Like other Linux distributions, Fedora has the software repository scheme of things for software installation and updating. However, it could do with having the ability to remove unwanted repositories through a GUI but it doesn’t. What you need to do instead is switch to root in a terminal using the the command su - and entering you root password before navigating to /etc/yum.repos.d/ to delete the troublesome [file name].repo file. Recently, I needed to do this after upgrading to Fedora 14 or Yum wouldn’t work from the command line, which is the way that I tend to update Fedora (yum -y update is command that I use and it automatically does all installations unattended until it is finished doing what’s needed). The offending repository, or “Software Source” as these things are called in the GUI, was belonging to Dropbox and even disabling it didn’t make Yum operate from the command like it should so it had to go. Maybe Dropbox haven’t caught up with the latest release of Fedora but that can be resolved another day.
Tag Archive for software repository
Adding msttcorefonts to Fedora
Once you have enabled the appropriate software repository, you can install the msttcorefonts (Microsoft truetype core fonts like Arial, Times Roman, Verdana, Georgia, etc.) package on Debian and Ubuntu. With Fedora, it surprisingly isn’t so straightforward. There is a recipe using the command line that worked for me and I’m not going to repeat it here so I’ll leave you to go where I found it. In fact, it forms part of a wider unofficial Fedora FAQ that may be of more interest you than solving this .
Update for Fedora 12 (2009-11-24):
You also need chkfontpath so the following needs doing before the final part of the command sequence, changing the filename as appropriate for your situation:
yum install xfs
rpm -ivh http://dl.atrpms.net/all/chkfontpath-1.10.1-2.fc12.i686.rpm
BBC Radio Player and Linux
It’s been a while since I mentioned anything that might be aurally related and then this rears its head. The Xine plugin beloved by the instance of Firefox on my Ubuntu box simply refuses to play ball with the BBC’s Listen Again feature; 6Music shows are what I am trying to catch later. RealPlayer is on the system but Firefox simply refuses to locate it. On its own, it plays live radio from the BBC and Ireland’s Today FM but, unless I need to do some digging, that’s not much use for Listen Again. It may be some hard wiring done by Canonical as part of their packaging of Firefox: might be related to their preference for Free Software. If I can be bothered, I might replace it with the usual version to see if RealPlayer can be picked up: I do seem to remember reading somewhere that this was a possibility…
Yes, I could use one of my Windows VM’s but I have found another way courtesy of openSUSE 10.3. No, I haven’t changed distro but the reason that openSUSE has made a sudden appearance on this blog in recent times has got to do with my acquiring a copy of the latest issue of Linux Magazine. It came emblazoned with a DVD containing both 32-bit and 64-bit variants of openSUSE’s latest version and, wanting to take a look at how KDE appears these days, I knocked up a VM and installed the 32-bit variant thereupon.
Unexpectedly, that has afforded a Linux solution to my BBC Radio Player conundrum. openSUSE’s Firefox instance is able to find RealPlayer once you have it installed. That process involves a spot more work than if it was Free Software: you need to add an extra software repository to YaST (openSUSE’s configuration utility). The breadcrumb trail is YaST -> Software -> Software Repositories and hitting the Add button fires up a wizard that needs the following settings to set things up as needed:
Protocol: http
Server Name: download.opensuse.org
Directory on server: /distribution/10.3/repo/non-oss/suse/
Authentication: anonymous
Once the new repository was set up (I named it Non-OSS), I found the RPM and YaST took care of the rest. So, what started out as an exercise in curiosity has now found a use. Network traffic may cause playback to stutter but I have what I want without once starting up Windows. Sorting out Ubuntu may happen but it is a lesser priority and I don’t want to disrupt my computing environment in any event.