Since the release of RHEL5, some problems have seen the light that require special attention. Here, you will find useful info to work around these pitfalls. Additonal tips and tricks will be posted here from time to time. Many other distros based on RHEL (such as Fedora, CentOS, Scientific Linux, StartCom Linux, Red Flag Linux, White Box Enterprise Linux, etc.) share (almost) the same base, so the info posted here might apply for them too.
This topic is closed. If you have valuable tips or tricks, please send them by private message, so that they might be added here. Before you start installing
If you have a working system, it is advised to copy your current xorg.conf file! Keep it in a safe place for future reference (for example if you need to configure things manually).
Monitor detection/configuration
It appears that the installer does not detect (every) monitor correctly. This will result in a misconfigured xorg.conf. When you boot into runlevel 5 (graphical mode), the X-server gets wrong information (or none at all) and makes a real mess of it. The solution for this is easy: reboot in textmode (runlevel-3) and run system-config-display as root.
Installing Nvidia (legacy) driver
Installing can be done in different ways, either by using the Nvidia driver or by using a Nvidia-package from Livna. Since I use the official (legacy) one by Nvidia, I will guide you through that one. There is a 11-step guide:
1. Do a clean install of the operating system.
2. After "firstboot" helps you setup a user, time, etc. (SeLinux OFF!), it will reboot. Use Grub to boot into runlevel 3 (textmode).
3. Configure your monitor with system-config-display.
4. Boot into graphical mode (runlevel 5) to verify the proper configuration of the monitor.
5. Use the shell to go back to runlevel 3 (as root, init 3).
6. Update your system by using "yum update" (latest kernel!).
7. Reboot (and select the newest kernel at boot).
8. Again, drop to runlevel 3 (needed to install the Nvidia driver).
9. Install the Nvidia driver.
10. Edit and configure xorg.conf as the Nvidia readme.txt says (e.g. remove [Load "dri"] and change the "nv" driver to "nvidia").
After this, you will need to add some more specifications which you can take from the xorg.conf you saved from the previous install. Add the following:
Code:
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "record"
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "disabled"
EndSection
Note: not sure if the "Composite" entry is needed for a non-legacy driver (you might want to try this yourself).
11. Reboot and you're home!
(running several things to see how much "power" the system had)
(watch the increase in FPS after all programs where terminated)
Gnome screensaver (pictures)
The Gnome screensaver allows you to display pictures. Unfortunately, it doesn't give you the option to manually select where to find the pictures. If you create a directory called "Pictures" in your home directory and fill it with pictures, it will work. If you would like to change it into something else, take a look at the following file:
/usr/share/applications/screensaver/personal-slideshow.desktop
In it, there is a reference to "/Pictures", change that into "/any-directory-in-my-home-directory" and you're done.
Burning rights with NeroLINUX [FC7/C5]
When you install NeroLINUX, you will come across a problem related to the the software not having rights to the cd/dvd-player and cd/dvd-burner. An IDE player and IDE burner are identified/labelled as SCSI devices (/dev/sg1 and /dev/sg2). According to the latest info, this seems to be related to a udev problem.
Note: if you have a cardreader (internally connected through USB), it could be possible that your (SATA) burner isn't recognised or that Nero gives a message about devices it can't use.
The workaround: add the following to /etc/rc.local:
Code:
chmod o+r+w /dev/sg*
exit
note: there is an empty line after "exit".
Burning rights with K3b [FC7]
When you fire up K3b, you will probably get a message that cdrecord and cdrao will run without root privileges. To solve this, run the following commands as root from the shell:
Code:
chmod u+s /usr/bin/cdrecord
chmod u+s /usr/bin/cdrdao
Remove investment chart [C5 / FC7]
One of the packages installed (part of the gnome-applets rpm) is the Investment Chart application (showing the value of a certain stock powered by Yahoo). You won't see it during the selection of the installation packages, but it is present in the application menu after the installation: visible with Fedora, hidden with CentOS:
Code:
# locate *invest-chart*
/usr/bin/invest-chart
/usr/share/applications/gnome-invest-chart.desktop
You can simply remove it with these commands:
Code:
rm /usr/bin/invest-chart
rm /usr/share/applications/gnome-invest-chart.desktop
HTTPD problems [C5 / RHEL5 / SL5]
Both CentOS-5 and RHEL-5 ship with Apache 2.2. When you use the graphical configuration tool, you will have problems getting httpd to start. Reason is that the graphical configurator generates a Apache 2.0 config-file instead of a Apache 2.2 file. And these aren't usable with Apache 2.2.
Note: with the release of RHEL 5.2, this problem is solved! Java Runtime Environment Version 6 [C5 / RHEL5 / SL5]
Installing the latest version of Sun's
Java JRE will result in a "no Java plugin installed" situation. This is caused by the (unknown) need for a library supplied by the compat-libstdc++-33 package. During the installation of JRE, this isn't checked (!?!). Workaround, install this package before JRE, create a symbolic llink (as described on the Java site) to the plugin and you'll be fine.
Code:
yum install compat-libstdc++-33.i386
Note: with the latest JRE package (starting with 6 update 3), this problem is solved! Scanning problems [C5 / RHEL5 / SL5]
If you are using Gimp and can't select your scanner from the Import menu, there might be a problem with the plugin manager (this problem happened with CentOS5.0 after a updating a clean install). There is a simple workaround!
Give the following command as root:
Code:
/usr/sbin/gimp-plugin-mgr --install '*'
Note: with the release of RHEL 5.2, this problem is solved! Firefox 3 + Thunderbird 2 [C5 / RHEL5 / SL5]
RHEL5 is (still) being shipped with Firefox 1.5 although Firefox 2 is out with several good improvements (tabbed browsing, beter protection against phishing, etc.). Installing the latest version of Firefox is possible and relatively easy to do. And the latest version of Thunderbird can be installed just as easy.
Firefox
Download the latest Firefox and extract it to a proper location:
Code:
tar xvf firefox-3.0.x.x.tar.gz -C /usr/local/
Install a required library for Firefox 3:
Code:
yum install /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5
Rename the existing plugin-directory:
Code:
mv /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins15
Rename the existing Firefox executable:
Code:
mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox15
Create a new symbolic link</a> to the new plugin-directory:
Code:
ln -s /usr/local/firefox/plugins /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
Create a new symbolic link to the new Firefox executable:
Code:
ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
Thunderbird:
Download the latest Thunderbird and extract it to a proper location:
Code:
tar xvf thunderbird-2.0.x.x.tar.gz -C /usr/local/
Rename the existing Thunderbird executable:
Code:
mv /usr/bin/thunderbird /usr/bin/thunderbird15
Create a new symbolic link to the new Thunderbird executable:
Code:
ln -s /usr/local/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/bin/thunderbird
You might have to restart Firefox and Thunderbird, but after that, you're using the latest version. Keep in mind that you need to get the updates now yourself.
CentOS 5 / RHEL5 : installation problems / tweaks 
Linear Mode
