I found that FC3 did not like to install when only connected to a TV, so at this stage I have a monitor connected to my FX5200. Insert FC3 dvd and reboot the computer, at the boot: prompt type:
linux xfs
and press enter.
Installation media check is useful to do once to make sure your dvd is error free. If you have already done this before on this dvd then select Skip.
Click Next to get through the Welcome to Fedora screen.
Click Next to select language to English(English).
Click Next to select U.S. English keyboard.
If the Upgrade Examine step reveals a previous Fedora installation then select the Install Fedora Core option and click Next to force a new installation.
Select the Custom Installation Type, and click Next.
Select Manually partition with Disk Druid and click Next.
Here is how I set up my partitions:
/dev/hda1 /boot ext3 100MB /dev/hda2 / ext3 8000MB /dev/hda3 swap 512MB /dev/hda5 /video xfs 182000MB
If this is a re-installation make sure any important data is transferred somewhere else before you format all the partitions. Click Next to continue and Format if the Format Warning pops up.
The default settings of the Boot Loader Configuration screen are fine, so click Next.
For Network Configuration I plan to configure the wireless card later, so eth0 and DHCP are fine. For Hostname I chose manually and typed in
mythbox.home.lan
to set the hostname. Click Next to continue.
On the Firewall Configuration screen I chose No firewall to simplify things (I like to use vncserver to log in from my laptop instead of using a monitor or the TV to read small writing) and Disabled for SELinux (my mythbox is behind a firewall, and SELinux still seems to cause a few problems at the moment). Next to continue, Proceedto get through the No Firewall Warning.
For Additional Language Support I select English(Australia) and deselect English(USA) and click Next.
For Time Zone Selection I click on Australia/Melbourne - Victoria, select System clock uses UTC and then Next.
In Set Root Password I type in a root password twice and click Next.
In Package Group Selection I basically follow Jarod's guide and select the following groups (and de-select the other groups):
The default selections in each group except MySQL Database are fine. For MySQL Database, click on Details and pick the following:
The other packages in MySQL Database can be deselected and click OK to continue.
The total install size should be about 1,693M and click Next to continue.
On About to Install click Next to continue. The installer will format the hard disk as specified and install all the requested packages. Once the process is complete the dvd drive spits out the dvd, and click Reboot to continue with the post-install configuration.
At the Welcome screen click Next to continue.
Read the licence agreement and select Yes, I agree to the Licence Agreement and click Next.
At Date and Time check that the correct date and time are set, then click on the Network Time Protocol tab and select Enable Network Time Protocol. I remove the ntp servers that are pre-selected and enter my ISP's NTP server. See Jarod's guide for information on how to pick out a good NTP server for yourself. Click Next to continue.
At the Display page I select a Resolution of 1024x768 and click Next to continue.
At the System User screen I make a mythtv user.
Username: mythtv Full Name: Password: password Confirm Password: password
Use a real password instead of password and click Next to continue.
At Sound Card the installer has already detected my onboard nForce2 sound card and installed the snd-intel8x0 module. If I click Play test sound I can hear a test sound. Click Next to continue.
As I used the dvd to install there are no Additional CDs to install, so just click Next to get past the Additional CDs screen.
Click Next at the Finish Setup screen to finish the configuration.
The Fedora Core login screen should now appear, with a prompt for Username and Password. Enter 'mythtv' and your password to log in. You will be greeted with a remarkably ugly desktop (FC3 seems to want to default to Gnome, and deselecting Gnome leaves us with TWM). Move the mouse cursor over the large window with a command prompt in it. Type in:
$ switchdesk KDE
Hit enter, then move the mouse cursor back over the grey background, right-click and drag down to the Exit menu item, release the right button and you should be back at the login screen.
Login again with 'mythtv' and your password, and this time KDE will start up and appear much prettier. You will have a red flashing exclamation mark in the bottom right corner of the screen, but you can ignore it safely for now if you are behind a firewall.
Left click on the red hat in the bottom left corner, then select System Tools/Terminal to open up a command prompt. With the non-nVidia driver for my fx5200 graphics card having the command prompt window touch the top of the screen causes horizontal lines to scroll up and down the screen. To stop this I just move the window down a touch by left-clicking on the title-bar and dragging the window down a little bit. The display problems go away when the nVidia driver is installed.
In your new command prompt window you will see a command prompt which looks like:
[mythtv@mythbox ~]$
A black solid cursor blinks next to the '$'. The 'mythtv@mythbox' means that you are user 'mythtv' at the computer 'mythbox'. The '~' is an abbreviation for '/home/mythtv' and shows that you are in your home directory.
Now type in 'su -' to make the display show:
[mythtv@mythbox ~]$ su -
And hit enter. Type in the root (superuser) password you selected during the installation process at the Password: prompt. You will be greeted with a new prompt:
[root@mythbox ~]#
This means that you are now the user 'root' and you have moved to the '/root' directory (root's home directory is not under the /home directory). To get back to being user 'mythtv' type in:
[root@mythbox ~]# exit
and hit enter. You will now have the original prompt again.
From now on I will leave out the command prompt in the square brackets, and will just use '$' to denote commands entered as the user 'mythtv' and '#' to denote commands entered as 'root'. Remember that to enter commands as root you need to do a 'su -' and enter in the root password.
Following Jarod's guide install the atrpms-kickstart package with the following commands:
# rpm -Uvh http://atrpms.net/dist/fc3/atrpms-kickstart/atrpms-kickstart-25-1.rhfc3.at.i386.rpm # apt-get update # apt-get install apt yum # apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
These commands will download a pile of rpm files and update your FC3. If you have to re-install I recommend copying all of the downloaded rpm files at /var/cache/apt/archives to a partition you don't format or another computer on your network before re-installing, and then copying them back to /var/cache/apt/archives after the first 'apt-get update' above. This will reduce the amount of downloading you have to do and shorten the time taken to install everything again.