A while back I decided to stop using Ubuntu because of changes they were making as well as some privacy and personal choices. I tested other flavors but none really grabbed my fancy fully, I enjoyed using Linux Mint with the MATE desktop but it was built on Ubuntu and Debian and I started studying again and needed to delve into RedHat systems. Being that I cannot afford to pay for RedHat, I settled on the next best thing, Fedora. However; they now default to GNOME 3 and its hideous design which was one of the reasons I moved from Ubuntu in the first place. I selected the MATE spin as I am inexperienced with the system to get into customization and did not want to have to deal with GNOME. No worries tho; as soon as I am comfortable enough you will get a walk-through on installing MATE on your existing Fedora system.
My install was done last night and so far I have no complaints, it’s a rock solid system that I have installed on an old Dell Precision M4400 which I’m writing this article on.
32-bit PC Edition
This edition is for the highest compatibility; it will work on both 32-bit and 64-bit computers.
64-bit PC Edition
Enjoy the full power and speed of a 64-bit computer. Not compatible with 32-bit computers.
I have played with Fedora prior but never really got into it, mainly for the fact that we use Debian at work and had to learn that base primarily. The big change is that Fedora 21 is available in three flavors: cloud, server, and workstation. All three build on the same base, adding packages relevant to the use case. The one main thing to note is that the installer is not as straight forward as other Linux Distros like Debian.
Post Install
Once installed there are few things I recommend (may change in the future as I learn more, stay tuned). I prefer using the command line so some if not all of these will be done is a shell. You should have the icon in the top bar next to the Firefox logo, if you installed the MATE version like I did.
Update
sudo yum update
Enable RPM fusion repository
su -c 'yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm'
sudo yum update
Install Yum Fastest Mirror Plugin
sudo yum install yum-plugin-fastestmirror
Install media plugins
sudo yum install gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-good-extras gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1-plugsins-base-tools gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extra gstreamer1-libav
7zip and unrar
yum install unrar p7zip p7zip-plugins
Install adobe Flash
On 32-Bit System
sudo rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux sudo yum install flash-plugin
On 64-Bit System
sudo rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-x86_64-1.0-1.noarch.rpm sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux sudo yum install flash-plugin
Install Java
sudo yum install icedtea-web java-openjdk
Install VLC media player
sudo yum install vlc
Install Google Chrome
On 32-Bit System
sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_i386.rpm
On 64-Bit System
sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_x86_64.rpm
Install Popcorn
Popcorn is a famous program that lets you watch movies online for free, it streams movies from torrent websites (which may be illegal in some countries) and it provides many options like downloading the movies or adding subtitles.. etc.
sudo yum install nodejs rubygem-compass
For 32-Bit System
wget ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/sourceforge/p/po/postinstaller/fedora/releases/21/i386/popcorntime-0.3.5.2-1.fc21.i686.rpm sudo rpm -ivh popcorntime-0.3.5.2-1.fc21.i686.rpm
For 64-Bit System
wget ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/sourceforge/p/po/postinstaller/fedora/releases/21/x86_64/popcorntime-0.3.5.2-1.fc21.x86_64.rpm sudo rpm -ivh popcorntime-0.3.5.2-1.fc21.x86_64.rpm
