It seems like only a few months ago (August 22nd, to be exact) that I upgraded my Linux install from Fedora Core 1 to Core 2. Now, Fedora Core 3 is already out. For now, I’m going to leave FC2 on the desktop PC, but I will put FC 3 on my new laptop.
Anyway, here’s a quick run down of the problems I ran into with FC 2, and how I fixed them.
Error activating XKB configuration
This was a well documented issue that came up because of the switch from xfree86 to xorg for the X11 implementation. The fix is to edit the /etc/X11/Xf86Config file. Change the line :
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
to
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Yum Failed Due to Wrong Repositories
Some of the URLs in my yum.conf file were hard-code for FC1. During the upgrade, the file /etc/yum.rpmnew was created. After backing up my FC1 yum.conf and renaming yum.rpmnew to yum.conf, I was back in business.
Failed NVIDIA Dependencies
I was using the NVIDIA loadable kernel modules from Livna.org with FC1. I couldn’t get that trick to work with FC2. It turns out that the kernel provided with FC2 uses 4k stacks instead of 8k stacks. The NVIDIA drivers needed 8k stacks. Rather than recompile the kernel with 8k stacks or use one someone else compiled, I waited around long enough for NVIDIA to fix it. Version 6111 of the NVIDIA drivers worked for me. After downloading the installer from the NVIDIA website, I did the following as root.
# sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1.run
Then I made the following change in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Changed Driver "nv" to Driver "nvidia"
Then, I confirmed that Load “glx” was in the Module section and that Load “dri” and Load “GLcore” were not present. I saw a message “Could not find kernel module interface’ and then a warning about “rivafb” kernel module. The install finished, I rebooted, and I had my fast NVIDIA drivers back again. Unreal Tournament 2004 worked great.
Rhythmbox Problems
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-mp3
# yum install libmad
# yum install libid3tag
XMMS Problems
# yum install xmms-mp3
I also needed to use OSS instead of ALSA. I used Options->Preferences->Audio I/O Plugins to change the Output Plugin to OSS Driver 1.2.1.0.
Evolution Error – Cannot Activate Component OAFIID
The full error message was something like:
Cannot activate component OAFIID GNOME_Evolution_Mail_ShellComponent The error from the activation system is Unknown CORBA exception id: 'IDL:omg.org/CORBA/INV_OBJRE:1.0'
The fix was to delete /tmp/orbit-username (replacing username with my login name) and then reboot.
Make Firefox default browser
Used gconf-editor – desktop->gnome->applications->browser and changed exec from “mozilla” to a symbolic link to the install of Firefox that I installed from a tarball. Since FC3 comes with Firefox, this should be an issue going forward.
what about
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-mp3
# yum install libmad
# yum install libid3tag how you fixed
Sorry for not responding for a while. I got sidetracked upgrading my website.
I can’t remember exactly what I had to do on FC2 to get RhythmBox to work, but I don’t remember it being too difficult to get working. Now that I think about it, I believe that installing the three things I listed was what I had to do to get it to work.
FC3 was a different story. Due to various changes, RhythmBox didin’t work on FC3 for probably about 6 months. It works fine, now, though.
Since them, I’ve installed a new audio player, amaroK. It was also a challenge to install, though mostly because of all the KDE dependencies. If you use KDE, or even if you’re just willing to install a bunch of extra KDE stuff that isn’t included with FC, then I recommend trying it.
If you’re just looking for a simple audio player, though, RhythmBox and XMMS are better choices.