Overview

The CD-ROMs that accompany this book consist of the complete set of three installation CDs from the Red Hat-sponsored Fedora Project. Although the name and the development approach has changed, the Fedora Core is essentially the follow-up release to Red Hat Linux 9. In fact, before changing the name, Red Hat, Inc. referred to the previous test version of what has become the Fedora Core as Red Hat Linux release 9.0.93. To install the installation CDs:

• Follow the instructions provided in Chapter 2 and on the CD-ROMs.

• Refer to Appendix B for a complete list of the Red Hat software packages.

If for some reason you don't have your CDs handy, you can download any of these packages from a Red Hat Linux mirror site (see www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html). If Red Hat mirror sites stop offering Fedora, try fedora.redhat.com/download for information about downloading Fedora.

Web sites such as Freshrpms.net, rpm.livna.org, and RPMfind.net can help you find extra, useful software packages that are not in any Red Hat distribution or were once included with the Red Hat Linux PowerTools CD. Some of these sites act as repositories that allow you to download sets of dependent packages (see the description of yum in Chapter 5).

Linux source code:???From time to time, you may want to recompile the Linux kernel. Doing so requires the kernel source code, which you can find in the kernel-source package included on this book's companion CD #3. The source code for all other packages in Red Hat Linux is available for the cost of shipping and handling from Wiley Publishing, Inc. See the coupon in the back of the book for details. Changing this source code requires some knowledge of programming and software compilation tools. If you feel you need to rebuild the Linux kernel, refer to the following sections.