Deploy Latex writing environment in Fedora 17

At the end of my PhD, a thesis writing with Latex is inevitable. However the Latex is not my primary writing tool during the whole process of my PhD. The Microsoft word seems more easy and intuitive when some small pieces of work are required. In this case, I am going to construct the Latex writing environment before any composing are produced. The last time when I used the Latex for writing was three years ago for the first year long report. It was all accomplished in an apple Mac environment with simple installation process and intuitive user interface. As for this time, I will complete all works in Linux environment. Here I will review how to produce a work using Latex in Linux firstly.

Simple work process:

1. Composing the latex document.
2. Compile the latex document: latex <filename.tex>
3. Review the dvi file: xdvi <filename.dvi>
4. Produce the pdf file: pdflatex <filename.tex>

The work process mentioned above is just a fairly simple one without other excessive works. It is enough if it is treated as an hello world testing.

In order to use the Latex in Fedora, some packages should be installed at the first place. Here is a collection of install packages which are available in Fedora 17 's yum package installation tool:

• texlive: for latex environment.
• texlive-latex: for latex command for front end program.
• xdvik: for dvi viewer.

This is all the packages that can handle most situations of latex writing. At least those are all needed by the hello work one mentioned.

Using a light-weight text editor to manipulate a latex document is really painful, at least for me. So I found another package available in yum repository:

• texmaker

This is a convenient IDE to edit latex document.

Dual Monitors on Fedora 17 with Nvidia

I just too excited about my new Nvidia Graphic Card, to take the consideration of Linux driver installation into account. So, here is my updated specification in my little white box:

• CPU: i5-3570K
• GPU: EVGA gtx670 ftw
• MEM: 8G 1600Mhz
• Hard_DISK:  WD-Black 1T, WD-Blue 500G x 2
• PSU: Corsair AX850
• Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V-Deluxe
• Displays: 24" & 19" Samsung

The problem was shown up when I switched from the i5 integrated Graphic Unit HD4000 to the new external EVGA gtx670 ftw Graphic Card, without changing on my original Operating Systems: Fedora 17 and Windows 7 dual system setting.

On the Windows 7, the EVGA graphic card works fine after installing the card driver software. On the Fedora 17, however, only one display (with smaller resolution) is recognised and the other one (with bigger resolution) is mirrored from that one with the same display resolution. (Sometimes another thing happens. The bigger resolution display is recognised and the smaller resolution display cannot display in that high resolution and then it is totally black.) There is no way to modify display settings like the control panel in Windows to add another display by using the provided display setting GUI tools. In this case, I decide to install the official Nvidia Linux driver to make the new graphic card work in Fedora 17.

Unfortunately, I was failed to install official Nvidia Linux driver.  At first, the driver require me to disable the Nouveau driver before the installation of Nvidia driver. After that some other messages are shown on the screen. I cannot remember them. Actually, I didn't know what is really wrong with my installation procedure. But the problem persists after my installation. I assume my installation is unsuccessful at the first place. But I have found some others have already accomplished some work for installing the Nvidia driver in Linux environment.

According to an article on the Internet, the RPM fusion provide the kernel module of the Nvidia driver. This is quite similar with the wireless driver for ASUS's P8Z77-V-Deluxe motherboard which is composed in another my blog. The command used for installing is:

yum install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs

By using the akmod package make me not concerned with the kernel update problem. The last step is to disable the Nouveau driver by:

## Backup old initramfs nouveau image ##
mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
 
## Create new initramfs image ##
dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

reboot