Bruno Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 NOTE: Please be aware that a board software upgrade corrupted the formatting on many threads/posts here. This thread happens to be one of those that was affected. The linked index of tips below no longer works. You can always visit Bruno's Tips for Linux Explorers directly to read this same info that you see here in this thread. Thank you for your understanding. ~V. T. Eric Layton, for the entire Staff at Scot's. *The above Notation was amended - V. T. Eric Layton 021022-1746hrs EDT ____________________________________________________________ General Linux tips can be a bit difficult to locate. In order to simplify where to look for the tips, I started this thread. I will add a new tip on a regular basis. Please keep in mind these tips are posted in random order, based upon questions posted on any given day. These do not provide full information, but just enough to make you hungry for more. NOTE: This site has exactly the same info but additionally an accurate search function through the Tips The First Things To Know: ISO's and md5sum Checksum ISO's in Windows Burning ISO's Windows Tools: Burning ISOs Windows Tools: Gparted Md5sum of already burned CD's Check CD Script SHA-1 Checksums Live CD's ( disto's that run from CD ) Basic rules for install Change the BIOS settings Making a boot floppy Boot/Rescue CD Formatting Floppy and Zip disks The Tree Runaway Processes ( and how to kill them ) Skinny Elephants ( if all else fails ) Copy and paste The "reset"-button Updating your distro Su and Root ( the difference ) Install cheatcodes Lost user password Lost Root password Tricks in KDE home The Linux Counter Ultimate Boot CD Backing-Up the MBR Restoring the XP MBR Removing Vista boot option The Command "Info" The Terminal/Console: The Console/Terminal VI and Emacs Vi ( Revisited ) Bash Bash history Bash script Tab completion Ctrl+C ( Stop Processing Command ) Shorthand File permissions Changing file permissions umask ( Advanced permissions ) Suid, Sticky and Chattr ( Advanced permissions ) The whatis command Handy console commands Hardlinks and symlinks Again, handy file commands Searching The command less A simple backup script Redirections ( and the black hole: /dev/null ) Basic machine information Hardware info commands Getting in textmode and shutting down X Aliases The "links" browser f stab and mtab Mount and umount Grep is for searching within a file Global expressions Regular expressions The "PATH" Splitting large files Md5sum Trick The Host Command CDrecord CDrecord and Kernel 2.6 Apropos ImageMagick Tweak the command "ls -l" Transparent Console The Find commad Find and Replace with Sed Diff and Cmp (Find the difference) Diff, Find and Md5sum DirDiff Script ( Diff the content of 2 directories ) Head and Tail The Groups Command Shred ( really delete ) Nice Back- and Foreground Processes The Command "File" FTP on the Command Line What Day was Yesterday ? ldconfig ( Where are the Libs ? ) Easy Config File Backup Make ISO from CD The "at" Command Kdesu and gksu Counting words ( The "wc" command ) Change your Shell The dd command Installing Software: Installing software RPM Installing software TGZ Installing software tarballs Installing Software YUM for Fedora Installing software URPMI Installing software URPMI Part 2 URPMI Sources in Mandrake 9.2 URPMI Sources in Mandrake 10.0 Official URPMI Sources in Mandrake 10.1 Official URPMI Sources in Mandriva 2005 LE URPMI Sources in Mandriva 2006 URPMI Sources in Mandriva 2007 Mandrake Club URPMI Searching software in MCC ( Mandrake only ) Penguin Liberation Front Cheat-codes Updating your urpmi-sources Lost URPMI Distribution Sources SRPMs ( Source RPMs ) RPM, Special tricks Urpmq and urpmf What is in that package ? Installing Firefox in Linux Version numbers Re-install and upgrades Corrupt RPM database Searching software ( All distro's ) Ximian Red Carpet TAR Unpacking Packages Swaret ( For Slackware ) Apt-Get and Swaret on Dial-up Installing a Kernel Source File System: Partitions Primary, Extended and Logical Partitions File systems Partitioning Tools ( And which ones not to use ) Diskdrake Part 1 Diskdrake Part 2 Navigating the filesystem and simple commands Mounting DOS/Windows partitions Important config files and directories Damaged Superblock USB memory sticks and digital cameras ISO to zip-drive Press Y Within 5 Seconds File System Commands FSCK ( Filesystem check ) File System Check 2 ( fsck ) Auto fsck Fdisk ( fdisk ) Bad Blocks Access Linux Partitions from Windows MBR - Hard Disk Layout Configuring Your System: Cronjobs and the Cron-daemon Cron and Anacron User Related Cronjobs The Lilo bootloader Multiboot Lilo Password ProtectLilo Redo Lilo / Redo MBR ( PCLos ) Grub, The Bootloader Multiboot Grub Grub, booting runlevel 3 Configuring your networkcard Config commands in RedHat ( and Fedora ) Dmesg debug messages CPU Info Configuring and compiling the kernel Log files cleaning Installing Macromedia Flash Plugin Installing Java plugin Runlevels Sudo Cups Initscript Services ( chkconfig ) Changing Hostname Changing Hostname in D*** Small Linux Sharing Firefox and Thunderbird Config Fine Tuning Your System: Tweaking the prompt Multimedia keys in Linux Extra mouse buttons Network status mii-diag Ugly fonts in OpenOffice.org Disable the OpenOffice.Org splash sreen OpenOffice Quickstarter Speed Up OpenOffice Tweak Evolution Tweaking Vi Hdparm ( Harddisk performance ) 3D acceleration test Memory test Configure XRunning XFdrakeChroot nVidia Drivers LM-Sensors Sensors in Gkrellm Tweaking the Bootsplash Swappiness Extra Firefox Prefs System Notifications Failure Xlib Error Tweaking MTU Settings CD SpellcheckInit ( Startup Scripts ) No Capslock Numlock in XFCE, IceWM and Fluxbox Numlock in Text-Mode ScreenShot Script Security: Services Started at Boot Servers and Services Rootkit Checkers AV Software, and why you don't need it F-Prot AV scanner for Linux Browsers & Privacy Mandriva Security Settings ( MSEC ) Hardware: Modems and Linux Fast Ethernet cards ( NIC's ) Conexant dial-in PCI modem in RedHat Hardware Databases Win-Drivers for Wlan Cards Problematic Canon Printers Wireless Networking: WiFi Support ( Mandrake and PCLos ) NDISwrapper Configuring NDISwrapper in the Control Center Configuring Wireless USB Finding a WiFi Card ( Linux Compatible ) Distro Specific: Slackware Tips 1 Slackware Tips 2 Slackware Tips 3 Slackware Tips 4 Slackware Tips 5 D*** Small Linux HD install D*** Small Linux: MyDSL D*** Small Linux from USB, Saving Personal Files D*** Small Linux from USB, Saving MyDSL Extensions Installing RedHat ( first time ) Fedora Core 6 Install Knoppix cheat-codes More Knoppix cheatcodes Ubuntu Rescue Mode Extra fonts in Mandrake Mandrake Update CD Store and Sync Mandriva Updates Locally Local Mail in Mandriva Mandrake 9.2 Install Mandrake 10.0 OfficialInstall Mandrake 10.1 Official Install Mandriva 2005 LE Install Mandriva 2006 Install Mandriva 2007 Install Alternative Mandriva Install Running XFdrake PCLos 5 Tips PCLos Tweaks ( Preview 5 and 7 ) PCLos 8 tips PCLos 9 tips PCLos 92 Performance Tweaks Redo Lilo / Redo MBR ( PCLos ) General Info: Start New Session A ( tiny ) keyboad tip Gkrellm, mailcheck and sound Gkrellm weather applet Keyboard shortcuts Commandline mp3 player Shoutcast-Stream to MP3 Backup your Windows in Linux Navigating windows partitions Linux User Groups ( LUGs ) CD ripping with konqueror Screen savers in KDE Index.dat ( the secret Windows files ) Backup mail Evolution RSS feeds, Linux related Printing Man Pages Atomic Clock Rsync Printing The Tips Hidden Messages VoIP with Kphone SoundCheck Script Spamassassin Tweaks Booting in Runlevel 3 ( Trick with Lilo ) Looping an ISO Automatic Time Syncing Printing Web Pages as .txt Great Linux Links Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 RUN-AWAY PROCESSES ( and the way to kill them ) A full system crash is very rare in Linux, most of the times it is only one program that acts up. There are several ways to recover from a crashed program. 1). If a program blocks, crashes or runs-away ( does not want to close or stop running ), change desktop and press the Ctrl+Esc keys. You will get the Process Table with all processes running on your system ( some processes may appear several times, that is normal ) the first four columns are the most important, if you know the name of the process things are simple, if you don't: in the 3rd and 4th you can see what is consuming all that cpu. Now remember or note down the PID number ( Process IDentifier ) you will need this. ( for multiple processes with the same name only the last one is the one you're after ). Now go to yet another desktop open a terminal/console type < su > ( without the <> ) and give your root password, then type < kill 4246 >; ( if 4246 was the pid number ). That's all, job done ! ( rebooting like in Windows is NOT needed in Linux !) (There are other ways with names instead of numbers, terminal instead of gui process table, but this is the most general way to save your butt ) 2). If all your desktops are blocked ( when X crashes): Press Ctrl+Alt+F1, you will go out of X, and get an empty terminal screen, fully black with a login prompt. ( there are 6 terminals available F1 to F6 ) Then log in as "root" ( not "su" this time ) and type <top>, you will get the same process-table with the PID numbers, find the number that's hurting, close top with the"Q" key, press Alt+F2, you will get a second black screen ( terminal ) to log in to, log in as root and < kill 4246 >. For returning to X, press Alt+F7 ! 3). Also you can try Ctrl+Alt+Backspace . . . it will log you out of X and bring you back to the graphical login screen where you can start KDE or Gnome again. 4). If even this does not help or you can not find the process and PID number just type "reboot" at the root-prompt ( of a Ctrl+Alt+F1 terminal ) and you will get a clean reboot. 5). If even this last step does not work, read the next Tip here below: "If all else fails" Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 SKINNY ELEPHANTS( Or: If All Else Fails ) In addition to the PID story in Runaway Processes If all is blocked and even Ctrl+Alt+backspace ( what should be a last resort ) does not react, if your system does not react on any action ( like I said before, very rare in Linux ) remember the next line: Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring Here is how you "raise the elephant": Alt+SysRq+r ( SysRq is on the same button as print screen ) ( The LEFT Alt key ) Alt+SysRq+s Alt+SysRq+e Alt+SysRq+i Alt+SysRq+u Alt+SysRq+b Give a little time between keystrokes. The r stands for put keyboard in raw mode The s for sync the disk The e for terminate all processes The i for kill all processes The u for remount all filesystems read only The b for reboot the system THIS IS THE VERY LAST SAVE YOUR BUTT PROCEDURE ! ONLY IF ALL ELSE FAILS ! Bruno PS: If your filesystem is Ext3 or ReiserFS and on reboot it wants you to do a filesystem check, don't touch any key as it asks you to press "Y" and let it recover the journal automatically. NOTE: For the skinny elephants to work you need to have the sysrq-key enabled in the kernel. (CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ) You can check if it is enabled by typing 'ls /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq' if it's there, it's enabled. Thanks to Mischa for pointing this out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 (edited) COPY AND PASTE Here is a simple one: Copy and paste from one program to another program, ( your browser to a text editor, from one desktop to another, from a text editor to the console/terminal etc.etc. ) Just select the text with your mouse ( this copies it automatically to the clipboard ) go to the other screen and push the wheel ( or middle button ) that pastes it. So only two movements . . no context menu . . just select and paste. The only exception is OpenOffice, there you will have to do in like you do it in Windows: select, rightclick, choose copy from the contextmenu, rightclick and paste it from the context menu. Sure the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v work in Linux too In most distro's you will find a clipboard next to the clock ( an orange icon with a K ) . . . it remembers the last 5 entries ( or more if you configure it that way ) . . . simply tick the entry you want to paste and pushing the wheel will paste that entry where you want it. If you want to copy a full config file to a textfile that you can send as a mail-attachment, one command will do: ( example the lilo.conf file ) # cat /etc/lilo.conf >lilo.txt This will put a text file in your /home directory by the name of lilo.txt Bruno Edited May 18, 2012 by securitybreach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 (edited) CRON and ANACRON If you run Mandrake, SUSE or many other distro's ( RedHat has anacron installed as default ) and your computer is not ON 24 hrs a day, there are several cron-jobs ( maintenance ) that might be forgotten because they are planned for 3 - 4 o'clock at night.Installing anacron will set this straight, anacron picks up forgotten cron-jobs and executes them 5 minutes after you boot your computer. You will notice extra activity of your CPU and harddisk for about 5 to 7 minutes ! Typical cron-jobs are updatedb updating the locate database and various other databases. Logrotate that zips up old logfiles, var/log/syslog and var/log/messages might grow so big that in extreme cases you could run out of diskspace : resulting in having to reinstall the OS ! Installing anacron is simple and needs no configuring. Mandrake Control Center --> Software Management --> Installing Software --> search for anacron. Bruno Edited May 18, 2012 by LilBambi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 A FEW HANDY ( CONSOLE ) COMMANDS: ( $ and # make part of the prompt, $ is normal user, # is root ) For your network/internet connection: ( as root ! ) $ su ( to log in as root )< root password > IP addresses and traffic: # ifconfig # route Display disk performance: # hdparm -t /dev/hda Space usage: $ df -h $ du -s /var/log/* ( Space usage of all the files in /var/log ) Memory: $ free -b ( In bites );' $ free -k ( KB ) $ free -m ( MB ) $ free -o ( Without buffers ) $ free -t ( Totals ) Screenshot: $ import -w root sreen.jpg (Will store it in your home dir. ) See also "The One Page Linux Manual" in my sig. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 Bruno, what a great idea. I only wish I could contribute something that hasn't been shared before. Oh well, in time; keep 'em coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 Thanks Quint ! But that's it for today, tomorrow we will cover: -The vi texteditor -Configuring multi media keys under linux ( those extra buttons on fancy keyboards ) -Tweaking your prompt Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zox Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 This is great idea Bruno.It is really handy to have this stuff on one place when you need it.Good job, keep up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengeek Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 When I first tried to join a local Linux User Group I was told to "read all the books and howtos and don't ask stupid questions and waste everybody's time". Needless to say I took their advice but didn't join their group.Joy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 Thanks for your encouraging words, that's a real energy boost ! A little note on the site: it's not my aim to turn you into full blown Linux geeks, but only to hand you the basics, the bare minimum in order to give you the appetite to learn more about Linux.Moderators, please make adjustments and corrections without hesitation, English is not my native language and I'm far from being a Linux guru. I would never have started this thread without the backup of knowledgeable moderators as you are. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 THE CONSOLE / TERMINAL All the tasks we do on the commandline are done in a "dos-window", in Linux we call it a "Shell", "Console" or "Terminal" ( the name depends on the distro you use, Terminal is used in RedHat, Console in Mandrake ). As you start up a Console ( look in your menu ) you will be presented with a “prompt“, this prompt will end with a $, this means that you are logged in as a normal user. Once you type < su > and give your root password the $ will change in a #, indicating that you are root. Ctrl+d will log you out as root and bring you back to $, if you do a Ctrl+d again the console will close. ( A normal prompt will look like: [localhost@localdomain:~]$ Not very spectacular, but in a few days we will start tweaking your prompt into something fancy, but the $ and # will always stay the same ) For nearly every program or command there are “man”-ual pages stored on your computer. You can read them by typing < man man >, this will give you the man pages for the command man. < man cp > will give you the man pages for the command cp. The spacebar lets you scroll the page. With < q > you close the man pages ! More info than the man pages can often be found by typing < --help > after the command. See < cp --help > gives a different result then < man cp >. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 VI AND EMACS All configuration files in Linux are written in plain English, easy to read and to adapt. We use a text-editor to write or make changes to those files. The two most popular, powerful and "difficult" editors that you will find in every distro are Vi and Emacs. They both have "syntax-highlighting" to make writing code easy. NOTE: Vi and Emacs fans fight bitter religious wars over which is better ( I prefer Vi ) Vi There are hundreds of commands for Vi, we will only touch the absolute minimum. $ vi tessst Will open the file tessst in located in your /home, if the file does not exist it will create one. Vi has 3 modes: a command mode, an insert mode and an ex mode. When you start Vi it starts in command mode. So we first have to type an < i > to put it in insert mode. Now you can type "the quick brown fox etc." After inserting the text we go back to command mode < Esc > and save the file with ZZ. Thats all we have to know for the beginning.: < i > for insert < Esc > for command, ZZ for saving the file. Some more commands for Vi: ( less important ) i = insert text before the cursor a = insert text after the cursor : = switch to ex mode $ = go to last place on the line ^ = go to first place on the line w = next word b = previous word G = last line of the file 20G = go to line no 20 y = copy ( y3w = copy 3 words ) ( y3j = copy 4 lines ) p = paste d = cut x = delete character under the cursor Emacs Emacs is made easy because these days it has a GUI in modern distro's, but we will use the keyboard because it has more speed. $ emacs ssset Will open or create the file ssset in your /home OK type away: " the quick brown etc". Now to save the file do: Ctrl+x, Ctrl+c, y Well i said we were going to keep it simple ! Leave the tessst and ssst files in your /home, in the next section we can do some exercises with them. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 NAVIGATING THE FILESYSTEM AND SIMPLE COMMANDS ( only for the very fresh starters with Linux ) As we are doing the bare minimum these are the most often used commands: cd = change directory mkdir = make directory rmdir = remove directory rm = remove file cp = copy mv = move or rename ls = lists directories and files cat = show contents file O.K. let's play: Open an console on desktop 1, open the home directory by clicking on it on desktop 2 ( there you can see and verify the commands executed on desktop 1 ) $ mkdir One ( without the $ ) ( makes a dir One in your home dir ) $ mkdir one ( Linux is case sensitive so One and one are not the same ! ) ( makes a dir one in your home dir) $ cp tessst One ( copies the file tessst, that we made in previous Tip, to dir One ) $ mv ssset one ( moves the file ssset, that we made in previous Tip, to dir one ) $ mv one One ( moves dir one in dir One ) $ cd One ( see how the promt puts the current dir in in the prompt ) ( puts you in dir One ) $ ls ( shows you what is inside One ) $ cat tessst ( shows contents file tessst ) $ rm tessst ( removes file tessst from One dir ) $ cd .. ( puts you back in your home dir $ rm tessst ( removes tessst from home dir ) $ rm -rf One ( now all files and directories we played with are removed ) We have a look in the filesystem: $ cd / $ ls This shows you the directories in "/" (root filesystem): /boot, /etc, /initrd, /lost+found, /opt, /root, /tmp, /var, /bin, /dev, /home, /lib, /mnt, /proc, /sbin, /usr. $ cd /mnt $ ls This shows you the mounted devices, cdrom, cdrom2, floppy, (win_c) $ cd ( Brings you back to your /home ) $ ls ( What is in your home ) $ ls -a ( What is really in your home !! The argument "-a" shows the hidden files. Hidden files start with "." ) $ vi .tessst ( Makes an hidden file called .tessst in /home ) $ls ( You don't see .tessst ) $ ls -a ( You do see .tessst ) $ rm .tessst ( Removes the hidden file .tessst ) $ ls -al ( Shows you all the files in /home with their "permissions" more about that later. ) To know more about these commands and the arguments you can give them, see: "man cd" "man cp" "man mv" etc. etc. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengeek Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 How about some basic stuff for real beginners? When I first started I couldn't work out how to get the CD to work, find out where to configure the sound, how to install stuff, where did it go when it was installed etc. That's the sort of thing that puts a lot of people off Linux, they're not all like us, willing to learn, they want it to work straight away.Joy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 24, 2003 Author Share Posted April 24, 2003 Greengeek all that stuff is comming: This is what I had in mind for the next week or so:Text editors Vi and EmacsNavigating the filesystem and basic commandsHidden files(Auto)Start programs at startupLocate, search filesInstall software with urpmi, rpm and tarballConfiguring Multi Media keysTweaking the promptIso burning and checksumFile permissionsI will add configuring sound to the list !More items can be added for the following week too Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 back to runaway X Windows (KDE, etc.) program(works particularly well for Mandrake and RedHat RPM based systems):In KDE, click the K Button, select Run command, type "xkill" (sans quotes), your cursor turns into a funny square, click the program that is in runaway mode and bye bye program.If that fails, do "ALT, CTRL, F1" and then CTRL C to break out of XWindows (KDE, etc.). Then you can go back into X (KDE, etc.) ... problem has usually solved itself by exiting X. No need to reboot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 How about some basic stuff for real beginners? When I first started I couldn't work out how to get the CD to work, find out where to configure the sound, how to install stuff, where did it go when it was installed etc. That's the sort of thing that puts a lot of people off Linux, they're not all like us, willing to learn, they want it to work straight away.JoyJoy,With the newer distributions (2.4.x kernel) a lot of this has become very automatic, almost plug'n'play. For instance, Red Hat and Mandrake now automounts your CDs if put it in while you're in X Windows. (If you are in the console uses this command: mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom and the contents of the CD are accessible from the filesystem directory /mnt/cdrom.)If you aren't familiar with the way Linux handles storage devices here's a concise explanation: You know that in DOS and Windows you access storage devices by drive letters such as a: for the floppy drive, c: for your active primary partition and letters for all other partitions, optical drives, USB keys, etc. In Linux you access storage devices by mounting the device so that it appears as if it's part of the directory structure, or as it is technically called, the filesystem. The Linux directory /dev is a special type of directory known as a block device. The /dev naming convention is used to identify the storage device and it is this device that you mount to a directory. Most Linux users stick with the default convention of mounting storage devices under the /mnt directory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengeek Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 Thanks Peachy, but I'm quite comfortable with the Penguin, I was thinking more of the absolute beginner who would probably have a minor heart attack if a Linux distro suddenly dropped him back at the command line.Joy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 24, 2003 Author Share Posted April 24, 2003 Thanks Lilbambi & Peachy for joining in ! Need all the help to make this thread to a succesfull resource for Linux starters. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 Hi, all. Is a "runaway" in Linux the same as a "freeze" in Windows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 24, 2003 Author Share Posted April 24, 2003 Quint:Well, eh, kind of ! However very rare, ( extremely seldom compared to windows ) there are system freezes. Program crashes are more common du of bugs ( bugfixes ). Processes that run wild in a loop and keep consuming cpu, mostly because you made a mistake yourself. All those I call "runaway". The first bue screen o.d. has not been seen up till now on a Linux system. ( if you would see one, make a screenshot !! ) Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 24, 2003 Author Share Posted April 24, 2003 SEARCHING Imagine you just downloaded or installed a program and you have no clue where is is gone. There are several ways to perform search. The most easy ones are: $ whereis gkrellm or $ locate gkrellm ( if gkrellm is the program you're after ) Note: for locate to work you have to create a database for fast searching : $ su < password > # updatedb Cron will keep your database up to date on a daily basis. Special characters: * \ [....] [!....] ? * = matches a random string of characters \ = the "escape sign", the character or space after this sign is ignored ? = matches 1 random character [a-d] = matches a, b, c, d [!a-d] = does not match a, b, c, d [a-dA-D] = matches a, b, c, d, A, B, C, D Now let's do some Magic: $ ls /etc/*conf ( Will list all files in the /etc dir that end with conf including conf ) $ ls /etc/[!g-z]* ( Will list all files in /etc/ that do not start with the letters g to z ) $ locate *doc ( Will produce a long list of the files ending on doc on your computer ) Because this list is very long, and we might want to keep it: $ locate *doc >alldocs ( Will create a textfile called alldocs in your /home listing all the doc files crowding your computer. ( Notice the speed of you lovely Linux system ) ) $ ls /mnt/win_c/My\ Documents/*txt ( Will make a list of all your txt files it finds in your C:\windows\My Documents. ) Note: Linux does not like spaces in names ! So in My\ Documents, the \ tells it to ignore the next character. An other way to do it is "My Documents". Another, but somewhat complicated command for searching is "find". See for instructions how to use it: The Find Command More Magic: The Tab key autocompletes: Try this, < cd /u > and press tab now add an "s" and press tab, give an "h" and press tab, now we have got < cd /usr/share/ > OK lets go on, type a "f" "o" "n" tab "t" tab "d" tab. < Enter > Now we are in /usr/share/fonts/ttf/decoratives. < ls > will give you a list of all the fancy ttf fonts on your system. < cd .. > , < cd western > , < ls > gives you a list of all normal ttf fonts. So now you know where to install all those extra fonts you can find on the net. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 24, 2003 Author Share Posted April 24, 2003 INSTALLING SOFTWARE URPMI Software comes in many different kind of packages deb, rpm and tarball are the most popular, but there are a bunch of other ones too, just take the Firefox browser; just unpacking it and creating a shortcut from the firefox script to the desktop is all there is to it ! Tarballs can be a real problem because of lib dependencies ( The nightmare of every Linux starter ! ) Today we'll introduce you to urpmi, a kind of rpm with gold-plating, because all dependencies are taken care of automatically. You have to be on-line to download and install the packages though ! Urpmi does not only download the rpm you want but also all packages needed to make the install successful , easy as cake ! In Mandriva you can use the graphical software manager in the Mandriva Control Center, it uses urpmi by clicking on a few buttons. But there is a much faster way of installing software using urpmi on the commandline and you will be surprised how easy it actually is An example, installing the gkrellm package ( system monitors ) would type the command: # urpmi gkrellm . . . and if you want to install both the program with the plugins and the themes in one go you do # urpmi gkrellm gkrellm-plugins gkrellm-themes Then, if you want to remove/uninstall gkrellm you do # urpme gkrellm Well, that was easy enough wasn't it ? And like I said: urpmi resolves dependencies but does need an working net connection. To update the urpmi sources you do "urpmi.update -a" Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 25, 2003 Author Share Posted April 25, 2003 INSTALLING SOFTWARE Apt-get and YUM for RedHat and Fedora RedHat It looks like Red Hat is developping a new way to handle RPM's, a bit simular to urpmi. Here is a link to info about Apt-get for RedHat: http://forums.scotsn...topic=3931&st=0 Fedora Here the thread about YUM: http://forums.scotsn...indpost&p=48219 Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 25, 2003 Author Share Posted April 25, 2003 YaST for SUSESuse uses it's own package management system.I call on Zox, Greengeek and ComputerBob to please write us a few lines about it. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 FYI:Here are some articles on the RedHat site about apt-get and other auto-updaters in relation to RedHat:http://rpm.redhat.com/software/updaters/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 25, 2003 Author Share Posted April 25, 2003 Thanks for your input LilBambi.What distro are u using yourself ? Was it Mandrake or RedHat ? I'm a bit confused now, was sure it was Mandrake. . . ? Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 Thanks for your input LilBambi.What distro are u using yourself ? Was it Mandrake or RedHat ? I'm a bit confused now, was sure it was Mandrake. . . ? BrunoSorry Bruno -- I should have been clear on that point ... Actually it is both ... Mandrake (since 7.0) and RedHat (since 6.0).I am currently using RedHat 7.2 on my alternate computer (through KVM switch) but we have 11 networked boxes here. Mainly with versions of Mandrake and RedHat on them. We also have one Win95 (dualboot) and one Win98se (solo box). In addition we have a couple freeBSD installations (standalone and dualboot).So the confusion was quite understandable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 25, 2003 Author Share Posted April 25, 2003 I am currently using RedHat 7.2 on my alternate computer (through KVM switch) but we have 11 networked boxes here. Mainly with versions of Mandrake and RedHat on them. We also have one Win95 (dualboot) and one Win98se (solo box). In addition we have a couple freeBSD installations (standalone and dualboot).Does that mean I can ask you to write a few lines about easy software install in RedHat ? Please ?And what about freeBSD ? You and ThunderRiver look like the only ones that could be able to shed some light on software install in freeBSD. Do they use RPM ? Tarballs ?See, we have lots of questions in this forum, are hungry for answers, and would appreciate your expertise. Bruno Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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