Search My Blog

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Installing and using the Fedora Utils App - by satya

Here's an Article and Video on installing and using the FedoraUtils App. I was all set to try it out on my Fedora 14 System. I ran the Code. But I got this error, No package fedorautils available. Then I downloaded and ran the Install Script from SourceForge and Github (links below). But, still no luck. Maybe it will work on a System with Gnome 3 installed. But, I don't have one. Since I don't like Gnome 3. Still, it looks like a great App. If it will work on your System...

Don

by satya | December 23, 2013
Fedora Utils: An overview

I was a happy Ubuntu user, until Gnome Shell arrived! It was new, it was shiny. And it provided all those things that I needed. I mostly used the compiz expo plugin to switch between tasks. I would set-up my top-left corner as a hot corner to trigger expo and use docky for my favourite apps. When I tried Gnome Shell 3.2, it was quite similar, expect the dock was on left. But that didn’t hamper my experience. I initially used docky and awn, but finally got rid of it.

So how this is related to Fedora Utils? Because that was the time when everything changed. Gnome Shell wasn’t available on Ubuntu. Even if one could install from PPA, it would cause problems. So I made the switch to Fedora, which provided my preferred experience.

But setting up Fedora was not easy like that in Ubuntu. I searched and searched for tutorials, accumulated all that I learned in a bash script ans shared it in the Fedora forums. Then I learnt about other post-install solutions like Autoten and easyLife. But they installed lot of things that I didn’t want and didn’t have many things I needed. So I continued development on Fedora Utils and gave it a GUI with Zenity.

A lot has changed since then, and Fedora Utils has seen loads of improvements. It is now more modular and more reliable. I’ll cover some things about Fedora Utils and what sets it apart from others.
Easy installation

Installation of Fedora Utils is easy, thanks to the installer script :)

su -c "curl http://satya164.github.io/fedorautils/fedorautils-installer -o fedorautils-installer && chmod +x fedorautils-installer && ./fedorautils-installer"

Always up-to-date

Apart from the repo, Fedora Utils has its built-in updater which will notify you about updates as well as install it, even if the repo is down.

Save downloaded files

Fedora Utils saves all the files it downloads in a folder named “fedorautils_dl” in your home folder, so that you can use them on another computer, or if you need to reinstall Fedora. However saving the files downloaded through Yum depend upon Yum’s settings.

Run from Terminal

Fedora Utils allows you to perform operations from the command line. You can even use it in scripts to automate tasks. To see all command line options supported, run the following in the Terminal,fedorautils -e list

Say you want to install Oracle JRE and Adobe Flash, just run the following,sudo fedorautils -e install_jre install_flash

Install latest versions of software

Fedora Utils can install many popular proprietary software like Skype, Oracle Java, Sublime Text etc. But what is special about it is, it doesn’t contain hard-coded links for downloading the software packages. Instead, it automagically finds the download links for latest versions. Even better, it doesn’t rely on any list hosted on some server either.

It does have a downside though. If you don’t have internet, the package file name cannot be determined. So even if the file has been already downloaded, it cannot make use of it without internet connection. However, even slow internet connection will do, and hence this is not a major problem.
Explore fedorapeople repos

repos.fedorapeople.org has a lot of repos for Fedora, through which you can install various useful apps. Fedora Utils aggregates the repos available for the specific Fedora version in a easy to use list. The repos can be easily added with a few clicks. No more messing around with manual hunting and downloading of .repo files.

Lesser problems

Fedora Utils performs various checks to ensure everything runs smoothly. Repos are validated before adding. Unavailable repos can no longer break Yum, and more.
For advanced users

Fedora Utils supports many command line options to suit your usage. Configuration files can be created in “/etc/fedorautilsrc” or “~/.fedorautilsrc” to add any custom settings like proxy configuration and more.

To see the available options, run,fedorautils --help

If you have suggestions or encounter problems with Fedora Utils, please contact me on Google+ or file a bug report at GitHub

Go there and read more great Articles...

http://worldofgnome.org/fedora-utils-an-overview/

Fedora Utils Overview

Video Link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_BcOo3oQkg

© 2013 woGue. All Rights Reserved. Free to share and remix: Creative Commons CC-BY. Optimised for standards. Powered by Wordpress

woGue is not officially connected with GNOME. GNOME is a registered trademark of the GNOME Foundation