If your kernel is compiled with CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE_ROTATION=y you can rotate the framebuffer console output to match your rotated monitors.

I wish there was an easier way to setup global mate/gconf settings, but as it stands right now I don’t see anything available other than setting individual keys one at a time using the mateconftool-2 or gconftool-2 command line app.

Then I noticed you can use if/else conditional branching, even outside of regular sections such as prep, build, or install. So I tried it in the beginning of the spec where I put my %define statements and it worked like a charm.

There’s a folder you can create on your desktop that allows you to see every possible thing you can do to your system, all in a single window under one big tree.

Perhaps you don’t have iptables running or you don’t want to process icmp stuff in your firewall rules. Echo this as root, and it will take effect immediately. If you’re wondering if changing things like this, tcp timeouts, and open ports will trick nmap fingerprint scanning, the answer is no.

Custom RPM repositories may modify comps.xml to include custom rpms, rebuilt packages, or ports. Existing Existing groups can be modified or you can create new groups entirely. Packages can install by default, optional, mandatory, or conditional.

Utilizing macros can make life easier when you’re dealing with building on, and for, multiple platforms. Why bother with hard-coding full paths to system utilities when you can simply refer to them by their macro name? These can also be useful for avoiding things like rpm check-files errors, installed (but unpackaged) file(s) found, and debuginfo related stuff.