Simple guide to updating and installing software in Fedora 15

Caveat. I am by no means a Linux Expert. I used Mandrake and Red Hat Linux for three years almost seven years ago on my desktop, and only got back around to using it again in December of 2010. Last December I installed Ubuntu 10.10, and Ubuntu is a really nice distribution to use, especially if you are new to Linux. Install and use. Nothing much else to do. I never even thought of writing a guide, there is really no need to.

Last week I decided to try out Fedora 15, mainly because I was interested in the new Gnome 3 graphical user interface. Getting Fedora installed and updated is a little bit more tricky. Since Fedora is a test bed for cutting edge Linux technology this is to be expected. But actually, if you know what to do, it is pretty easy.

Updating the Operating System. Fedora 15 has a graphical user interface for updates. Just click Software Updates in Applications, and install the updates you want to install.

There is a bug, which is a known issue. If you got Fedora 15 at release and updated on a regular basis it should not affect you. If you are installing it now, there seems to be some conflict with some earlier and later updates. There is a very simple work around. Update via command line. It's not as hard as it sounds.

In Application bring up the Terminal and type in the command "su" without the quotation marks and type in your password.

After that, type in the following command "yum update" again without the quotation marks, and press Enter. Fedora 15 will install all available updates. It is that simple.

Updating Firefox. Fedora 15 will come with Firefox 4. There are plenty of ways to update to Firefox 5, but since you got used to using the terminal already, this is really the easiest way to do things. So after updating Fedora just type in this code (if you closed the previous terminal you will need to type "su" and your password again) and press enter:

yum install firefox

Adding productivity software. The great thing about Linux is the amount of free software. You can install LibreOffice, which is office suite compatible with Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations in the same way by entering the following command:

yum groupinstall "Office/Productivity"

You can also add Gimp, which is a Photo Editing software similar to Photoshop (although the basic Fedora install already comes with a simple photoeditor for cropping, rotating and enhancing pictures):

yum install gimp

Adobe Flash, Codecs, Google Dropbox and more. You can add a application called Autoplus+ which will make it easy to install Flash, Codes and some very useful software. In the terminal type the following code:

su -c 'yum -y --nogpgcheck install http://dnmouse.org/autoplus-1.1-8.noarch.rpm'

Launch Autoplus+ from the applications and install what you want with a mouse click. I have wrote about Autoplus+ a few days ago at this link.