First thing to do is get and iso. I downloaded Fedora-16-x86_64-Live-KDE.iso as I will be running KDE on a 64 bit system. I had some issues with the Fedora cd creator so I just used UnetBootin which has had more success. I rebooted and selected the usb key from the hardware boot up menu.
For the most part I selected the defaults, with the exception of hard disk encryption, which I would recommend that everyone would use.
If you want more information on the install process then I recommend that you read the excellent Installation Guide maintained by the project. I will be focusing on the things that I did to customize it for my liking.

I will never understand the “Application Launcher Style” that requires discrete clicks to navigate. Thankfully they have made it easy to switch, just right click on the Fedora icon/the KDE menu, and select “Switch to Classic Menu Style”.

If you are a Debian user then you may be familiar with the Debian multimedia repository that enables features that may not be legal in every jurisdiction. The equivalent repository in Fedora is RPM Fusion. It’s simple enough to install by opening the Konqueror web browser and going to http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration/ and click on “RPM Fusion free for Fedora 15 and 16″ and select “Open with Apper” and follow the instructions to install the free applications. If you want to install the nonfree applications then select “RPM Fusion nonfree for Fedora 15 and 16″
Notes:

• that the password is the root password and not your sudo password
• that there is a “pop under” authentication issue so if you see noting opening look for a window in the background
• you are asked for your root password twice

I found it easier to use the console to install applications. The equivalent to debian’s aptitude is yum. Drop to root using su - and type yum update to do a system update. This will download all the updates since your spin was spun.

As you have just installed the RPM Fusion repositories you will need to accept the keys:

Retrieving key from file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-free-fedora-16-i386
Importing GPG key 0xADF25D9C:
Userid : RPM Fusion free repository for Fedora (16)
Package: rpmfusion-free-release-14-2.noarch (@/11281.0.rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch)
From : /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-free-fedora-16-i386
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Retrieving key from file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-nonfree-fedora-16-i386
Importing GPG key 0x952F3AF8:
Userid : RPM Fusion nonfree repository for Fedora (16)
Package: rpmfusion-nonfree-release-14-2.noarch (@/11306.0.rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch)
From : /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-nonfree-fedora-16-i386
Is this ok [y/N]: y

I like to install all the applications I use in one go using the command yum install synergy openssh-server audacity-freeworld ffmpeg sox mplayer inkscape vlc vim firefox poppler-utils wget sshfs kdiff3 terminator kid3 speex-tools filezilla gimp hpijs kate kdiff3 kdirstat

Once all that is installed, you can get down to the business of setting everything up. For me that means getting synergy running so that I can control the new install from my desktops keyboard and mouse.

Synergy lets you easily share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers on your desk, and it’s Free and Open Source. Just move your mouse off the edge of one computer’s screen on to another. You can even share all of your clipboards. All you need is a network connection. Synergy is cross-platform (works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux).

To run that securely you need to have OpenSSH installed so that you can tunnel the communication between computers over a secure connection. We have already installed openssh-server so now we need to configure it.

First we start the service by running

# systemctl start sshd.service

Then we enable the service to run on each boot

# systemctl enable sshd.service

Now you can ssh localhost and if all is well you should be asked to accept the ssh keys. We’re not finished yet as you will find that if you try and ssh from your desktop ssh will report “No route to host”, but you will still be able to ping the machine.

$ ssh 192.168.100.100
ssh: connect to host 192.168.100.100 port 22: No route to host
$ ping 192.168.100.100
PING 192.168.100.100 (192.168.100.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.100.100: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=0.676 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.100.100: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.619 ms
^C
--- 192.168.100.100 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.619/0.647/0.676/0.038 ms

So what’s going on ? Well in addition to offering full disk encryption, Fedora comes with a built in firewall and also a access control system. Although SSH appears to be enabled in the firewall (Start -> Administration -> Firewall) you still need to tick and untick it in order to reload the configuration. Once you do that ssh should be working.

My synergy configuration is quite simple a desktop in the center with a laptop (the new install) on the left and my Acer Aspire One on the right. The server runs on the desktop and I start it with the command:

$ synergys --daemon --address localhost --name desktop --config /etc/synergy.conf

This runs synergy in server mode as a daemon listening only on the localhost with the name “desktop” and using the settings from /etc/synergy.conf. Here is that configuration file.

$ cat /etc/synergy.conf
section: screens
        laptop:
        desktop:
        aa1:
end

section: links
        desktop:
                right = aa1
                left  = laptop
        laptop:
                right = desktop
        aa1:
                left  = desktop
end

We are doing the install on the laptop so over there we need to run two commands. The first will open ssh connection from the laptop to the desktop with the command:

ssh -f -N -L localhost:24800:localhost:24800 192.168.100.99

The -f tells ssh to run in the background
The -N will not execute a remote command
The -L is the switch that tells ssh to forward the any communication from on port 24800 on the laptops localhost private network card to the post 24800 on the other sides localhost private network card.
Finally the 192.168.100.99 is the ip address of the other side, in this case our Desktop

synergyc --daemon --name laptop localhost

This runs synergy in client mode as a daemon with the name “laptop” and connecting to the synergy server on the local private network card. When this happens the client will send it’s requests to the local port number 24800, it’s picked up by the ssh application, encrypted and duped out the other end to port 24800, where the synergy server is listening.
Once you do this, you should be able to move the mouse on your desktop to the left of the screen and you will see it “appear” on your laptops screen.

Follow these instructions to get the vpn working, and if you are running on 64 bit.

Follow these instructions to get the citrix working.

That was it for most of the major stuff.

And now that Fedora 17 is released – hold on for another 18 months for a review of that.

Then today I came across the following link by Eudemus on the ubuntuforums which was based on a a post over at the Chromium forums

Edit the file /usr/share/applications/wfica.desktop include the following:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Citrix ICA client
GenericName=Citrix ICA Client
Comment=Citrix nFuse session file
Categories=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=/opt/Citrix/ICAClient/wfica
Icon=wfica
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=application/x-ica


Edit the file /usr/share/mime/packages/ica.xml include the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info">
    <mime-type type="application/x-ica">
    <comment>Citrix ICA launcher</comment>
    <glob pattern="*.ica"/>
  </mime-type>
</mime-info>

And finally run the command

xdg-mime install --novendor /usr/share/mime/packages/ica.xml


Then you should be able to open the ica files and citrix will start just like in Firefox. Why was this so hard.

One handy feature of yum is that you can specify the file you want installed and it will install any package that it is in. I installed /lib/ld-linux.so.2 and ran snx again only to have some other files missing. In the end I installed everything I needed with the following command.

yum install /lib/ld-linux.so.2 libX11.so.6 libpam.so.0 libstdc++.so.5

Well that’s it (until the next upgrade).

Edit: See the comment from Henderik:

Hendriksays:

I have been trying to learn inkscape so that I could have a vector based version of the HPR logo. This would be useful for printing out large posters for use at the Linux Festivals that we attend. I had been following the excellent tutorials over at screencasters.heathenx.org, and while their site is brilliant, my progress has been very slow. So slow that a new year festival season is upon us and I had made no progress. Finally I just gave up and asked them for help. Not only did they say yes but they asked if they could “tweak it slightly”. You can see the results of that here.

Spurred on by that success, I’m putting the call out for some help with a new version of the scheduling system for HPR. I’ve been working on it for some time now and it’s also going nowhere. I’d like to release it so that it can be used by anyone who wants to setup a syndicated community podcast network like ours. I’ve put some thoughts into the design and would like to get involvement from people with experience in doing this type of thing.

[root@laptop checkpoint]# sh +x snx_install.sh
Installation successfull

All going well so far. Now let’s check that the required libraries are loaded.

[root@laptop checkpoint]# ldd /usr/bin/snx | grep "not found"
        libstdc++.so.5 => not found

This can be solved easily enough using the command

yum install compat-libstdc++-33.i686

You should now be able to type snx without errors. You only now need to accept the VPN Certificate by loging in via the command line and press “Y”.

user@pc:~$ snx -s my-checkpoint-server -u username
Check Point's Linux SNX
build XXXXXXXXXXXX
Please enter your password:
SNX authentication:
Please confirm the connection to gateway: my-checkpoint-server VPN Certificate
Root CA fingerprint: AAAA BBB CCCC DDD EEEE FFF GGGG HHH IIII JJJ KKKK
Do you accept? [y]es/[N]o:

Finally you should be able to use the client and login.

yum install --nogpgcheck ./ICAClient-12.0.0-0.i386.rpm

The location of the application has also changed to /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/wfica.

I ran into more problems with missing libraries

# ldd /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/wfica | grep -i "not found"
        libasound.so.2 => not found

Which I installed using the command

yum install libasound.so.2

I didn’t have any of the usual certificate issue this time.

I’m not making this exception because it was “better”, I would find it impossible to make such a call. The HPR community produces a massive amount of content and I have listened to every single one at least once. There has not been a single HPR show that I have not enjoyed and learned from.

Nor is it that it was submitted by Klaatu as given that he has submitted 12 ½% of all shows, I would have written this long before now. Sure today’s ‘topic’ was special – a interview with Patrick Volkerding the man behind SlackWare, the longest continually developed Linux distribution – but we’ve had other interviews with people of note before.

The reason for this deviation is simply because it embodies the qualities that I feel define Hacker Public Radio.

It’s about taking a topic and exploring it, looking at all sides, exposing otherwise hidden and unknown facts, it’s about events, it’s about community, it’s about people, it’s about technology, it’s about music, it’s about history, it’a about life, it’s about questioning - everything - our very existence – space time – ancient cultures. In short it’s about “Any topic that is of interest to Hackers”

If you have never listened to a HPR then this is surely the best sample of what you are likely to find. Sure it arrived just in time to fill an otherwise empty slot, the audio isn’t perfect, it might not follow a script, random people wander in and out, there may be tangents from the topic at hand but if you can open your ears to listen you’ll hear the passion of the community, our community. Then maybe, just maybe, you too will be inspired to share your unique point of view with us.

readlink -f

cat /usr/local/bin/syncclock
#!/bin/bash
/usr/sbin/ntpdate -s nl.pool.ntp.org
/sbin/hwclock --adjust
/sbin/hwclock --systohc

If you are running a Linux Client on a windows network where there is no access to a NTP server, you might want to use the samba command net time to get the time and net time set to set it. Adding the following command to the roots crontab file will set the time on your linux bot against the windows primary domain controller each afternoon.

* 12 * * * net time set > /dev/null 2>&1

If you run net time and it reports “Could not locate a time server.  Try specifying a target host.” you may need to specify the address of your Primary Domain Controller. If you don’t know the name of the PDC in your domain, you can find it by typing net time on a windows server. The response will include the address of the PDC.

C:\>net time
Current time at \\pdc.example.com is 8/23/2011 1:12 PM

The command completed successfully.

Now you can modify your crontab to include the server name

* 12 * * * net time set --server=192.168.1.100 > /dev/null 2>&1

If you want to play hear them regardless of your device, here are the direct links to the audio streams:

• rtsp://live1.rte.ie/redundant/radio1.ra
• rtsp://live2.rte.ie/redundant/2fm.ra
• rtsp://live2.rte.ie/redundant/lyric.ra
• rtsp://live2.rte.ie/redundant/rnag.ra

Smplayer (a windows version of mplayer) or VLC (a cross platform media player) will have no problems playing the streams.

Enjoy.