Moving to Fedora Core 5
Sunday October 15, 2006
My Compaq Presario R3370us Notebook computer is now using the Fedora Core 5 distribution of the Linux operating system. Fedora is an open source operating system and has replaced Windows XP on my system. The files were downloaded from the Internet and then burned to 5 CD Rom discs for the installation. Depending on the time of day, the download takes a couple of hours with a cable modem connection. This is largely determined by the speed of the connection and how busy the download servers happen to be at the time. I used the ftp method of obtaining the files. If you prefer there are companies that will sell you discs that can be used in the installation. Other methods for installation are detailed on the Fedora Project web site
The Fedora Forums were very helpful in getting things up and running once the installation was completed. The Linux forums were also very useful. Both forums had posts that were very helpful in getting the wifi working. My machine came equipped with the Broadcom wifi card and it took some time to get it working. The things that finally made that happen was to intall the bcm43xx-fwcutter software to extract the drivers from the original driver disc that came with the machine. Yum was the tool used for this job. Once the drivers were installed in the /lib/firmware directory I installed the Gnome Network Manager and that seemed to be the key to getting everything going. Then it was simply a matter of opening the admin program to my Linksys router and getting the various settings to configure the software on the notebook. When I boot up, if the Cat 5 cable is installed, it defaults to the wired network. If cat 5 is unplugged the wifi starts and works with WPA security. This all sounds easy but it took several attempts over about 3 days to read forums and try various setups.
The process of getting the computer ready for daily use has taken some time and is not yet finished. The process is very much like moving into a new home or apartment. Things have to be arranged and put away and the little touches that make work flow smoothly all have to be worked out. So far I like my new operating system.