Here are few things you can do after installing Fedora 15 to make the experience better. You may have to enable sudo to follow some of the tips or you can run the commands in terminal by logging in as root (su). The following are in no particular order. Feel free to skip the ones you do not need.

1. Enable sudo

2. Install yum-fastestmirror plugin
yum-fastestmirror selects the fastest mirror for updating and installing packages. It can be installed by running the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install yum-fastestmirror

3. Add shutdown menu item permanently

4. Install flash player

5. Add minimize, maximize title bar buttons

6. Enable delete key in Nautilus

7. Enable right click on desktop and add Desktop folder on the Desktop

8. Show date on top panel

9. Install nautilus open terminal
If you use terminal a lot, you may want to have “Open in terminal” in folders in Nautilus file manager. To do so, install the package nautilus-open-terminal

sudo yum install nautilus-open-terminal

10. Install a torrent client
If you download via torrents, you will need a torrent client. While Fedora ships with Transmission Torrent Cliene, I prefer Vuze (Azureus) (written in Java). It can be installed by running the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install azureus

You may also like deluge (written in Python, Gtk) which is also an excellent alternative. It can be installed by running the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install deluge

11. Install Google Chrome
Although Firefox 4 is shipped by default, you may want to have a secondary browser or may prefer Google Chrome. You can simply download rpm from Google Chrome download page and install it. The package will automatically insert repository information so that you get updates from update manager.

12. Install Libreoffice
Libreoffice is available in the repository. I recommend “Add/Remove Software” to select and install office tools you need. libreoffice-writer (Word processor) and libreoffice-calc (Spreadsheet) is all I need. You may also want libreoffice-impress (Presentation) and libreoffice-draw (Drawing).

13. Install Thunderbird
I prefer Thunderbird to Evolution. You can install it from repository by running the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install thunderbird

14. Install a clipboard manager
If you do a lot of writing or programming, you will love a clipboard manager. I like parcellite and it is available in the repos as well. It can be installed by running the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install parcellite

UPDATE: You may also like another clipboard manager called GPaste which integrates well with Gnome Shell.

15. Install Google Voice and Video chat
If you use Google Voice, you can download and install rpm package from Google Voice and Video Download page.

16. Add support for media formats

17. Install support for rar and 7z archive formats
Rar is a proprietary format but it is used widely and you may encounter rar files so it is handy to have it installed.

sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install unrar

7z is also a popular format and it is also available in the repository.

sudo yum install p7zip p7zip-plugins

18. Install Gimp
Fedora does not ship with an image editor. I prefer Gimp and it can be installed by running the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install gimp

19. Install gnome-tweak-tool to customize fonts, themes etc
gnome-tweak-tool can be installed by running the following in the terminal:

sudo yum install gnome-tweak-tool

Run it (press Alt+F2 and type in gnome-tweak-tool) and change the settings. It does not have OK or Apply and simply selecting the options performs the changes. Some changes may require logging out and logging back in.

20. Install skype
Skype is a popular text, voice and video chat tool. You can download and install rpm from this link. If you have 32-bit, installation will be straightforward. However, if you have 64-bit, please read this post.

Please share what you did after installing Fedora 15 in the comments.

I was downloading a large file from torrent and it stopped at 63%.  I was using deluge as my torrent client. Since there were enough seeds and enough connections were being made for the torrent to get going but it did not, I thought it was a deluge specific issue, so I got rid of it and installed Vuze (also called azureus) and moved the torrent to it. The way you do that is just start the same torrent in vuze, stop it and copy the files you had downloaded via older torrent client replacing the files being downloaded via vuze, then right click the torrent in vuze and then click “Force Recheck”. But to my surprise, the torrent still got stuck just like in deluge.

Then I right clicked on the torrent and selected Show Details. In the Sources tab, I saw a lot of trackers were unreachable or timeout was occurring while attempting to connect to them. So, since there were many trackers that were online, I decided to remove those faulty trackers. To do so, I went back to the torrent listing, right clicked on the torrent and then navigated to Advanced>Tracker/Torrent>Edit Tracker URL(s) and then removed all those except those that were online.

After that, the torrent started downloading again. Hope this helps others who are experiencing similar problems.

I installed Vuze bit-torrent client and it seems really awesome. It has been written in Java but it is pretty fast and awesome. It has search and many helpful plugins. It has various types of options and configurations and it will sure take me some time to figure out. I installed it from Synaptic Package Manager and got the version 4.3.0.6 (Ubuntu Software Center will do the same). I went to the website and saw that 4.5.0.4 was available already. I downloaded the linux installer (Vuze_Installer.tar.bz2) and unpacked it. I got a directory named “vuze” which contained the files. Then, I just launched terminal and changed the directory to “vuze”, the one that I just extracted.
Then, I just had to copy the files to where they belong. Remember, you must have the version from the package manager installed. Then, I just backed up the original vuze files and then copied the new files over.

sudo mv /usr/share/java/Azureus2.jar /usr/share/java/Azureus2.jar.bak
sudo cp Azureus2.jar /usr/share/java/Azureus2.jar
sudo mv /usr/share/java/swt.jar /usr/share/java/swt.jar.bak
sudo cp swt.jar /usr/share/java/swt.new.jar
sudo ln -s /usr/share/java/swt.new.jar /usr/share/java/swt.jar

Now, restart vuze to check if everything works well. If it does, great, congratulations. Check the version and check if it was successfully updated.

However, if it does not run well or does not run at all, you can always get back the original installation. One way to do that is “Mark for Reinstallation” from Synaptic Package Manager (or remove and install again from Ubuntu Software Center), the other way is to undo whatever you have done via the command, which is pretty easy to figure out.

Hope this helps.

I am using Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and had been using the following programs for downloading stuff from the Internet:

Firefox Default Download Manager for HTTP/FTP Downloads and Deluge for Torrents.

It was not much convenient because Firefox resume does not always work in case of crashes or in case of power cuts. Also it does not support multi-threaded downloads. So, I decided to try out Fatrat along with Flashgot firefox add-on. Fatrat and Flashgot both can be installed from Ubuntu Software Center. If you are using beta or development version of Firefox, then you need to get it from Firefox Addons Website or Flashgot website.

Fatrat, like Free Download Manager (which is currently only available for Windows), can be used as a torrent client, HTTP/FTP Download Manager, Rapidshare download (it waits for appropriate time automatically and downloads), Youtube Download (at the time of writing this, Youtube download seems not to be working) and much more.

It supports remote control via jabber and web interface.

Since Flashgot does not support Fatrat by default, you will need to add support for Fatrat. When it asks for path, enter /usr/bin/fatrat. After that, you can select and right click a link and Flashgot it. You can also select Flashgot>Fatrat when the download box comes up.

When you click OK, Fatrat should show the add link dialog.

Have fun downloading.

I just tried to launch deluge and got the following error:

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progname=deluge; RGBA=on
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/deluge", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('deluge==1.2.1', 'console_scripts', 'deluge')()
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/deluge/main.py", line 121, in start_ui
    UI(options, args, options.args)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/deluge/ui/ui.py", line 128, in __init__
    ui = GtkUI(args)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/deluge/ui/gtkui/gtkui.py", line 216, in __init__
    self.torrentdetails = TorrentDetails()
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/deluge/ui/gtkui/torrentdetails.py", line 116, in __init__
    state = self.load_state()
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/deluge/ui/gtkui/torrentdetails.py", line 432, in load_state
    state = cPickle.load(state_file)
cPickle.UnpicklingError: could not find MARK

Deluge would just crash and would not show up at all.

I tried searching for a solution, but did not find any. I tried upgrading to the ppa version of deluge with no luck. Then I just removed all the .state (not to be mistaken with state directory) files (peers_tab.state, files_tab.state, torrentview.state, tabs.state, dht.state, session.state and any other file containing .state at the end) from /home/MyUserName/.config/deluge and was able to launch deluge again. You should not remove the state directory because you will lose the torrent list if you do.
After that, you will be able to launch deluge. It is a good idea to recheck (Right click on a torrent file and select Force Recheck) all torrent files after you do this.

Hope this helps.

I upgraded deluge recently to version 1.2.0 and then started it. The “Add Torrent” and several other options were greyed out and the torrents I was downloading were not there anymore. Here is how I got around the problem and how you can do it if you are facing the same.


You will need to goto ~/.config/ (i.e. /home/Your_UserName/.config). It will be hidden, so View > Show Hidden Files in nautilus. And then just rename the deluge folder to something else (say deluge_backup). Now, launch deluge again. You will see the options are not greyed anymore. But the torrent files are still missing. To get around that, just quit deluge and then from deluge_backup (or the directory you renamed earlier) copy the directory “state” to the newly created (by deluge program when you launched it) deluge directory. Now launch deluge and it should show the torrents you were downloading. You may also copy other directories like “plugins”, if you had plugins installed. But in my case there were none. So it was not a problem.

I was too lazy to find out exactly what caused the problem (which particular file or directory). If anyone does, please do share.

Hope this helps.

I downloaded Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope ISO and discovered that the file was not downloaded properly. It was corrupt. It failed the md5 check and failed to install inside Sun VirtualBox.

I did not want to download the file again. I have a very poor internet connection. I had downloaded the file from http link with the help of wget.

The ISO was the size as specified in the site. I think this process works only if this holds true. Also, it needs to be available in the torrents. These hold true for the file I was trying to download.

I launched ktorrent and added the torrent to the file that I had downloaded. Then, when it started downloading, I quit ktorrent. Then I replaced the file it had created in the data directory with my corruput ISO. Launched ktorrent again and chose to check data. It then checked the file and quickly found that I needed to download only 16MB. I did and voila the file was fixed.

However, I used ktorrent, all torrent clients I have used (on Windows or Linux) have this feature of checking data. It might be called something other than “Check Data” in other torrent clients though.