Basic Linux Help
EgoShowcase
North Carolina
I have recently installed Linux Redhat 8 onto one of my computers. I am finding it very hard just to do basic tasks. Im so lost in this new OS, its like my first time on windows all over again. Any help will be appreciated. I have aim installed so give me a message if you can help. Also i cant get any sound to work.
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Basics:
There are essentially two kinds of users, root and everyone else. root is the super user, and it can do anything. Linux will not ask root if he really wants to delete the entire filesystem, it'll just do it. root can also modify configuration files and do things in protected directories. In most cases, you will need to be logged in as root to do any sort of system configuration, including installing software.
Linux treats everything as a file.
/dev contains files that correspond to every device in your machine (/dev/hda is your primary IDE master, /dev/hdb is primary slave, etc.) Read the documentation for the device filesystem to see what everything does if you're interested, though it shouldn't be necessary (unless you're trying to do something like write ASCII to your serial port).
/proc contains all the information about your current hardware loadout. Of interest, /proc/pci is a list of all the things attached to your PCI bus, useful for identifying exactly what things like your sound card are so you can find the right driver.) /proc/cpuinfo will tell you about the 1337 beast attached to your motherboard with the gigantic copper/aluminum slab on top.
/bin has all the basic programs that make your system tick, like bash (your shell, like command.com).
/boot is where your kernel and bootloader are kept. It's probably not the same partition as your root partition, but is a different partition mounted in the boot directory.
/usr is where all your installed software resides.
/etc is where all your configuration data resides.
/var is where all your logs and temporary internet files are.
Installing Software:
Essentially you find whatever package manager you installed with the OS and use it to find software you want (gimp is like Photoshop, gs is like Acrobat, Firefox and Thunderbird for web and e-mail, gaim for instant messaging, OpenOffice for office needs, lyx for TeX and typesetting). Your package manager should resolve all the dependencies for you (though RedHat is notorious for having problems with this, which is why I don't use it) and then download and install all the .rpm's for you.
Using Software: Just about everything you want to use has a helpfile. Read it before asking questions about something. You'll find a lot of things are fairly intuitive.
System Configuration: One of Linux's huge shortcomings in general. There really aren't any good GUI utilities that I'm aware of to do system configuration. You'll probably have to edit a few configuration files (as in, with nano, pico, vi, emacs, or whatever your favorite text editor is). There are several command line utilities that can help you with this, read the documentation for RedHat to see what they are.
Navigating the shell:
Don't think you can do everything from the GUI. A _lot_ of tasks are still easier from the command line. Important shell commands are:
ls = shows contents of directories.
cd = changes working directory.
mkdir = makes a new directory.
rm = unlinks a file or recursively unlinks files and unlinks directories (very powerful).
rmdir = unlinks an empty directory.
Note: unlinking a file or directory is essentially the same as deleting it, except the data isn't erased until something new takes its place.
mount: mounts an unmounted partition to the specified mount point with specified filesystem (mount /dev/unmounted device -t auto /mnt/wherever will generally work if wherever is a real directory)
umount: unmounts a filesystem.
chmod: changes the read/write/execute flags for a file or directory.
chown: changes the user ownership of files or directories.
su: switches to the super user (root).
cat: concatenates the contents of a file (spews a file's contents on the screen).
There are also some neat things you can do with the shell, like piping:
Say you wanted to read a text file that's bigger than your shell window. Typing cat file won't get you the whole thing, just the last part. The solution is to type cat file | more to pipe the output from cat to a program called more that paginates the output. You can also do things like get a file list by typing ls > filelist (creates a file named filelist and directs the output from ls to the file). The >> operator appends to an existing file or creates a new one if one doesn't exist by the right name.
Getting help:
If you're looking for information on a command line command or program, type man <program> to look at its manpage (the manual). You will be using man a lot because you won't be able to remember what all the switches for your various shell commands do.
This has been a crash course in Linux. You get to know it through use, so don't worry if you feel overwhelmed at first.
-drasnor
http://www.linuxquestions.org/
http://www.tldp.org/
For starters.
Also, the link below gets to the Goolge special Linux-specific subsearch engine:
http://www.google.com/linux (no trailing slash after x needed nor wanted)
Also, look on DISK 3 or DISK 4 for the manuals in pdf form, printable if you want to fill a 2" binder full of redhat manuals and print on both sides of each sheet. (no, NOT kidding)
im dual booting FC3 and WXP and I have to say, I am really impressed with FC3.
Im actually posting from FC3 firefox...
Gobbles
drasnor, purty good intro post!
probs with messin up the win MBR
worth a mention to fer nubies. fix is to
put the dual boot on a floppie, so if something
blows out the win MBR is left intact, i use Ultimate
Boot Disc to save the MBR if peeps insist on a dual boot
on the hard drive, easy to replace with that lil proggie,
also has nice partitioning proggie on it:
http://www.startdisk.com/Web1/ubd/ubd.htm
more boot disc stuff worth pokin into
http://www.bootdisk.com/