Fedora Core 3 Linux

Installation notes for Fedora Core 3 Workstation on my AMD Athlon64 3200+.

I recently switched to FC6, so this page is of historic interest only, read my installation notes for that.

Basics

The graphical FC3-installer is pretty self-explaining, I choose to do a Workstation-Installation, as this includes a preconfigured developement-environment, which I needed anyway.

NVidia graphics drivers

I ditched the rpms from http://rebus.webz.cz/, because the newer NVidia-installers know how to correctly handle FC3-installs with udev.

As has been mentioned before by other users, FC3 has a problem with nVidia-drivers and the graphical boot-screen (or both, because it seems these are not related problems).
Symptoms: The computer hangs with a blank or (older driver) white screen and has to be hard-reset.
This also happens if you try to switch resolutions and also sometimes if you switch from X to a console and back.
According to some newsgroups this is a common problem for all 6600GT and 6800GT cards.
nVidia finaly managed to release a driver, which did not show this behaviour, so the problem seems to be on their side and might be solved.

Therefore, the final solution is to download driver version 1.0-7664 or better (1.0-7676 has better performance).

If you -like me- happen to have bought a Dell 2001FP, you will notice, that it does not switch to 1600x1200x24 with this driver any more, but gets stuck at 1280x960x24.

Googling around gave me this hint, wich works for me:

Section "Modes"
  Identifier    "Modes0"
  Modeline      "1600x1200" 130.25 1600 1648 1680 1760 1200 1203 1207 1235
EndSection
 
 
Section "Monitor"
  Identifier   "Monitor0"
  VendorName   "Dell"
  ModelName    "Dell 2001FP (Digital)"
  HorizSync    31.0 - 80.0
  VertRefresh  56.0 - 76.0
  Option       "DPMS"
  UseModes    "Modes0"
EndSection

taken from Radeon 9200 or 9250 (RV280) at 1600x1200 over DVI under Linux.

Nvidia chipset drivers

nForce 250 driver for i386 Version linux_nforce_1.0-0292. Can be downloaded from nVidia-homepage. Follow the installation-manual. Change /etc/modprobe.conf to reflect loading of the new drivers as follows.

# alias eth0 forcedeth # uncommented, use commercial nvidia nforce-driver
alias eth0 nvnet
alias scsi_hostadapter sata_nv
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0 # AC97 compliant can run nforce3-onboard
# alias snd-card-0 nvsound # nvsound is OSS-only, does not work
options snd-card-0 index=0
install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0 && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
alias usb-controller1 ohci-hcd
alias char-major-195* nvidia
options nvidia NVreg_EnableAGPSBA=1 NVreg_EnableAGPFW=1 NVreg_ReqAGPRate=8

Truetype

Installing Microsoft Core Truetype fonts according to this page did not made the fonts show up in any Gnome-applications.
Changing /usr/share/fonts/fonts.cache-1 like this activated them.

"msttcorefonts" 0 ".dir"
"openoffice" 0 ".dir"
"bitstream-vera" 0 ".dir"
"bitmap-fonts" 0 ".dir"
"default" 0 ".dir"

Java-support

Java-support can be enabled according to this procedure, but Java Webstart does not work afterwards.
Installing this archive makes it work (follow the instructions mentioned here).

Doom 3

Follow the installation-manual on zerowing.idsoftware.com. For my machine, the standard-option (using the ALSA-interface for sound) led to system crashes and/or no sound. Appending +set s_driver oss to the startup-option fixed the problem (at the expense of surround-sound).

Have a look at other notes as well, here I would only talk about the things which did not went right automatically of with the help of the notes and hints mentioned below.

Glitches, Things Missing

Gnome DVD-Burning Utility

The Gnome Nautilus DVD-burning-app stubbornly starts all the time if I insert a allready burned and finalized DVD instead of showing the content of it.
Don't know how to prevent this.
I have filed a bug with Fedora, which has been closed meanwhile without beeing fully resolved (mostly because FC3 went into unsupported state).

Meanwhile, this changed to a less anyoing bug, the DVD-ROM is beeing mounted but cannot be opened (it appears empty in Nautilus). This can be changed by inserting a CD-ROM first.

Might be a reason to upgrade either the DVD-Burner firmware or the operating system.

Editing Applications Menu

Editing the Applications menu is a pain, there should be an editor (Remark: There is one, in the next version of Gnome, in FC5).

A list of installation-notes from other FC3-users:

• FC3 Linux Installation Notes by Stanton Finley.
• FC3 Installation Notes by Mauriat Miranda.
• FC3 Installation Notes by Stefan Rotsch.