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Chapter 1 ✦ Introduction to Linux Troubleshooting

want to be sanctioned to some extent by the Fedora Project, can be added to Fedora

repositories in one of the following ways:

✦ Fedora Extras—These are additional software packages that don’t replace any of the

basic Fedora Core packages. Eventually, the

www.fedora.us site is slated to hold an

ofﬁcial set of Fedora Extras packages.

✦ Fedora Alternatives—These are software packages that can replace existing software

packages that are in the Fedora Core.

✦ Fedora Legacy—These are packages that contain ﬁxes to older versions of Fedora Core

software.

The guidelines for submitting Fedora software packages, and having them sanctioned by the

Fedora Project, are still being developed. For more on software package deﬁnitions, visit the

Fedora Project Terminology page (

http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/

terminology.html

). As I noted earlier, you should also keep in mind that there are some (and

will be more) software repositories that will be available that won’t fall under Fedora Project

guidelines. You will be on your own to evaluate the quality and legality of those packages.

Cross-

Reference

See Chapter 3 for more complete information on getting Fedora software packages and

updates. See Appendix A for a list of popular third-party software repositories.

Giving Back to Fedora

Contributing to the open-source community is the best way to ensure that Linux, in general,

and Fedora, in particular, will continue to improve and grow in the future. Even if you are not a

kernel hacker, or a software developer at all, there are plenty of other ways you can contribute.

Finding Bugs and Filing Reports

The easiest way that anyone using Fedora can help improve it is to report problems. As you

use Fedora, you will certainly bump into things that don’t exactly work right. Using a facility

called Bugzilla, which is maintained by Red Hat, Inc., for the Fedora Project, you can:

✦ Search—You can search the Bugzilla database to see if anyone has encountered the

same problem you have. If someone has, there may already be a workaround or

software ﬁx available to overcome the problem. If you can’t ﬁnd the exact bug you

encountered in the database, you might also want to check a Fedora mailing list on the

topic to see if the problem has been encountered, before you ﬁle a bug report. To search

Bugzilla, go to the Red Hat Bugzilla site (

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/)

and enter a search term.

✦ Report—If you feel that the bug has not been reported yet, you can enter a Bugzilla

report into the database. When you do, make sure that you have as many details

available about the problem as possible before you enter the report.

To enter a bug report, you need to give a valid e-mail address and password. To get an

account, or just log in to enter a bug report, go to the following web address:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi.