Tag Archives: howto

Fedora Kickstart Ultra Minimal KDE Installation

Issuing a “yum groups list” (or “yum grouplist” or “yum group list”) on Fedora 19 shows that “KDE Plasma Workspaces” is one of the available environment groups that can be chosen to get a KDE desktop up and running.  However, issuing a “yum grouplist hidden -v” shows this and other KDE groups are available:


KDE Plasma Workspaces (kde-desktop-environment)
KDE Applications (kde-apps)
KDE Educational applications (kde-education)
KDE Multimedia support (kde-media)
KDE Office (kde-office)
KDE Plasma Workspaces (kde-desktop)
KDE Software Development (kde-software-development)
KDE Telepathy (kde-telepathy)

So, if you want to have the full KDE stack on Fedora, it’s relatively easy to pick these groups and include them in your kickstart file.  However, I was after a relatively minimal KDE desktop setup, so I wanted to see what was installed by default and whether we could remove and groups from this selection.

If we take a look at the “KDE Plasma Workspaces” base installation via “yum groupinfo kde-desktop-environment” command we see that it will attempt to install the “+kde-desktop” group, along with groups such as printing, dial-up and multimedia. What if you don’t have a printer hooked up to your workstation, or require dial-up support?  Similarly looking at the “+kde-desktop” group via “yum groupinfo kde-desktop” we see that other groups will be added such as kdegames-minimal, kde-print-manager, kwrite.  I’m not suggesting that these will be unwanted by everyone, just that I don’t necessarily require all of these recommended defaults.

So, how can we create our own custom package selection list to get a minimal KDE desktop up and running?  To start with, we’ll need an X environment and some fonts.  I have no requirement to display Asian or Arabic fonts so I started with the basic X display and fonts and then removed the unwanted ones:


# Start with the fonts group, we then remove a number of fonts
# that we don't need
@fonts
# Remove unwanted fonts
-paktype*
-lohit*
-wqy-zenhei-fonts
-thai-scalable-waree-fonts
-cjkuni-uming-fonts
-jomolhari-fonts
-vlgothic-fonts
-vlgothic-fonts-common
-un-core-dotum-fonts
-smc-meera-fonts
-sil-padauk-fonts
-sil-abyssinica-fonts
-paratype-pt-sans-fonts
-lklug-fonts
-khmeros-base-fonts
# Install X11 stack
xorg-x11-drv-ati
xorg-x11-drv-evdev
xorg-x11-drv-fbdev
xorg-x11-drv-intel
xorg-x11-drv-nouveau
xorg-x11-drv-qxl
xorg-x11-drv-synaptics
xorg-x11-drv-vesa
xorg-x11-server-Xorg
xorg-x11-xauth
xorg-x11-xinit

We can now install KDE and some other useful utilities.  We begin with group “critical-path-kde” since this is an absolute minimum.  We then add the KDE parts we want:


# Start with the KDE absolute minimal
@critical-path-kde
# Then add useful KDE and X Components
kde-workspace
kdemultimedia
kde-settings-pulseaudio
xsettings-kde
nm-connection-editor
kde-plasma-networkmanagement

We’ll continue building up our Ultimate Fedora kickstart file in the next article, but for now we’ve got enough to a minimum KDE desktop installed by including the above in the %packages section.

Fedora Kickstart DNS Dependencies

In the previous post we added the updates and fedora repositories to our kickstart file. That should mean the packages are pulled down from the Internet if they can’t be found on the install media (those in the “url” statement).

When I first tried this on my home installation, I was still getting the errors about being unable to find some software packages. A look on the install consoles (ALT+F1,F2,F3, etc.) showed the repositories were being disabled for fedora and updates. Initially I couldn’t figure out why. Then it dawned on me. I was using a temporary DHCP server on a Centos 6 provisioning host, and my options were as follows:


option space PXE;
option PXE.mtftp-ip code 1 = ip-address;
option PXE.mtftp-cport code 2 = unsigned integer 16;
option PXE.mtftp-sport code 3 = unsigned integer 16;
option PXE.mtftp-tmout code 4 = unsigned integer 8;
option PXE.mtftp-delay code 5 = unsigned integer 8;
option arch code 93 = unsigned integer 16; # RFC4578
deny unknown-clients;
subnet 192.168.105.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
option routers 192.168.105.1;
range 192.168.105.200 192.168.105.240;

Note that my DHCP server wasn’t returning any DNS servers as my client booted. As such, when the Fedora install started it had no concept of DNS servers to use.  So, I added the line below so that my Fedora install would use the Google public DNS servers (you could replace this with your own DNS servers or that of your ISP):


option domain-name-servers 8.8.8.8;

The installer was now able to use the fedora and updates repositories to pull down the required packages.

Lesson learnt: make sure that you supply a valid DNS server on your clients when using the kickstart file.

Fedora Kickstart Installation Sources

The previous post showed the kickstart file generated using a minimal installation on my Thinkpad W530.  It’s this base kickstart file which we’ll update and customise, in much the same way as we would do if we were working on the target machine.

I typically install the following packages via yum:

sysstat
conky
autofs
simple-mtpfs
critical-path-kde

Apart from conky and simple-mtpfs all of those applications are fairly generic.  As such I was hoping that they would be available on the Fedora installation DVD.  So, I first updated the packages section of the kickstart file like this:


%packages
@core
sysstat
conky
autofs
simple-mtpfs
@critical-path-kde

However, this kickstart file resulted in errors stating that the packages could not be found.

On an installed Fedora 19 system, I could see these packages came from either the “updates” repository or from a repository called “fedora”.


# yum list sysstat conky autofs simple-mtpfs
autofs.x86_64        1:5.0.7-28.fc19                @updates
conky.x86_64         1.9.0-4.20121101gitbfaa84.fc19 @fedora
simple-mtpfs.x86_64  0.1-6.fc19                     @fedora
sysstat.x86_64       10.1.5-1.fc19                  @fedora

I then came across the following links:

Anaconda/Kickstart – repo usage

Red Hat Bugzilla 979154 – Fedora 19 RC2 kickstart with “repo –name=fedora” crashes

Fedora 19 Common Bugs – Problems with Installation Source and Installation Destination spokes when installing from a partially complete kickstart

This first link states that “By default, anaconda has a configured set of repos taken from /etc/anaconda.repos.d plus a special Installation Repo in the case of a media install. The exact set of repos in this directory changes from release to release and cannot be listed here. There will likely always be a repo named “updates”.

I had another look on the DVD and sure enough those packages were not listed. So, what I actually needed to do was enable these extra repositories in the kickstart file.

Here’s what the updated sections of the kickstart file will look like:


# Use network installation
url --url="http://192.168.105.1/os/fedora/19/Fedora-19-x86_64-DVD"
repo --name=fedora-kickstart --baseurl=http://192.168.105.1/os/fedora/19/Fedora-19-x86_64-DVD
# Need fedora so we can pull down things like sysstat
repo --name=fedora
# Use this to get full updates
repo --name=updates

The updated kickstart file will cause the installer to use these extra repositories and use them when it gets to the %packages section of the kickstart file.  In this manner, it will also pull down updates to the O/S from the Internet using the “updates” repository.

Ultimate Fedora Kickstart

I recently decided to re-install Fedora19 on my Thinkpad W530. I thought it would be worthwhile documenting the steps and using a kickstart server (in this case running Centos 6) to be able to replicate the build in the future – for example when Fedora 20 is released – and for kickstarting other devices. Sure, it’s now possible to upgrade Fedora between releases using FedUp, but if all of your personal data is on a separate (backed up) partition then a clean, custom install will give you a fresh start and make sure no old configuration files or packages are left behind.  If you document your customisations via a kickstart file, it means the headaches of the re-install can be minimal.  In fact, everything you would do on the command line post-install can be done via a kickstart file.  Another advantage is that should a newer filesystem type come along you can simply reformat your O/S partition to this new type.

The next couple of posts will document some of the steps in creating the kickstart file and will cover:

Fedora Kickstart – Installation Sources
Fedora Kickstart – DNS Dependences
Fedora Kickstart – Ultra Minimal KDE Installation
Fedora Kickstart – Additional Repositories
Fedora Kickstart – Thinkpad W530 add-ons
Fedora Kickstart – Post-Installation Tasks

To begin this process, I first installed Fedora 19 by hand and chose minimal as the default installation. This gave me a /root/anaconda-ks.cfg kickstart file from which we can work.

It will look something like this:


#version=DEVEL
# System authorization information
auth --enableshadow --passalgo=sha512
# Use network installation
url --url="http://192.168.105.1/os/fedora/19/Fedora-19-x86_64-DVD"
# Run the Setup Agent on first boot
firstboot --enable
ignoredisk --only-use=sda
# Keyboard layouts
# old format: keyboard us
# new format:
keyboard --vckeymap=us --xlayouts='us'
# System language
lang en_GB.UTF-8
# Network information
network --bootproto=dhcp --device=eth0 --noipv6 --activate
network --hostname=localhost.localdomain
# Root password
rootpw --iscrypted XXX
# System timezone
timezone Europe/London
user --groups=wheel --homedir=/home/user --name=user --password=XXX "User"
# System bootloader configuration
bootloader --location=mbr --boot-drive=sda
# Partition clearing information
clearpart --none --initlabel
# Disk partitioning information
part /boot --fstype="ext4" --onpart=sda6 --label=fedora19-boot
part / --fstype="ext4" --onpart=sda7 --label=fedora19-root
part swap --fstype="swap" --noformat --onpart=sda8
part /boot/efi --fstype="efi" --noformat --onpart=sda2 --fsoptions="umask=0077,shortname=winnt"
%packages
@core
%end

For clarity, the ‘url’ shown above would refer to an internal apache webserver from which the Fedora DVD is shared.

Whilst the final kickstart file won’t be for everyone, I’ve called it the ‘Ultimate Fedora Kickstart‘ because it’s the ultimate for my needs. No doubt, you’ll have your own version of this 🙂

Display a future or past date in the bash shell

Here’s a quick and easy way to establish what the date will be in a specific number of days from today using the bash shell on Linux. Simply use the ‘-d’ option to the ‘date’ command.

Here’s the current timestamp:

-bash-3.2$ date
Thu Jan 17 15:04:28 GMT 2013

And this will be the date 60 days from now:

-bash-3.2$ date -d "now 60 days"
Mon Mar 18 15:04:31 GMT 2013

You can also use the same code to display dates from past. What was the date 94 days ago?

-bash-3.2$ date -d "now -94 days"
Mon Oct 15 15:07:35 GMT 2012

To get the last calendar day of the previous month:

date -d "-$(date +%d) day" +%Y-%m-%d

(Display the date days ago. So on 17 January, 17 days ago would be 31 December)