Carolina–based Red Hat would have one of the most successful initial public offerings (IPOs) on the stock market. In 2001, Red Hat introduced a line of products aimed at the corporate and enterprise markets and created versions of its Red Hat Linux distributions and associated software in a product line known as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Additional software, services, and distributions were added to the product over the next several years, such as the Advanced Server (with support for seven CPU architectures), ES (for small- to mid-range enterprise use), and WorkStation (WS) releases.

Following the release of Red Hat Linux 9 in mid-2003, Red Hat announced that it was discontinuing the sale of consumer-based Linux distributions. Previously, the distributions had been available in boxed sets with manuals on store shelves or in CD-ROM image format for free download over the Internet. Red Hat then created the Fedora Project and formally opened its new home on October 22, 2003.

Today, the company has grown from a handful of employees to more than 600 in 22 locations around the world.

Red Hat was one of the first companies to adopt, promote, and use open source as a business model for supporting development, technical service, support, and sales of free software to the computer industry. Its business practices have spawned a shift in paradigm of proprietary attitudes prevalent in the monopolistic software industry, and the company is a role model and business leader in the open source movement. You learn more about Red Hat and Fedora Core in Chapter 1, "Introducing Fedora."