Installing Fedora 10 -IV
- May 1st, 2009
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8. Configuring Firefox
* Acrobat Plugin
To be able to view pdf documents through Firefox you must have adobe acrobat reader installed.
* Flash Plugin
Fedora 32bit
First you must install the adobe repository.
su -
rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/linux/i386/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm
rpm –import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux
Now install it like this:
yum install flash-plugin
Finally restart Firefox and go to Tools -> Add-ons -> Plugins. You should Shockwave Flash among the plugins.
Fedora x86_64
Finally Adobe has released a 64bit version of Flash Player. Although this is still an alpha release it seems pretty stable. To give it a try Download 64-bit Plugin for Linux. Untar it and paste the library in the plugins directory of Firefox.
tar -zxf libflashplayer-10.0.d20.7.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
su -c ‘mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins’
If you were previously using the nspluginwrapper with the 32bit version of Flash you first have to remove them:
su -c ‘yum remove flash-plugin nspluginwrapper.{i386,x86_64} pulseaudio-libs.i386′
Restart Firefox and go to Tools -> Add-ons -> Plugins. You should Shockwave Flash among the plugins.
If you are not happy with this alpha version you can still use the 32bit flash like this:
You must install the nspluginwrapper.i386 and nspluginwrapper.x86_64 packages to enable the 32-bit Adobe Flash plugin in x86_64 Firefox and the pulseaudio-libs.i386 package to enable sound from the plugin.
Create the 32bit mozilla plugin directory using this command:
su -c ‘mkdir -p /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins’
Install flash-plugin
su -c ‘yum install flash-plugin’
Install the nspluginwrapper.i386, nspluginwrapper.x86_64, alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i386 packages:
su -c ‘yum -y install nspluginwrapper.{i386,x86_64} alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i386 curl.i386′
Restart Firefox and go to Tools -> Add-ons -> Plugins. You should Shockwave Flash among the plugins.
If you don’t see it run mozilla-plugin-config to register the flash plugin:
su -c ‘mozilla-plugin-config -i -g -v’ If Firefox crashes when you visit a page with flash type the following:
su -c ‘gedit /etc/adobe/mms.cfg’and in that file paste the following line:
WindowlessDisable=trueSave and exit. Now try again with Firefox.
In some cases, nspluginwrapper produces SELinux AVC errors, some of which may prevent viewing Flash content. Changing the relevant SELinux boolean may resolve this problem, but eliminates a great deal of additional security when using nspluginwrapper. To make the change, run the following command:
su -c ’setsebool -P allow_unconfined_nsplugin_transition=0′
* Video Playback Plugin
Fedora 10 has totem-mozplugin preinstalled. Try to open a wmp video with Firefox. In case additional plugins are needed you will be just prompted to install them! That’s just a great improvement!
However SELinux might cause you problems if you have it enabled. The good news are that it is also telling you exactly what command to type to solve this problem. I had to type the following commands to make a .wmp to be played in Firefox, but finally I made it!
su -
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t ‘/usr/lib/sse2/libx264.so.61′
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t ‘/usr/lib/sse2/libavformat.so.52.22.1′
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t ‘/usr/lib/sse2/libavutil.so.49.10.0′
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t ‘/usr/lib/sse2/libavcodec.so.51.71.0′
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t ‘/usr/lib/sse2/libpostproc.so.51.2.0′
So, if SELinux complains click on the yellow star icon and copy the Fix Command it says. Type it in a terminal as root and restart Firefox.
* java Plugin
Fedora 10 comes with java icedtea plugin preinstalled. However you may face some problems when trying to run certain java applets. For more information check here .
* mms streaming play
In the address bar type:
about:config
Right click somewhere and select NEW and then STRING. Type this in the box:
network.protocol-handler.app.mms
Click ok and in the box type the program you want to open the streaming media with, such as /usr/bin/mplayer.
Next right click again and select NEW and then BOOLEAN. Type this in the box:
network.protocol-handler.external.mms
Click ok and then type:
true
* Set backspace button
By default in Fedora’s Firefox when you press the backspace button it does nothing. If you want backspace to take you to the previous page type in the address bar:
about:config
and in Filter box type:
browser.backspace_action
Right click on it, select Modify and change its value from 2 to 0. Restart Firefox and the backspace will be set.
* IPv6
You might notice that your browsing through Firefox is a little slow on Fedora 10. This is because Firefox 3 has enabled by default IPv6 which causes Firefox to first resolve an IPv6 address and after the connection fails it switches to IPv4. To change this setting type:
about:config
and in Filter box type:
network.dns.disableIPv6
Right click on it, select Toggle and change its value to true. Restart Firefox and you are ready!
9. Configuring e-mail client
Fedora 10 has evolution as the default e-mail client. Of course you can install Thunderbird if you prefer it. Just type:
su -c ‘yum install thunderbird’
Now you can find Thunderbird under Applications -> Internet -> Thunderbird Mail Client. To make it the default Fedora mail client go to System -> Preferences -> Personal -> Preferred Applications and under Mail Reader select Thunderbird Mail.
10. MP3 and Audio players
**Note: To install many of the following packages you must have the RPM Fusion Repository enabled.
The first time you will try to play an mp3 file Totem Movie Player will come up and it will ask you to search for the mp3 decoder. As long as you have enabled the RPM Fusion repo as mentioned before it will find it and install it automatically. Just like that! If you still want to do it the manuall way…! or install an additional application continue reading below.
* Rhythmbox
I believe that Rhythmbox is a better mp3 player than the default Totem for Gnome users. You can find it under Applications -> Sound & Video -> Rhythmbox Music Player. If you don’t have it, to install it type:
su -c ‘yum install gstreamer rhythmbox’
To make all mp3 files open by default with Rhytmbox right click on an mp3 file and select ‘Open with Other Application…’. Click on Rhytmbox Music Player and you’re done.
To add mp3 and other audio support type:
su -c ‘yum install gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly’
* Amarok
amaroK is a pretty good audio/mp3 player for KDE. Of course you can install it under Gnome or any other Desktop Environment too. To install it and add mp3 support type:
su -c ‘yum install amarok phonon-backend-gstreamer’
* Exaile
Exaile is similar to Amarok but it’s based on GTK+ toolkit. Therefore it’s a good solution for Gnome users! To install it type:
su -c ‘yum install exaile gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly’
* Audacious
Audacious is another audio player similar to old winamp 2.x. To install it type:
su -c ‘yum install audacious audacious-plugins audacious-plugins-freeworld audacious-plugins-freeworld-*’
If you want to use your winamp 2.x skin with audacious simply copy winamp’s *.wsz skin to /usr/share/audacious/Skins/
If your tags are in a different encoding than utf8 you can force audacious to use it:
Preferences -> Playlist -> Metadata -> Fallback character encoding -> iso8859-7
If you want to add in queue mp3s when double clicked edit this file:
su -c ‘gedit /usr/share/applications/fedora-audacious.desktop’
And change Exec=audacious to Exec=audacious -e
* XMMS
This audio player is no longer used, you could try audacious instead, but if you still want it type:
su -c ‘yum install xmms xmms-libs xmms-mp3′
11. DVD & Video
**Note: To install many of the following packages you must have the RPM Fusion Repository enabled. If you have most probably you will prompted to search automatically for the needed codecs. They will automatically installed. As simple as that!
* DVD playback
In order to play DVDs you must install the appropriate codecs.
su -c ‘yum install libdvdread libdvdnav lsdvd’
Those files are enough for playing your non encrypted DVDs. However if you want to decrypt an encrypted DVD you need libdvdcss which isn’t included in RPM Fusion because of legal issues in some countries such as the US. As mentioned in RPM Fusion .
Opinions between the members of RPM Ffusion differ on the legality of libdvdcss, however no one is ready to vouch for it resuming the legal responsibilities.
Therefore libdvdcss is being dropped. See also the comments on legal issues in the link above. So, we have to wait and see what solution they will come up with.
**Note: Livna could be a temporary solution.
su -
rpm -Uvh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release.rpm
yum install libdvdcss
Most probably SELinux will report an AVC Denial. To fix this type:
su -
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t ‘/usr/lib/sse2/libswscale.so.0.6.1′
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t ‘/usr/lib/sse2/libpostproc.so.51.2.0′
* Video files playback
When you will try to open a video file with Totem media player it will ask you to search for the necessary codecs. They will be automatically installed! If you have previously set up mp3 playback additional packages would have been installed as dependencies. These packages include video codecs such as xvidcore, ffmpeg and other.
To check some of them type:
su -c ‘yum install ffmpeg ffmpeg-libs gstreamer-ffmpeg libmatroska xvidcore’
* Totem
Fedora 10 has installed Totem Movie Player. If you want to play DVD files also with totem type:
su -c ‘yum install totem-xine totem-gstreamer xine-lib-extras-freeworld’
* Mplayer/SMPlayer
I prefer mplayer and smplayer (mplayer’s GUI) for video playback. It supports almost any video type, external subtitles as well as DVD playback as long as you have the needed codecs installed as shown previously.
su -c ‘yum install mplayer smplayer’
Open smplayer from Applications -> Sound & Video -> SMPlayer
* VLC
VLC (Video Lan Client) supports almost any video type without the need of installing external codecs.
su -c ‘yum install vlc’
* kaffeine
kaffeine is another KDE media player that uses the xine engine.
su -c ‘yum install kaffeine xine xine-lib xine-lib-extras-freeworld’
* RealPlayer
You can download RealPlayer rpm from here . Just choose to open it with the Package Installer.
* Avidemux
Avidemux is a very good video editor. Install it like this:
su -c ‘yum install avidemux’
It will be listed in Applications -> Sound & Video -> Avidemux Video Editor.
