News : Fedora 12 : Constantine Released [All you need to know]

Much awaited Fedora 12 : Constantine has been released and is available now! This post is more of a collection of things you need to know before you go all the way to download Fedora 12 and install or upgrade.

FAQs

Q. What is Fedora?
A. The Fedora Project page describes it in a short and nice way!

Q. I want to know everything about Fedora 12. Where do I find it?
A. You are probably asking for Fedora 12 Release Notes.

Q. Will it work on my machine?
A. What do you have? A server/desktop/laptop/netbook/xo/some-alien-hardware! It’ll work if your machine satisfies the hardware requirements.

Q. I have been using Fedora since long. What are the new features in Fedora 12?
A. Please browse Fedora 12 : Constantine Feature List page.

Q. Ok. I am convinced. From where can I download Fedora 12?
A. Nice! Please visit Download Page for download options. Checkout torrents or select mirror from Fedora mirrors.

Q. No. I don’t want that regular DVD. Do you have something different to offer?
A. Yup! Spins community is doing a wonderful job! Chose one from KDE, LXDE, XFCE, BrOffice, FEL, Games and Edu spins.

Q. I have downloaded the Fedora ISO. How do I install it?
A. There are different ways in which you can install Fedora on your system.

  1. If you don’t have CD/DVD drive, you can follow How To: Install Fedora without CD or DVD.
  2. You can install Fedora using a USB drive. Checkout LiveUSB creator.
  3. You can follow the traditional way. Install using CD/DVD.

Q. I already have Fedora installed on my system. Should I upgrade or re-install?
A. Browse Upgrading Your Current System page and find out yourself.

Q. I think I want to upgrade my Fedora 11 system to Fedora 12. How do I do it using Yum?
A. Learn how to do it from the Yum Guru himself Yum upgrading to fedora 12 from fedora 11 or browse this page on Fedora Docs.

Q. I have ATI graphics card. How do I install Catalyst Display Drivers?
A. Follow How To: Install ATI Catalyst (fglrx) Drivers.

Q. Hey, I am stuck! I need some help. Where should I ask?
A. There are different ways like Real Time Support via IRC, mailing lists, forums etc. in which you can get help on topics related to Fedora. Browse Get Help page to checkout different methods.

Q. I like this Fedora thing. Can I help?
A. There are several ways in which you can help Fedora Project. The simplest way is to help others! Other methods can be ‘Write Documentation’, ‘Design for Fedora’, ‘Spread the Word’ or ‘Write Code’ 🙂 Checkout Join Fedora page.

 

News : ATI Drivers 9.10 Working with 2.6.30+ Kernels

AMD released the next version 9.10 of its ATI Catalyst display drivers for Linux nearly a fortnight ago. The drivers can be download from ATI Catalyst™ 9.9 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver Page. The good thing about this version is that a lot of people are reporting that they can get it working on 2.6.30+ kernels. These drivers are lifesaver for people want to keep everything upto date. The corruption around cursor is still present while watching videos or with compiz enabled.

Note1 : The installation process is same as version 9.8 and can be access at How To: Install ATI Catalyst (fglrx) 9.8 Drivers on Fedora 11.
Note2 : If you want to configure dual display follow How To: Configure Dual Display with ATI Radeon (fglrx).

 

How To: Configure Dual Display with ATI Radeon (fglrx)

As promised in my last post (News: ATI Catalyst Display Drivers 9.9 Released), I am back with a post on configuring dual display with ATI Radeon HD Graphics Card and proprietary catalyst (fglrx) drivers from ATI.

Hardware Used

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3200 (256MB, onboard)
Monitor 0: ViewSonic VG1930WM 1440×900 (19″ LCD, Connected via DVI port)
Monitor 1: Samsung SyncMaster 793S 1280×1024 (17″ CRT, Connected via VGA port)

Types of Dual Display

  • Mirror: Both screens have same content, identical refresh rate and resolution.
  • Clone: Both screens have same content but refresh rates and resolutions can be different.
  • Horizontal: Both screens can have different content, refresh rates and resolution. Screen 1 is left or right of Screen2.
  • Vertical: Same as horizontal. The only difference is that Screen1 is above or below Screen2.

In this post, we are interested in Horizontal setup with xinerama on. This way we can have two desktops allowing full screen modes on both of them and allowing us to drag and drop windows from one screen to the other.

Install ATI Drivers

If you don’t have ATI drivers installed already, follow this How To: Install ATI Catalyst (fglrx) Drivers on Fedora 11 (works for any version of ATI Catalyst drivers).

Generate xorg.conf file

If you don’t see the xorg.conf file at /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then you need to generate it to proceed to next step. Use the following command as root to generate one

[root@fedora ~]$ Xorg -configure

This command will generate the default xorg.conf file at /root/xorg.conf.new. Copy it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

[root@fedora ~]$ cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Backup xorg.conf file

Backup your original xorg.conf file so that you can restore it in case the configuration doesn’t work the way you expected.

[root@fedora ~]$ cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

Generate Configuration for Dual Display

Now we are ready to generate the configuration for dual display. Use the following command with appropriate arguments (in accordance with your hardware configuration)

# --screen-layout will place second screen on left of your first screen. Other possible values are right,above,below.
# --xinerama=on option enables you to have two different desktops and one of them being passive.
# You can drag and drop windows from one desktop to the other. Task bars appear only on one of the desktops.
[root@fedora ~]$ aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=left --xinerama=on
# --resolution=_screen_number_,widthxheight
[root@fedora ~]$ aticonfig --resolution=0,1440x900 --resolution=1,1280x1024
# Set horizontal sync and vertical refresh rates for both monitors.
[root@fedora ~]$ aticonfig --hsync=0,30-60 --hsync=1,30-60 --vrefresh=0,30-60 --vrefresh=1,30-60

You can download my xorg.conf file via this link.

Reboot or Logout and Login Again

If you just setup your ATI drivers and configured the dual display, you need to reboot so that fglrx module can be loaded properly. If you rebooted after setting up the drivers, just logout and login again to checkout your dual display 🙂 If everything works fine, say thanks to me and if not blame ATI 😛

Adjust DPI for Normal Font Size

I faced a problem with my font sizes being too big while using xinerama. It was easy to fix by adjusting DPI. Go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance. Go to Fonts tab. Click Details located near the bottom right corner. On that window, try descreasing the “Dots Per Inch” value. Mine worked fine with 85 DPI.

Below is an image of my dual display setup. Click to enlarge.

Dual Display Configuration ViewSonic Samsung Using ATI Radeon Catalyst (fglrx)

 

News: ATI Catalyst Display Drivers 9.9 Released

AMD has released the next version 9.9 of its ATI Catalyst display drivers for Linux. The drivers can be download from ATI Catalyst™ 9.9 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver Page. I have already tried them with kernel 2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.i586 and they seem to work fine without SWCursor hack. But I still see corruptions around cursor while moving cursor in a playing video or in Compiz. BTW I got dual display working with Xinerama turned on with this version. I’ll post a HowTo about the same very soon. I think it’ll take some more time before the drivers are completely stable. AMD has been doing a really good job in rolling out drivers at regular intervals.

Note : The installation process is same as version 9.8 and can be access at How To: Install ATI Catalyst (fglrx) 9.8 Drivers on Fedora 11.

 

How To: Recover Deleted Files in Linux Using Photorec

Frequently I get messages like “I have accidentally deleted my project. Is there any way to recover it in Linux?” or “I worked really hard on that program and managed to deleted it right before submission 🙁 How do I recover?”. Well I didn’t really have any idea on “How to actually recover deleted files in Linux”.

A few days back I was designing the new logo for Videocache in Inkscape. After finishing the design, I saved the svg file carefully. And deleted other images which I embedded in the logo. A few moments later I realized that I just screwed up myself by deleting all those files as the svg file is now good for nothing.

I searched a lot on recovering files in Linux but in vain. Then a friend (bitgeek) told me about Photorec. I managed to recover all the files using photorec. I thought it would be a good idea to let others know and spread a good word about Photorec. Below is a step by step howto on using Photorec to recover your files.

What is Photorec?

From Photorec website,

PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from Hard Disks and CDRom and lost pictures (thus, its ‘Photo Recovery’ name) from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the filesystem and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media’s filesystem has been severely damaged or re-formatted.

For This HowTo

Lets say I had a file download_arrow.png in /home/saini/Desktop which I have removed accidentally. Login as root and create a directory recover which will be used to store all the recovered files.

Install testdisk/PhotoRec

Photorec comes as a part of testdisk package in Fedora (I hope its same for other distributions as well). Use yum to install testdisk.

[root@fedora-tips ~]$ yum install testdisk

Launch Photorec

Once you are done with installation. Open a terminal and launch photorec (as root).

[root@fedora-tips recover]$ photorec

Select Hard Disk

If you have more than one hard disk in your system, select the one from which you have deleted the file(s).

PhotoRec Hard Disk Selection

Select Partition Type

If your hard disk has Linux partitions, then select [Intel].

PhotoRec Partition Selection

Select Filetype Option

Move to [File Opt] and press enter. Here you can disable all file types by pressing ‘s’ . Use space to toggle the check button. Now since we removed a png file, we are going to check only png file type.

PhotoRec Filetype Selection

Select Options

Photorec also has a list of different options. Under normal circumstances you don’t need to modify them

PhotoRec Option Selection

Select Partition

Move the selector to the partition from which you have removed the file. Then press enter on search.

PhotoRec Partition Selection

Select Filesystem Type

If you are using Linux, its going to be ext2/ext3/ext4. So the default selection is file.

PhotoRec Partition Selection

Select Space for Analysis

Select free if you didn’t write to that partition after removing the particular file otherwise select whole.

PhotoRec Space Selection

Select a Directory to Recover Files

Now select the path where the recovered files will be stored. Then press ‘Y’.

PhotoRec Recovery Directory Selection

Recovery Progress

Photorec will show how many files it has recovered.

PhotoRec Recovery Progress

All recovered file will be stored in the directory selected above. Open them in a file browser and you’ll get the removed file there. I hope this howto will help you recovering files you accidentally delete 🙂