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Dual Booting the
Clemson IBM Thinkpad T42:
Windows XP and Fedora Core 2
Part 2: Configuration and Applications

Bill Moss
Updated June 2, 2004

Contents

Introduction
Post Installation Configuration
Installation of Applications not in FC2
Gnome and KDE Printing

Introduction

The first part of this article discussed hard disk partitioning and dual boot installation of Fedora Core 2 (FC2) on a Clemson laptop program T42. This second part will briefly outline various configuration issues and applications that are not included in the FC2 distribution.

Post Installation Configuration

Up2date. Contrary to popular opinion, a free update service is provided for FC2. As root, open a terminal window and type the command up2date. The default is not to update the kernel, but you can change that in the configuration dialog box. When I opened a terminal window and typed the command up2date, I found that several updates were available.

Apt & Synaptic. The utility apt is a useful supplement to or replacement for the FC2 up2date utility. The FC2 download site is often busy and apt can be set up to download from repositories that have a wider collection of RPM's. I followed the instructions at dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/ to set up apt. Make sure that the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dag.list exists and contains the lines

### Dag RPM Repository for Fedora Core 2 rpm 
http://apt.sw.be fedora/2/en/i386 dag

Following the instructions, I then used apt to download and install synaptic, a GUI for apt.

Mounting the Windows Partitions. Mounting the C partition from Linux allows the use of Windows true type fonts. The Linux ntfs driver currently only supports mounting in read-only mode. I used synaptic to install a module pre-built for the current release of the FC2 kernel. A pre-built ntfs module usually appears in the apt repositories the same day that a new Fedora kernel is released. Be sure to match your kernel version. If you're not sure what version you're running do this:

# uname -r -p

For example, the kernel released with FC2 is 2.6.5-1.358. I downloaded and installed kernel-ntfs#2.6.5-1.358.i686.rpm from linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/fedora2.html. Next, I loaded the driver:

# /sbin/modprobe ntfs
To mount C and D from Linux, as root I added the following lines to /etc/fstab. 
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windowsc ntfs ro,umask=0222,uid=500,gid=500 0 0
/dev/hda5 /mnt/windowsd vfat rw,nouser,auto,uid=500,gid=500 0 0

and then issued the commands

# mkdir /mnt/windowsc
# mkdir /mnt/windowsd
# mount /dev/hda1
# mount /dev/hda5

Each time you upgrade your kernel, you will have to upgrade this driver. Eventually, this driver will be part of the kernel distribution.

Network Interface Configuration. The installer configured the Ethernet interface for DHCP service by default. As root, you will want to configure the interface so that a user can bring the interface up and down. Configuration can be done with the Red Hat Network configuration tool: Start Applications -> System Settings -> Network -> eth0 -> Devices -> Allow all users to enable and disable device.

True Type Fonts. Windows true type fonts can be made available to Linux, increasing the compatility between Office and OpenOffice. Here are the commands for the true type font families I use with FC2. As root issue the following commands.

# cd /usr/share/fonts
# mkdir truetype
# cd truetype
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/arial.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/arialbd.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/arialbi.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/ariali.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/times.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/timesbd.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/timesbi.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/timesi.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/cour.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/courbd.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/courbi.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/couri.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/verdana.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/verdanaz.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/verdanab.ttf
# ln -s /mnt/windowsc/Windows/Fonts/verdanai.ttf
# ttmkfdir
# mkfontdir
# chkfontpath -a /usr/share/fonts/truetype
# fc-cache

For convenience, the script truetype_symlinks contains these commands.

Installation of Applications not in FC2

Switch Desktops. As discussed in my article on FC1, I prefer to use the KDE desktop. To change from the default Gnome desktop, use the command

$ switchdesk kde

and then logout and login again. To experiment with the appearance of the KDE desktop, do Main menu -> Preferences -> Desktop Settings Wizard.

Maple 9. I installed the package compat-libstdc++ using synaptic. I installed Maple 9 from the distribution CD available at Clemson following the posted instructions. I created the symbolic link

# cd /usr/local/bin
# ln -s /usr/local/maple9/bin/xmaple

This command runs Maple 9 Standard. To set up a global file association and K menu item for Maple, follow these instructions.

Cisco VPN client. I downloaded vpnclient-linux-4.0.4.A-k9.tar.gz from www.anomalistic.org. I downloaded vpnclient-linux-cu-3.7.2.Rel-k9.tar.gz from download.clemson.edu. I extracted the configuration file Clemson.pcf from the Clemson archive and put it in the version 4.0.4 installation directory. I ran the installation script and then set up the command

vpnclient connect Clemson

to run from a panel launcher in a terminal window. Previous versions of the Cisco vpnclient are reported not to work with the 2.6 kernel used by FC2.

WebDAV. WebDAV (see www.webdav.org) is a protocol that provides for mounting of Web directories on a server running the Apache mod_dav module. Several WebDAV clients are available for Linux.

Kile. Kile is an integrated development environment (IDE) for LaTeX which I installed using synaptic.

Firefox. Soon the Mozilla suite will be broken into components so that users can load only what they need. The browser component is Firefox. The current version is 0.8 which is considered a prerelease version. I began using Firefox in the fall of 2003 on both Windows and Linux. I installed using synaptic. To get the true type symbol font to work correctly with Firefox (see below), edit the file /usr/lib/firefox/res/fonts/fontEncoding.properties and uncomment the lines

#encoding.symbol.ttf = Adobe-Symbol-Encoding
#encoding.symbol.ftcmap = mac_roman

J2re. I installed the Java Runtime Environment (j2re) and the Java plugin for Mozilla (mozilla-j2re) using synaptic. The Java plugin installation puts the library file libjavaplugin_oji.so in the directory

/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins

This directory is the default plugins directory for all browsers which are based on Mozilla, including Firefox.

Acroread. The Adobe Acrobat Reader provides the most consistent rendering of PDF files on Linux and Windows although there are now a number of other free viewers. In addition, the Acrobat reader provides information about font types and font embedding. I installed the Acrobat reader (acroread) and the Mozilla plugin (mozilla-acroread) using synaptic.

FlashPlayer. I downloaded install_flashplayer_7_linux.tar.gz from www.macromedia.com/downloads. Run ./flashplayer_installer. When asked, type the Firefox installation directory /usr/lib/firefox.

Xine. Xine is the most popular DVD player for Linux. I downloaded and installed it using synaptic.

Gnome and KDE Printing

KDEPrint, the printing module in KDE (see printing.kde.org) is built into KDE applications and can be used by most Gnome and third party applications. When used with CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System, KDEPrint covers all the bases. KDEPrint consists of seven components.

  1. A print job viewer for each defined printer.
  2. A print server configuration tool.
  3. A print settings tool.
  4. An add printer wizard.
  5. A printer manager.
  6. Konqueror printer browser.
  7. A print utility called kprinter.

The easiest way to learn about these components is to Right click, KDE panel -> Configure Panel... -> Menus -> check Print System -> OK. This will put a Print System folder in the Main menu.

When I started the print manager I noticed that a printer was already setup and the print manager froze. This had not happened with a previous installation of FC1. CUPS has the capability of automatic discovery and setup of printers on a network that contains a CUPS server. There is no CUPS server on my network, so why this printer showed up is a mystery. To get rid of the bogus printer and avoid the freeze, I first checked with synaptic to make sure that I had the lastest release of cups. Then I did the following

# cd /etc/cups
# mv cupsd.conf cupsd.conf.orig
# cp cupsd.conf.rpmnew cupsd.conf

I edited cupsd.conf and changed

#Browsing on

to

Browsing Off

and then restarted the cups service.

Next, I added several printers using the Add Printer Wizard. Main Menu -> Print System -> Add Printer... -> Network Printer w/IPP -> Setting... -> Subnetwork: 130.127.112 -> Scan -> select guthrie -> select HP, Color Laserjet 4550 -> Settings -> Double-Sided Printing <Off> -> fill in printer name and location. The printer guthrie is one of six printers found on this subnet. Next, I repeated the process by scanning the Subnetwork: 172.19.112. I found three more printers. I added two, gutenberg and ramanujan. Note that when a printer is found, a description is provided including the model number. You need the model number later on in the Add Printer Wizard process.

The utility kprinter can be run standalone. In this case you add files to be printed in a dialog box and files can be printed without first opening them with an application. All KDE applications have kprinter built in. Most non-KDE applications can also use kprinter since they allow the user to specify a print command. If the print command kprinter does not work try kprinter --stdin. I used kprinter successfully with the non-KDE applications Acrobat Reader, Firefox, OpenOffice, Gnome Ghostview, and Maple 9, with the KDE applications Kate and Kile, and with the Gnome applications gEdit and Evolution.