Fedora News Updates #8

For the week of: Thursday, March 18 2004

Available at: http://fedoranews.org/colin/fnu/issue8.shtml

This is issue number eight of the Fedora News Updates, the weekly (or bi-weekly) newsletter for the Fedora community. The issue has taken on a two-week release cycle, just as well.

Fedora for more platforms

We have officially released Fedora Core 1 for AMD64, which is the first 64-bit port of a Fedora Core release. In other notes, Lucas Dulley is going to start porting Fedora to the IA64 platform.

New mailing list and a new site

For all the SELinux traffic, there is now a new mailing lists that will address all issues related to SELinux implementation with Fedora. fedora-selinux-list is available for user and developer related discussion. The birth of FedoraChat.org, touting itself as the unofficial Fedora Forum, seems to be getting quite the number of site views.

Beginners tips

When asked what kinds of editors were available, Keven Ring introduced the apropos command.
It has been noted that sometimes, when unmounting a floppy, you're not allowed to do it - Nautilus seems to have locked it. Erik Hemdal shows us that we can unmount using the "lazy unmount" option. Others have found that disabling the FAM (sgi-fam) service, seems to make things better.
USB Palm Pilot not syncing? Julien tells us that chmod'ing the serial USB device solves this problem.
Don't like the GNOME splash screen (which is changed to the Fedora logo)? Christopher Wickert recommends using gconf-editor, while Xia Bin tells us exactly where the file is located.
Want to add items to the GNOME menu? Kurt Sabathy has written quite a comprehensive guide with regards to this.

Firewall configuration

Configuring iptables, the firewall of choice, is not an easy task for the end-user. Luckily, there are graphical ways to get things done. Firewall Builder is useful, and works as an online application. Bevan Bennett points us to a little more than the iptables manual page, while Enric Martinez shows us firestarter.

Fedora with the Promise SATA controller

Jean-Rene Cormier has come up with a guide titled Fedora on a Promise SATA. He goes through the entire process of how he installed Fedora with an SATA controller.

Congratulations!

Alexandra Oliva and wife celebrated the birth of Larissa Garcia Oliva! A big congratulations goes out to them.

Fedora Core 2 test1 Notes (with more SELinux stuff too)

PC speaker not beeping any longer? modprobe pcspkr will solve this for you.
When new policy packages get downloaded, there are some steps you need to follow - James Morris confirms the list.
Want to know the best way to get started running SELinux and testing it? James Morris shows us what he's done to get started. Russell Coker has his thoughts too (and tells us it works fine even when you don't have the machine nearby).
With CIFS giving quite a lot of issues, Dave Jones might turn SMBFS back on in FC2 test3.

Errata

In Fedora News Updates #7, it was mentioned that there's a new apt-get available. Warren Togami has written in to tell us that the new "apt mirror-select" option is a notable new feature.

Software

xrestop

Mike Harris has added xrestop to Rawhide (fedora development feed). Read the release notes.

GNOME Bluetooth Configuration Utility

Fredrik Noring points to a new utility that is available. There have been no responses with regards to interest yet, so if anyone is into Bluetooth, start getting on the fedora-config-list.

Thank you for reading this issue of Fedora News Updates. Think there's some news snippet you'd like to contribute to Fedora News Updates? Send e-mail to colin@fedoranews.org.

This issue of Fedora News Updates brought to you by Colin Charles.