Free from XP (with Fedora)

SE18_US_shop_image Linux New Media has published a special edition magazine called Free From XP, which features a DVD with Fedora 20 Desktop Edition and the LXDE Spin, and includes articles from Fedora contributors about getting started with our favorite distro.

This issue is intended for people who are transitioning off of Windows XP, offering them Linux as an alternative. Although you might not need this issue, you probably have a few friends and relatives who would find it useful. The magazine includes how-to articles on:

  • installing Fedora 20 and connecting to the Internet
  • navigating the user interface
  • finding and installing additional software
  • playing and streaming music and videos
  • LXDE for older, less-powerful hardware
  • SE18_TOCLibreOffice
  • Firefox
  • Evolution email
  • Shotwell
  • GIMP
  • gaming with WINE, game engines and platforms, and retro gaming
  • troubleshooting
  • security
  • partitioning disks

The issue is already available on news stands in Europe and the UK, and it starts shipping in the US in late-August. Pre-orders are available now on the Linux New Media website.

You can also order the digital edition now, which obviously won’t include the Fedora 20 DVD.

Fedora Project community Five Things in Fedora This Week

8 Comments

  1. How can we use Fedora without any internet connection? How can we install applciations? In my place, many XP users don’t have internet connection at all. Thank you.

    • Poi123

      You can download the DVD, its have some basic applications

    • Jim Readsalot

      Fedora is capable of downloading an application and all of its dependancies without installing them. Again, no internet, how is this relevant?

      Let’s say that one computer in the entire community, or even the entire region has internet. Other people request software, this person requests a download, but doesn’t install the software themselves, and then distributes the files on a CD, floppy disk, flash drive, or other means, and the next person to want that software can simply grab that file medium, select all the files, and install them with the following command:

      rpm -i (files go here)

      and in order to put the files there you need only drag and drop them into the terminal window. (ohyeah, I forgot to mention, that’s what you use to run that command)

      Here’s the one part of this that I can’t help you with: the specific option for Fedora. I personally use OpenSUSE, which is very similar, but not at all the same thing and it installs software in a very different way. In OpenSUSE, you don’t even need the command line to install and remove software from a folder. Being no Fedora expert, I can’t say there isn’t a way to do it there, but I’m not sure.

      I hope this helps with the transition from Window$ XP.

      Jim

    • You can use it normally without an internet connection. It includes all the basic apps you would expect like a file manager, photo viewer, music and video players, etc, even the Office suite is already pre-installed for you. Not only Fedora, but any distribution you may choose will work without internet.

      Of course if you want to install software while offline, you can download the applications .rpm file beforehand which is the Fedor’s correspondent to the Windows .exe/msi installers files for installing them without internet. It’s a good idea to look it up on how to install the codecs for viewing media from patented file formats like mp4, mp3, DVDs, etc so you can let the computer ready for everything without a connection.

      • chris lee

        Bullshit. Without internet you’re basically stuck with the horrid messes called Gnome 3 and KDE, since Mate isn’t included on the install DVD.

        Why? It’s beyond me, since the Mate rpm’s doesn’t take up that much space, and if space is an issue on the DVD, get rid of some that useless Gnome 3 crapware that’s on the dvd.

        • William Houser

          Well, to be clear – not everything can be everything to everybody. If you don’t like the packages and/or desktop environments that come with the iso, then you will for sure have to either go use wifi somewhere to install what you want, or get the iso with the desktop you want. I, for example am an Xfce kind-a-guy. Put the point still remains that no matter which iso you choose, you’ll have at least one browser, photo editing and viewing software, video and music players, games, and several administrative tools. Not to mention a respectable office suite. Enough, in my mind to convert someone to Linux for life, but that’s just me – I’m partial.

    • William Houser

      for those who have no internet connection, Fedora 20 comes with most of the applications they would likely need to get the stuff done that they would have been doing with XP. But to be fair, the only reason someone would need to transition off Xp is Microsoft’s dis-continuing security support. If you’re not getting online, you have no need for security support.

  2. Nikos

    Check around in google to find out how to:

    reposync (download and local mirror whole repositories).
    yum ( the package manager of Fedora) . Check how to create a .repo file that will point to the local mirror.
    Have fun!
    Nikos

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