Making Fedora Core 12 work

Here is my experience of installing Fedora Core 12 and making it work the way I like:

1. Install from a CD is pretty much straightforward.  It is a good idea to fire up network during install and choose update repositories in the package selection.  This way you'll save a bit of time on post-install system update.
2. yum install bash-completion (I cannot live without it)
3. Add yourself to /etc/sudoers
4. Add languages
1. sudo yum groupinstall {russian,japanese}-support
2. In "System->Administration->Input Method" add Anthy for Japanese input method
3. logout and the login back 
4. for Japanese support in Adobe Reader download and install a version form the Adobe Japanese web site
5. Automounter
1. yum install am-utils
2. mkdir /net
3. service amd start
4. chkconfig amd on
5. check if it mounts NFS servers under /net:
   ls /net/<nfs_server>
6. Flash player: follow the instructions from http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash 
7. Setup mail
1. yum install postfix
2. add "root: @localhost" to /etc/aliases 
3. newaliases
4. chkconfig postfix on
5. service postfix start
6. to test mail: hostname | mail root 
8. yum install logwatch
9. rsnapshot
1. yum install rsnapshot
2. edit /etc/cron.d/rsnapshot to specify location of snapshots
3. add "exclude .gvfs/" to /etc/rsnapshot.conf (otherwise rsnpashot sometimes fails on that directory)
10. Printer setup
1. samsung ML-1740 (networked)
1. yum install gootenprint-foomatic
2. System->Administration->Printing
3. Add New Printer
4. Select connection: network
5. Enter device address then click Find 
6. Click Forward and select Samsung ML-1740 from the list (if Samsung ML-1740 does not show up in the list then something is not installed) 
7. In the "Settings" change paper size from A4 to letter
8. Print test page
2. canon pixma ip1800 USB
1. download the folowing rpms from Canon Europe and Australia web sites:
1. cnijfilter-common-3.00-1.i386.rpm
2. cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386.rpm
2. yum install cnijfilter-common-3.00-1.i386.rpm cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386.rpm
3. add printer through New Printer dialog
11. Scanner Epson Perfection V350: download and install the following rpms from http://www.avasys.jp/lx-bin2/linux/scan/DL1.do or http://www.avasys.jp/lx-bin2/linux_e/scan/DL1.do
1. iscan-2.23.0-3.ltdl7.x86_64.rpm
2. iscan-plugin-gt-f700-2.1.0-3.c2.x86_64.rpm
12. Picasa: download and rpm from http://picasa.google.com/linux/thanks-rpm.html and then do yum --nogpgcheck install  
1. Picasa turned out not to work, I am still figuring out why
13. Chromium: follow instructions on http://rajaseelan.com/2009/07/04/how-to-install-google-chrome-in-fedora-10-or-fedora-11/
1. after that go to SELinux policy tool and change policy to permissive if this is ok for you
2. reboot will rebuild the SELinux and may take some time
14. Web cam: just plug in, check if it works with Cheese Webcam Booth
15. smartd for HDD monitoring
1. chkconfig smartd on
2. smartd -q onecheck to see if it works
16. mp3 support
1. sudo rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
2. sudo yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-ffmpeg

What's left: input tablet support, skype, and non-free nvidia drivers.  Watch this blog!