Fedora 17 Post Install Checklist

I installed Fedora 17 alpha recently to really learn the ins and outs of the Fedora/RHEL ecosystem. I installed the minimal version with no GUI.

Enable Network

By default Fedora 17 had network disabled. I ran the following commands to get it running.

su -c 'systemctl enable network.service'
su -c 'systemctl start network.service'

By default it’ll pick up an IP using DHCP. If you want to set static IP address, modify your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (or equivalent) file.

Install Applications

There are some applications I use that are not installed by default. Here’s a list of those applications and how to install them.

• presto su -c 'yum install yum-presto'
• ps (plugin) su -c 'yum install yum-plugin-ps'
• yum-config-manager su -c 'yum install yum-utils'
• vim su -c 'yum install vim'
• scp su -c 'yum install openssh-clients'
• ntpd su -c 'yum install ntp'
• dig or nslookup su -c 'yum install bind-utils'
• whois su -c 'yum install whois'

Disable SELinux

No matter how much I want to learn SELinux, I very seldom get a chance to do so. Meanwhile, SELinux can sometimes cause headaches so I like to change it from ‘enforcing’ to ‘permissive’. Remember that doing so may cause your system to be less secure.

su -c 'vim /etc/selinux/config'

Change the line “SELINUX=enforcing” to “SELINUX=permissive”, save the file, quit vim, and then reboot the server.

Full Path in bash Command Prompt

Fedora 17’s bash displays only the current directory in the prompt. For example,

[codeghar@codeghar curr_dir]$

This can be confusing sometimes so I prefer to show the whole path. For example,

[codeghar@codeghar /path/to/curr_dir]$

To make this change globally (regular users and root), change the /etc/bashrc file.

su -

vim /etc/bashrc

Find the line similar to the one below:

[ "$PS1" = "\\s-\\v\\\$ " ] && PS1="[\u@\h \W]\\$ "

Note the use of \W which indicates that only the current directory should be displayed. Change it to \w and it’ll show the full path. For example,

[ "$PS1" = "\\s-\\v\\\$ " ] && PS1="[\u@\h \w]\\$ "

Save the file and quit vim. Log out and then log in again for the change to take effect. Now your prompt should show the full path.

If you only want this change for yourself, change the ~/.bashrc file.

vim /home/codeghar/.bashrc

In this file add the following line:

export PS1="[\u@\h \w]\\$ "

Save and quit vim. Log out and then log in again for the change to take effect. Now your prompt should show the full path.

KDE Session

If you’re using KDE and don’t want it to load the last session when you login, remember to go to System Settings, Session Management, and change the default to not remember the last session.