I decided to install the i686 KDE spin version of Fedora 14.

Unfortunately there are still third party applications like flash player or skype that seem to have better compatibility with x86 instead of X86_64.

I know the ultimate goal is to make this a MythTV media centre computer, but I like browsing the web, going to youtube or making skype calls through my lounge TV.

I downloaded the KDE spin version of Fedora 14 and put it in a USB stick with unetbootin. Please note that you have to use version 549 or above of unetbootin, otherwise it wont work.

After the system starts it offers the option to install to hard drive.

1. The installer will pop up, click on next.
2. Select your keyboard, click on next.
3. Select your storage type, in my case I'm choosing basic storage devices. Click on next.
4. Then I choose to re-initialize the device since it is a new hard drive. Be careful here, in case you have some data you don't want to lose.
5. Hostname: I name my media centres mythbox-master.omcentre.com.au
6. Now select your timezone (my timezone is Australia/Brisbane), I tick system clock uses UTC.
7. Set your root password, click on next
8. Now to patition the drive, I select create custom layout.
9. I usually select 100MB for a boot partition, 20GB for the operating system, 2GB for swap and the rest for storage mounted on /video.
10. Once you finish here, you have to select the boot loader, I ticked install boot loader on /dev/sda click on next.
11. Now the system copies live image to hard drive.
12. Now that the system is installed click on close and then reboot.
13. After rebooting the welcome screen appears. Click on forward.
14. Licence Information. Read the licensing and if agreed, click on forward.
15. Now create a user. I'm creating a user called mythtv. Set the password and click on Forward.
16. Set the date and time and tick syncronize date and time over the network.
17. I decided to send the hardware profile of my system. Then clicked on finish.
18. Now the system asks you to log on for the first time using the previously selected username and password.

In Fedora 14 ssh is disabled by default. Most of the installations I do on this systems I do in the console using putty from my Windows notebook. It makes things easy as you can copy and paste most commands.

To enable ssh it log on in a console as root. To go to a console press (ctrl+alt+F2). In username select root and in password the password you wrote before.

#chkconfig sshd on
#service sshd start

Disable selinux

I knowselinux improves security, but for a home media centre connected to the Internet through a router it is a bit too much, so I will disable it.

Disable Firewall

I'm also disabling the firewall.

vi /etc/sysconfig/selinux

... and set SELINUX to disabled:

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#       enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#       permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#       disabled - SELinux is fully disabled.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= type of policy in use. Possible values are:
#       targeted - Only targeted network daemons are protected.
#       strict - Full SELinux protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

Now that the system is the way we want it we can restart to apply all these changes.

#reboot

To install the flash plugin is fedora is as simple as installing the repository and the doing the installation

#rpm -Uvh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

Then to install do:

#yum install flash-plugin

We need to add the Skype repository manually as there is no rpm. To do so, create the file /etc/yum.repos.d/skype.repo

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/skype.repo

Then, add these content into that file:

[skype]
name=Skype Repository
baseurl=http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/fedora/updates/i586/
gpgkey=http://www.skype.com/products/skype/linux/rpm-public-key.asc
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

Save it and then run this command:

yum install skype

If you want to intereact with the real world, there are a few things that will make this interaction nicer in Fedora, they are:

• Windows Fonts: to be able to read and create documents using those fonts
• Windows Codecs: to be able to play media encoded using those codecs
• Libdvdcss2: to be able to play just about any commercial movie

mkdir /video/support/software/msfonts
cd /video/support/software/msfonts
wget corefonts.sourceforge.net/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
yum -y install rpm-build cabextract ttmkfdir
rpmbuild -bb msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
rpm -ivh /root/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm --nodeps

Installing Win32-Codecs

mkdir /video/support/software/win32codecs
cd /video/support/software/win32codecs
wget www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2
tar xfvj all-20071007.tar.bz2
mkdir /usr/lib/codecs/
cp all-20071007/* /usr/lib/codecs/
ln -s /usr/lib/codecs/ /usr/lib/win32

yum install wget
mkdir /video/support/software/libdvdcss2
cd /video/support/software/libdvdcss2
wget dl.atrpms.net/f14-i386/atrpms/stable/libdvdcss2-1.2.10-5.fc14.i686.rpm
rpm -ivh libdvdcss2-1.2.10-5.fc14.i686.rpm

From Fedora 12 nouveau interferes with the nvidia driver, to disable nouveau, first you'll have to blacklist it:

echo 'blacklist nouveau' >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Open /boot/grub/grub.conf file and check that the kernel row have following parameters:

rdblacklist=nouveau nouveau.modeset=0

Reboot your computer.

This process involves the creation of a kernel module, meaning that everytime the kernel version changes (when doing a #yum update), you'll have to do it again.

To do this process I'm creating the directory /video/support/software/nvidia, then going into that directory and downloading the nvidia drivers with the wget command. Then I switch to mode 3, and perform the installation of the driver.

Once the module is built, switch back to run mode 5.

These are the commands:

mkdir /video/support/software/nvidia
cd /video/support/software/nvidia
wget us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/260.19.44/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.44.run
init 3
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.44.run
init 5

Once you are back in KDE, you can configure your graphics adapter by going to:

System->NVIDIA X Server Settings

If you are planning to use Mythweb, you'll need apache, php and mysql.

To install apache and php with some modules

yum install httpd php php-common php-pear php-pdo php-mysql php-pgsql php-pecl-memcache php-gd php-mbstring php-mcrypt php-xml

Set apache to start automatically:

chkconfig httpd on

Now you can edit the apache configuration file and set the server name, to do so, open the apache configuration file:

vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Look for ServerName in that file. In case it is commented, uncomment it and set a name and a port, for example:

ServerName mythbox-master.omcentre.com.au:80

Now start the server:

service httpd start

To install MySQL

yum install mysql mysql-server

To start mysql and make it start automatically everytime the computer boots:

chkconfig mysqld on
service mysqld start

Now check that networking is enabled. Run:

netstat -tap

You should see a line like this:

tcp 0 0 *:mysql *:* LISTEN 2721/mysqld

Now, assign a password for the root user in MySQL, and replace the user root with the user mysql. I'm using the password mythtv.

mysqladmin -h localhost -u root password mythtv
mysql -uroot -pmythtv mysql

Once you are in the mysql console do the following:

mysql> UPDATE user SET user='mythtv' WHERE user='root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> quit

Install phpMyAdmin

If you want to have access and edit your mysql databases easily, I would recommend you install phpMyAdmin

To install it:

yum install phpMyAdmin

Then edit the configuration file:

vi /etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php

If you are using user mysql and password mysql, these are the parameters

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser']   = 'mythtv';          // MySQL control user settings
                                                    // (this user must have read-only
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass']   = 'mythtv';          // access to the "mysql/user"
                                                    // and "mysql/db" tables).
                                                    // The controluser is also
                                                    // used for all relational
                                                    // features (pmadb)
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type']     = 'http';      // Authentication method (config, http or cookie based)?
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user']          = 'mythtv';          // MySQL user
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password']      = 'mythtv';          // MySQL password (only needed