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Some stores are very convenient to use, but there are others where you have to know the cultural customs and language. In those more difficult stores, you don't say "hey I want a media player!" You have to find a sales rep, grab him by the throat and say yum install vlc, and make sure you say it softly 'cuz it won't work if you yell. You sometimes also need to tell the sales rep where to look first, again you grab the sales rep by the throat and say rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm .

See, it's easy once you know how :-)

You're right; ffmpeg/mplayer does do just about anything out of the box. (I'm really not sure why more distros, especially Ubuntu, don't include it.)

It's not legal to distribute ffmpeg (or a variety of other codecs like MP3) in the United States without paying licensing fees. So any totally-free distribution cannot include them. As for DVDs, libdvdcss not only infringes, it's also illegal to distribute under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act since it is based on reverse-engineering an encryption technology.

While distros could build different versions that could be shipped into different countries depending on their legal regimes, in practice this is probably more work than it's worth. I'd love to be able to buy a copy of Fedora or Ubuntu with a complete suite of licensed codecs and support for viewing DVDs (and Blu-Rays, too). What we have instead is more of a "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" system where the proprietary bits are kept on servers outside the US.

As far as getting mp3 support, and other things like that, I agree with you, but I understand their POV. They want to put out a distro that's free of patent, license or other legal encumbrances, and let the user add those difficult programs on their own. I'd rather they were less stiff about it, but they have strict principles and I'm not going to complain about their sticking to them.

http://rpm.livna.org/rlowiki/

"rpm.livna.org provides many useful packages that can not be distributed in Fedora (previously known as Fedora Core and Extras) for one reason or another, including multimedia applications such as xine and VideoLanClient, and video drivers for ATI and Nvidia cards ..."

> Sad, but true. However, when I install desktop linux I don't want to fart about trying to find media codecs.

It's not very hard to fix.

# rpm -i http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm
# yum install vlc mplayer gstreamer-plugins-ugly kdemultimedia-extras-nonfree

im aware of that. i spent yesterday telling someone they dont have a 1 gb of hard drive, they have 1gb of ram. But _everyone_ knows what google is. And i made the point that the software to run powerpoints, divx movies, flash, pdf, torrents isn't included in windows they still figured out how to get it. they can do the same in linux. We're not talking about compiling or changing variables here. we're talking about running one command here rpm -Uhv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm that will give them access to almost any application they could ever desire. If they can figure out the windows system of tracking down torrent clients and kazaa codec packs then surely they can install a livna repository.

Fedora isn't meant for some lady who isn't sure what hotmail is or types with two fingers, neither is ubuntu for that matter.. NO OS is made for people like that. they need to go through this thing called a learning curve. Fedora wasnt built for those people. neither is Ubuntu. you can't have a 6 month upgrade cycle and at the same time say its for a lady who uses two fingers to type. They need to learn some things. I'm of the opinion learning what free software is should be one of the things we encourage them to learn.. especially new users.

Are you using the nVidia drivers at Livna? Only once did they not have updated drivers available when I ran a kernel update on Fedora, and that was because I updated on the day the new kernel was released. If you can wait a day or two before installing the latest kernel update (personally I can wait a lot longer than that), running "yum update kmod-nvidia" after adding the Livna repo is a cinch.

kaffeine with the xine engine wouldn't play styled subs for me, but I've switched to kplayer with mplayer engine and they work fine. I've added "-ass -ass-font-scale 0.9 -slang en -alang jpn" to the command line parameters in kplayer's Advanced settings.

I'm running Fedora 8 with Livna as an added repository.

Try it... You may find the ar5212 with openbsd HAL driver works.
Otherwise:

# rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-9.rpm
# yum -y install kmod-madwifi

The main difference is that the 3rd party drivers contain firmware ripped from Windows drivers. Not free to distrbute but you just want it to work, right?

There are lots of things (embedded Windows Media, etc) out there that I wouldn't expect to work on this setup

Using mplayer-plugin with Firefox and the full array of mplayer codecs works fine for me. On my Fedora box, just adding the Livna repositories enables yum to install everything in one shot with a "yum install mplayer*".

A misconfigured X-org.conf invariably happens when the Fedora Core Package Updater has to update the kernel packages (I dread seeing those "reload current page" type arrows on the dialog window, which means nothing else can be updated until the kernel is updated).

Then the kernel gets updated, all the linkages to the Nvidia driver get fried. Xorg.conf still thinks the driver is there, can't find it and panics - although it does try several times to find a suitable resolution.

..or you could just install the Livna Nvidia package which will handle all of this for you automatically. You get separate versions of the nvidia binary with each new kernel so you can use whichever one you want and everything keeps working.

Here are the Instructions for how to enable this.

As someone who runs both Ubuntu and FC6 distros, I think you have it backwards...

For FC6 just install the livna rpm's like this:

# rpm -Uhv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
# rpm --import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY

and enjoy the benefits of all the grey packages delivered via yum. Personally, I like the Fedora approach of giving totally free products a boost.

The main benefit of Fedora over over Ubuntu is the actively maintained Fedora Extra's. These are generally updated as soon as the upstream maintainers make a release as opposed to waiting 6 months for the next Ubuntu upgrade.

Anyway now that the standard Ubuntu troll is out of the way, all this is moot. The point is that THIS FC6-based distro has all the grey packages available on a nice easy to use ISO.

As someone who runs both Ubuntu and FC6 distros, I think you have it backwards...

For FC6 just install the livna rpm's like this:

# rpm -Uhv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
# rpm --import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY

and enjoy the benefits of all the grey packages delivered via yum. Personally, I like the Fedora approach of giving totally free products a boost.

The main benefit of Fedora over over Ubuntu is the actively maintained Fedora Extra's. These are generally updated as soon as the upstream maintainers make a release as opposed to waiting 6 months for the next Ubuntu upgrade.

Anyway now that the standard Ubuntu troll is out of the way, all this is moot. The point is that THIS FC6-based distro has all the grey packages available on a nice easy to use ISO.

Once I added Livna to my repository list I haven't had any problems with my NVidia card (nor with any licensed codecs, either).

Getting NVidia drivers installed for RedHat is extremely awkward. You wind up having to go to a non-RedHat provided repository like Livna. Check out http://rpm.livna.org/livna-switcher.html for notes on how that repository does it better for Fedora Core than RedHat has ever done for their "commercial" releases.

> Sure, you give an example under Fedora. But the reality is:
> 1) The software is illegal for a good portion of the people
> who are interested in using it, therefore:

Please be specific. I live in Poland/Europe and software that I use is perfectly legal in fact I've control in my offices and they didn't mind that every workstation (Windows to be specific) was equipped with VLC.

> 2) The repositories are "unofficial" and subject to disappearing
> at any given time (even though Livna has been around for a while),

Of course they are unnoficial. No official support from RedHat for example. Do you get official support for WinAmp from Microsoft? WinAmp is also unofficial for MS I think - so your point is?

> 3) They don't work on x86_64.

But this is not due legal and practical issues we are discussing? I don't use x86_64 on my workstation since I don't see any need for it. So I reall don't know. Does Windows XP support 64bit? No? Ach - that one version with no drivers? :) As for Livna. I've found this listing:
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/x86_64/repodata/repo view/sound-and-video.group.html

But I guess it is beta or something and I really cannot confirm if it works. Looks like normal packages for me.

> The new ffmpeg stuff should help with some of that, but it is too new
> for me to have given it a try quite yet.

Why can't you just upgrade your distro?

> As of November/December, my only way to watch most of these codecs was
> through a 32 bit chroot on my Kubuntu Edgy box using psuedo-illegal
> codecs from Debian universe.

Ah! ;) You are running 64b kernel? It is possible to run 32b software in such setup but it requires hassle.

> So, despite what you say, it is kind of a dark art. Finding the repos
> is a pain (varies by distro), and making it all work with 64 is a pain,
> especially plugins for browsers (you have to use 32 bit wine to run
> the .dlls for win32 in 32 bit mplayer, but if you want to use that in
> firefox, you have to get 32 bit firefox, but then you lose Java because
> the java you run is 64 bit, so then you install 32 bit java as well...)
> It goes on and on.

Yeah. Well - you think this is pain? Try running 64b version of Windows XP. :P

> I've been messing with it all in kind of a techno-haze for the past 5 years
> wondering when someone would fix the system. I started the (now huge) thread
> ("32 bit mplayer without 32 bit chroot") on Gentoo's AMD64 forums about this
> back in late 2004/early 2005 and there is still no good solution. Personally,
> I'm glad the drivers are available...I might just use them.

Well 64b kernel mode is right now not mainstream on workstations - face it, MS does not do that, Apple does not and Linux in fact tries and it is usable (but with few glitches). Everybody is on 32b now and will be since main productivity apps are ported (no so soon).

But 64b/32b it is NO BARRIER for codecs - the law, the patents are. Not the implementation.

This is BS. Installing multimedia support for decent distro is as easy as:
- enabling an additional repository
- issuing a command

% rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
% yum install mplayer-gui vlc xine

Now real question - was it that hard? If you find it hard (you don't need to understand it, just copy and paste the lines) I find you retarded. Sorry. It was not harder than getting Windows to play DVDs or some obscure codecs.

> Acquiring and installing proprietary codecs is a dark art
> that is major obstacle to wider acceptance of the Linux desktop.

This is BS. Installing multimedia support for decent distro is as easy as:
- enabling an additional repository
- issuing a command

You can do this either clicking with your mouse or just with terminal. I'll show with terminal since it is more strict, for Fedora:

% su -
(here enter your root password)
% rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
% yum install mplayer-gui vlc xine

And you basically get players to play most of the content. The content you won't be able to play are extremely DRM infested files like WMV9 (which Macs also won't play) and so on. It is for FC6 but I am pretty sure it works in similar way in any other major distro - just ask their helpfull community.

Now real question - was it that hard? If you find it hard (you don't need to understand it, just copy and paste the lines) I find you retarded. Sorry. It was not harder than getting Windows to play DVDs or some obscure codecs.

> As someone who absolutely refuses to pirate software
> unless I have no choice,

WTF you are saying? It is possible to play most of media files just fine with OPEN AND LEGAL codecs. It is not like you need to go to PirateBay and download some codecs to make it work in Linux. These codecs have DISTRIBUTION restrictions in some countries (namely USA) but not USAGE restrictions. It is perfectly legal for me to play WMV, MP3 and others using libmad, ffmpeg or smth. similar.

> I'd be prepared to pay a few ££ extra to stay legal.

They probalby look for uninformed people like you with such offer. :)

Maybe the Livna people could host Livna Linux, which is just Fedora core with all their evil patent encumbered and/or non-Free packages in place of the fully Free but less capable ones. If they only provided the download via bittorrent it likely wouldn't even cost them a huge amount of bandwidth.

Well, since TFA is slashdotted, I can't tell whether it mentioned this already. There is a well-known third-party yum repository at rpm.livna.org which provides packages for those highly-demanded but legally/philosophically rejected packages, like MP3 and NTFS support (patents), NVIDIA Drivers (closed-source), etc.

With livna added to your yum config, installing the drivers is as easy as yum install kmod-nvidia and restarting X.

Of course, you might want to wait until the root exploit in NVIDIA's driver is fixed in a non-beta release.

Did you notice that this story is actually about FC6? Your post is almost completely irrelevant.

First, the shipped kernel had to be updated right away to allow other modules such as video drivers or ndiswrapper to work.
Yes. You needed to wait a whole week or two for those proprietary hacks needed to be updated, because they are broken by design. ndiswrapper, the proprietary ATI & nvidia drivers, madwifi, etc. are all available for FC6 already:
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/i386

Second, kudos for FC/ RH team for putting the dmraid in boot time, allowing FC5 to be first and only distro with support for most motherboard fakeRAIDs, that are widely present today. However, dmraid booting was broken as soon as you get first kernel update (original kernel was useless).
Another complaint about the original FC5 kernel. File under: "would have been relevant in April, maybe"

Then there were daily updates. I can't keep it up-to-date no matter why: it takes 10 minutes just to resolve dependencies, while Ubuntu updates its own system in that time.
Dep solving is much, much faster with FC6, and metadata is downloaded in the background so you don't have to wait for that either. But I'm sorry you lost ten whole minutes of your life.

This quick FC6 release just tells me it is going to be same story.
Quick release? All Fedora Core releases are about 6 months apart. In fact this one took seven months, so it is longer than the previous releases. I thought you had used FC2-FC5, so you should already know this.

So, yes, seven months ago the original release of FC5 was not very good. Fine. Enjoy "Flatulent Dik-Dik" or whatever the next Ubuntu release is. But please refrain from commenting about FC6 until you actually know something about it.

You could try http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm. That will add livna's rpm repositories to your yum configuration. After that it should be straightforward to install stuff like mplayer or xine (yum install mplayer xine).

Not only that, but in FC6 you can enable Livna right in the installer. So your system will have MP3/DVD/etc. support right at first boot.

Just point it at http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/[arch] and those packages will magically appear as install options. Yay!

(link: http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/)

Dag

Cheers! /P

1. No fecking media support! I get XMMS inform me on first attempt at playing an MP3 that it won't because of licensing conflict. Wtf? Codecs for avi's and DVDs were a simular story; all had to be downloaded via yum (bloody excellent tool!). Seriously; not good, but fixed in the end.

You pay for Windows (hopefully), which includes patent licenses for the various media codecs. You pay nothing for Fedora Core, so which money should Red Hat or the Fedora Project use to pay your patent licenses?

3. Point 2 also breaks my nvidia drivers. I don't want to re-compile new drivers everytime there's a new 'patch'. For the love of god, why?!

As others have told you, the Livna repository contains various useful packages that Fedora cannot officially supply. This includes prebuilt drivers for nVidia and ATI graphics cards for every kernel available. Download the Livna release package to set up the Livna repository on your computer, and then install the nVidia drivers with

yum install *nvidia*

After this, the nVidia drivers will be updated automatically, without any recompiling on your part. I use both the nVidia and ATI drivers from Livna, and I never had to compile them myself.

Also, X-Windows 'feels' slower than Windows. I'm sure there's good reasons for this, but I don't care; Windows is snappier.

Do you have SELinux enabled? SELinux is rumored to slow the system down quite a bit, and that is one of the reasons why I have it turned off. Thus, my Fedora Core 5 running Gnome is at least as responsive as Windows XP running on the same computer (I run a dual-boot system). You can change the SELinux settings in the System->Administration->Security level and firewall dialog.

As far as the nVidia drivers go, you should know about Max Kanat-Alexander's http://www.fedorafaq.org/ site. He's supplied a yum.conf file that will, among other things, hook you up with http://rpm.livna.org/, which supplies prebuilt nVidia and ATi kernel drivers. In most cases, livna will have the nVidia driver rpm out there within a day or so of the Fedora kernel update being available. They also supply other things like codecs that you mention. You can also look to http://www.fedoraforum.org/ as a place to look for help. Note that there are some other sites that also supply prebuilt video drivers and codecs for yum; while I'm not in a position to soundly recommend one over another (livna has "just worked" for me), I have seen warnings that you should only enable one such site, as conflicts can arise if both release the video driver simultaneously.

I would also suggest trying XFCE (yum install xfce, IIRC; it's available in extras, and after it's installed you can choose it from the "Session" dropdown on the Fedora login page), and then go to their site at http://www.xfce.org/ and following instructions to build Thunar, their new file manager. Much lighter and more responsive than Nautilus, and it does have decent context-menu support.

Be glad that, as of FC5, yum cleans up its old kernels after new installs, leaving you with current and previous. I had a run of 7 or 8 of the things sitting around when I was on FC4.

Good luck to you!

1. I'm assuming you found Livna(http://rpm.livna.org), it's the single greatest add-on repository for fedora, it covers just about everything not in core and extras. You may or may not know this, but MP3, AVI and DVD codecs are all legally encumbered in some way, and as such the fedora project avoids it officially.

2. have you ever run windows update? have you ever updated your device drivers in windows? if so, then odds are you have updated the kernel and you don't know it. In windows, each vendor provides their own device drivers, and so you have to manage them separately. In linux however, most device drivers are provide with the kernel, and there is a great deal of community maintenance. I'm not saying one is right or one is wrong, just that it is.

3. Go to http://rpm.livna.org/ they have the NVIDIA and ATi drivers precompiled for fedora.

4. I can't speak to why you had to muck with the monitor at that level, the worst I've had to do in about five years was tell the installer what model of monitor I was using(usually silkscreened on the front). I've had similar experience with my mouse, though I usually have a three button wheel mouse. As for X being slower then windows... well, *feels* slower is pretty subjective, and without knowing specifics, I can't help you resolve it. I would guess it's RAM related, when an OS *feels* slow, that's usually the first place to look.

5. The file browser is part of GNOME. GNOME is done up to be easy to use and tends to resemble Mac OS more than windows. You might try looking into KDE which resembles windows more.

You might try coming to irc.freenode.net #fedora, we hang out there frequently and are willing to help.

To install the ati drivers simply execute "yum install kmod-fglrx" or "yum install kmod-fglrx-smp" if you use a SMP-Kernel.

If you really need to do it via the GUI, just point your browser at http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm - Firefox as installed on FC5 understands by default what program needs to handle RPM packages.

I'm sure the Fedora team has thought of putting some 'install illegal codecs' button somewhere in the GUI, but RedHat's lawyers probably say it's a very bad idea. If Livna does it all independently then RedHat can easily claim clean hands and get the case dismissed if Fraunhofer tries to sue them. It might be harder to get the suit dismissed if they do as you suggest, and that means lots of money - a patent holder's lawyer would be able to argue that it is tantamount to Microsoft putting a link on the GUI to the Pirate Bay in Windows.

The ridiculous hoop you have to jump through is to simply type:

rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm

Why do I have to type something at the command line to get basic multimedia support? Can't they just make a button during the install that you can press to get 'illegal' software. The button could read:

'I want to play mp3 files and I don't care if it's illegal. I take full responsibility for my actions.'

or:

'Software patents don't apply in my country, give me an mp3 player already!'

Why do they make you use the command line? It doesn't make sense.

No, you've not had to jump through ridiculous hoops since at least Fedora Core 2, probably earlier. There _is_ just a repo you can add - it's called the Livna repository. It contains all the 'patented' codec support (sound, video, DVD playing etc.) as well as proprietary video card drivers from nvidia and ATi.

See http://rpm.livna.org/

The ridiculous hoop you have to jump through is to simply type:

rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm

and you've added the Livna repository. All the stuff in Livna now appears in GUI software installer (Applications -> Add and Remove Software) as well as on the command line (using 'yum'). Couldn't be simpler. Livna is an essential repository for a home user of Fedora Core.

No, you've not had to jump through ridiculous hoops since at least Fedora Core 2, probably earlier. There _is_ just a repo you can add - it's called the Livna repository. It contains all the 'patented' codec support (sound, video, DVD playing etc.) as well as proprietary video card drivers from nvidia and ATi.

See http://rpm.livna.org/

The ridiculous hoop you have to jump through is to simply type:

rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm

and you've added the Livna repository. All the stuff in Livna now appears in GUI software installer (Applications -> Add and Remove Software) as well as on the command line (using 'yum'). Couldn't be simpler. Livna is an essential repository for a home user of Fedora Core.

I'm not talking about the DVD and MP3 stuff as that is not installed by default in a lot of distros (DVD especially). I'm saying that Fedora has fewer packages available for it than other distros which is why people still run into problems installing stuff on it. eg.

Fedora OS + Extras + Livna + Dag (RPMForge) = ~6000 unique packages (ftp://mirror.linux.duke.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core /5/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS + http://fedoraproject.org/extras/5/i386/repodata/ + http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/5/i386/ + http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/)

Mandriva main + contrib + PLF = ~13000 unique packages (urpmq --list | wc -l)

Debian stable = 15490 unique packages (Debian.org)

Gentoo = nearly 11000 in portage (http://gentoo-portage.com/Statistics)

I just installed Fedora Core 4 and 5 (see below) on my daughter's Winbook W235 http://www.winbook.com/notebooks/w/w_overview.html . This is a very nice machine for $900 with a wide screen, DVD writer, 512M, and an 80G drive. It uses an Intel motherboard with the 855GM graphics adapter and 2200 wifi. As you note you'll need to install the Intel firmware, either from Livna http://rpm.livna.org/ or directly from Intel's site on Sourceforge http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php. Once I had the firmware installed, I could configure the wireless card with the included utilities in GNOME or KDE, and I didn't have to play with ndiswrapper or any other kludge.

The screen is more problematic. The 855 (and later 900+) adapters support a number of resolutions, but they weren't recognized by the normal drivers. The screen on this machine is 1280x768, but an out-of-the-box install forced it to 1024x768 which resulted in very ugly fonts. Luckily there's a little utility out there called 855resolution http://perso.wanadoo.fr/apoirier/ that you can load in rc.local and kick the adapter into other modes. Once I installed that, the KDE "Display" control saw the new resolution, and the Fedora desktop looked as nice as the Windows one.

We don't play games on this machine (we're both console types), so I can't speak for its graphics performance. It works great with Xine, though; movies and anime in the widescreen aspect ratio look terrific. Since I run KDE, I use the arts drivers to handle sound; they work fine.

OK, now for the big problem. FC4 installed just fine off the DVD, but FC5 would not install at all. (I've filed a bug report with the Fedora folks.) I finally installed FC5 by installing FC4 first, then running a system upgrade from the FC5 repositories http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/YumUpgradeFaq. This worked fine; it just added a few hours to the installation since yum had to update a couple thousand RPMs.

Finally, here's a hint if you buy a laptop like this one with Windows pre-installed. First, download and boot a copy of the Knoppix live CD or DVD http://www.knopper.net/. Once it's up and running, run "qtparted" from the command prompt. This is a nice graphical frontend to parted that will allow you to resize your partitions without having to buy something like Partition Magic. If you've used the Windows partition at all, I'd recommend running its disk optimizer to push all the Windows files to the front of the partition. Then you can lop off a chunk at the back for Linux.

You make some valid points. Unfortunately, things like the lack of out-of-the-box MP3 support and the problems talking to XP systems are far more "can't fix" than "won't fix." There's literally nothing that free operating system developers can do about patents and moving-target closed specifications. And it's really not the fault of the people who write free software that most mainstream game developers seem to have no interest in supporting their platforms. On the otherhand, you say you tried Fedora Core. To make MP3 support, DVD playing, etc available to the package manager takes one command. Got to http://rpm.livna.org/ and see how long it takes you to find it... (and before you say Livna is obscure, it's easily found by Googling).

However, in saying that you want click-and-go install of applications without compiling, you're missing the point. This is only possible using a distribution's package management system, or distribution-specific click-and-go systems such as Klik. Why? The reason is that precompiled software is architecture- and platform-specific. A program compiled to run on x86 Slackware will never work on PPC Gentoo, and vice versa. In addition, consider that software seems to be written nowadays to run on either Windows, or anything except Windows. It will never be possible for developers to provide binaries for every possible combination of kernel+libraries, so they spend vast amounts of time writing e.g. autoconf scripts so that (hopefully) all you have to do is type "configure && make install" -- a process I don't consider to be too difficult to understand.[1][2]

I would take issue with your statement that working with Linux is like "[Figuring] out how the damn carborator (sic) works when I mainly want to drive." If you want to fiddle with the innards of Windows, you have to drill down into obscure, poorly documented configuration dialogs, and brave the mess that is the registry (why the hell should I have to enter binary data into an undocumented registry key in order to do something as simple as swap my Ctrl and Caps Lock keys?) If you want to fiddle with the innards of Linux, most things are configurable from reasonably-named plain-text configuration file somewhere on your system. Having said that, the last time I had to do fire up an editor and hack a config file was when I was trying to do something decidedly non-standard... several months ago.

I'd say that moving to Linux from Windows is like moving from driving a family car to driving an aircraft; although the controls are very different, once you've mastered them you get where you're going much more quickly and comfortably.

[1] Yes, I realize that bytecode-compiled languages and interpreted languages allow one binary to run on many systems. But they're mostly relatively slow.

[2] I agree that when "./configure" fails, it's often quite difficult to work out what's gone wrong. Many developers aren't good at writing meaningful error messages for the self-configuration stage, unfortunately.

...Works like a charm for me - just be sure and have the ndiswrapper sources around to make for when you do kernel upgrades...

I'm running ndiswrapper under Fedora Core 4 (x86_64) on a HP Pavillion laptop with a built-in Broadcomm wireless NIC. Works great.

Check http://rpm.livna.org. They've got a lot of good utilities, including video players, pre-compiled kernel drivers, etc.

Keep using yum, or install apt. For security and general updates, stick with up2date, or just use "yum upgrade". There are many many repositories out there with thoushands of applications. Just have to add a line to your yum.conf or apt sources. Here are a few of my favorites:
FreshRPMS
Dag
Livna
Fedora.us

Some repositories play nicer with each other then others, i.e. Livna is maintained to be compatible with the Fedora.us repo. Dag has a huge selection of applications, as does FreshRPMS. You should read each site and see which you think is best for you. Personally, your best and easiest bet is to just use the yum.conf provided by FedoraFAQ.org. You may want to uncomment some additional repositories, but if you leave it how it is, you should be fine. FedoraFAQ.org is also a good site for general Fedora information. If nothing else, go in #fedora on irc, everyone there is usuaully always friendly and willing to help.
Regards,
Steve

It's a standard featur in Mozillia, but it wasn't packaged with Fedora due to IP issues with the Vatican.

You could try looking for it on Livna.org. I'd use yum but Livna has too many headers

The fact that you deemed it necessary to install a whole distribution to get MP3 support, when you could have installed one RPM package under Fedora is nothing short of moronic.

A simple google of "Fedora mp3" just gave back 5 good how-tos on the first two pages - no 'hacking' required.

For those of you who are Google-impaired, here's a hint: LIVNA

Although I could not find information on the main sites either, I found the following documentation very useful as I was really impressed with Fedora Core 2 and got everything I needed to work by following these tips!

A Fedora How To for Multimedia

An RPM repository that fedora.redhat.com and fedora.us could not release!

Call me nuts, but playing MP3's these days is about as basic as being able to copy a file from one place to another.

True. However, if you go to rpm.livna.org and follow the instructions to add it to your apt/yum repository, you have access to everything that you want to play mp3s, dvds etc. Just do

apt-get xmms-mp3

and you'll be all set. Repeat for lame etc.

Samba is included, as is the new CIFs driver which replaces smbfs. What isn't included is the NTFS read-only driver module, which you can download as a binary RPM from linux-ntfs. As for the other stuff, I like to use the fedora.us + livna.org* repositories. There is also freshrpms, ATrpms, Dag Wieers, and Planet CCRMA. There are others, and be warned that Dag Wieers and Axel Thim (atrpms) are in a pissing match over Dag obsoleting at least one of Axel's packages for naming it "wrong". (look at the April acrhives of the freshrpms mailing list with some fresh popcorn).

* - The livna.org front page still says they are down and lists the mirror. The rpm.livna.org repo is actually back up, they just never bothered to update the main page to say so.

Try here: rpm.livna.org

If the packages you look for are not there, they may be released soon.

Please read the following before using an unofficial torrent to download FC2. Apparently, the official release of FC2 is not until Tuesday, and what you are downloading may or may not be the real FC2 release (it may be a Rawhide snapshot, or a trojaned distribution, for example). You can verify the signature on the MD5SUM file to check it, of course, but you'd have to waste your time and bandwidth downloading it first.

It's trivial to get MP3 support in Fedora and to keep it current. Go to rpm.livna.org and follow the instructions.

No. Fedora is trying very hard to avoid IP issues, so they've deliberately refrained from including things like mp3 decoders and DVD decoders that might get them into legal trouble. Fortunately, Fedora does have apt and yum available, so it's easy to add external repositories, like FreshRPMS or Livna, both of which do include mp3 players and DVD decoders. It's very convenient, and avoids a lot of legal headaches for RedHat.

Ease of installation? Debian? At least it can be said that it's a one-time ordeal, after which things get much better.

Fedora Core has apt-get as well, and, when enhanced by adding livna.org to your /etc/apt/sources.list, gives you all the programs Red Hat feels that they can't touch, like ogle and mplayer, some of which have still not been packaged even for Debian unstable.

Fedora's preferred apt-equivalent is yum, but I like apt better; apt is certainly more bandwidth-efficient.

Debian's stability is great for older servers, but you are likely to find that it won't install on many machines you can buy in a store today, as it lacks support in the kernel and X for current hardware. That said, hardware running Red Hat 7.3 will probably work fine with woody.

Now, when sarge comes out Debian will again be competitive, but woody is too old.

Fedora is sponsored by redhat and produced in the United States. So providing such software is illegal or at least legally grey. Just like debian, who is noone's puppet, has a non-us source, fedora core has one too.

There's no redhat conspiracy here, it's just your stupid country's stupid laws and stupid legal system.

on rpm.livna.org, it's maintainted by the good old fedora.us team.