Open Source Software vs. Commercial Software:
Migration from Windows to Linux
An IT Professional's Testimonial

 

Miscellaneous Additional (Optional) Settings / Software

Below is a list of miscellaneous settings that I put into place. They are somewhat specific, but I decided to document them here since they all involved some setup on top of the default installation of Fedora.

 

Set Key Shortcut for Gnome System Monitor
I did this incase an application freezes and/or I can't get to the Gnome System Monitor in order to end or kill the right process. You can set a shortcut key to open Gnome System Monitor directly. In this example, I chose Control+Shift+Escape. Open gconf editor (Applications / System Tools / Configuration Editor), and navigate to: /apps/metacity/global_keybindings. Edit “run_command_9” (or any available one), and put in “<control><shift>Escape” (without the quotes). Then navigate to /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands, and edit “command_9”, and put in “gnome-system-monitor” (without the quotes). Now, by simply pressing Control+Shift+Escape, you can bring up the Gnome System Monitor.

 

Extra touchpad functionality (laptops only)
Install the “gsynaptics” package, if the touchpad is using the synaptics driver (most do). On Fedora 10, you also have to do this to allow the program to run:

in the file

/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/10-synaptics.fdi, just after the line:

<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">

A restart of hald and X (or a reboot) is needed after the change
Then you can modify all sorts of touchpad options by going to System / Preferences / Hardware / Touchpad. It also gives you the ability to disable the touchpad while typing and other advanced options.

 

Configuring Firewire Video (bug in Fedora 7-10)
I came across a bug where any user that is not root, cannot access the device to capture firewire video. This is documented at: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=441073. The workaround is to set user permissions on /dev/fw0 like so:

Where you would put in your username. Also had to create a symlink for Kino (used for doing video capturing via firewire):

Add both of these commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local so they are executed on startup.

Note: After I published this, it has been fixed with the updated package "raw1394". Upgrade this package and you do not need the fix above.

 

Printer Sharing

 

Voodoo5 Optimization
I found that by default, full support for my Voodoo5 5500 AGP card was not totally working out of the box. So, I had to do the following to get it up to its full potential:

HP LaserJet 1000 Installation
This was a little more challenging. I figured that this might work right out of the box, but I found that this model of printer is a little strange. To get it working, do this:

 

Microsoft Sidewinder Joysticks, Ensoniq AudioPCI gameport


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