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2 Linux
Linux (often pronounced LIH-nuhks with a short "i") is a UNIX-like operating system that was designed to provide personal computer users a free or very low-cost operating system comparable to traditional and usually more expensive UNIX systems. Linux has a reputation as a very efficient and fast-performing system. Linux's kernel (the central part of the operating system) was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland. To complete the operating system, Torvalds and other team members made use of system components developed by members of the Free Software Foundation for the GNU project. Linux is a remarkably complete operating system, including a graphical user interface, an X Window System, TCP/IP, the Emacs editor, and other components usually found in a comprehensive UNIX system. Although copyrights are held by various creators of Linux's components, Linux is distributed using the Free Software Foundation's copyleft stipulations that mean any modified version that is redistributed must in turn be freely available. Unlike Windows and other proprietary systems, Linux is publicly open and extendible by contributors. Because it conforms to the Portable Operating System Interface standard user and programming interfaces, developers can write programs that can be ported to other operating systems. Linux comes in versions for all the major microprocessor platforms including the Intel, PowerPC, Sparc, and Alpha platforms. It's also available on IBM's S/390. Linux is distributed commercially by a number of companies. A magazine, Linux Journal, is published as well as a number of books and pocket references. Linux is sometimes suggested as a possible publicly-developed alternative to the desktop predominance of Microsoft Windows. Although Linux is popular among users already familiar with UNIX, it remains far behind Windows in numbers of users. From Linux Online: This information can be found here. The Linux kernel is a UNIX-like operating system. It knows how to read and write to disk drives, allocate memory, and do other very basic manipulations of your computer's hardware. by hacheelle Currently there are a lot of distributions of Linux. The mainstream ones are these:Additional information about the distributions can be found here. Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) This isn't a distribution per say, rather a set of tweaks and patches to improve security at the kernel level, but it is worth investigating. Information can be found at http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/ by hacheelle edited by bmn A full comparison between the different distributions can be found at www.distrowatch.com which presents pure facts. The Linux Distribution game however, is an editorial which aspires to be a gentle introduction to the world of Linux distributions. All thanks to Ladislav Bodnar. by hacheelle Those who ask it are often beginners looking for a place to start, and it can most certainly be intimidating. A common misconception is that of large sweeping differences between Linux distributions, and while some aspects of the OS can vary, very little Linux functionality is actually distribution-specific. The best thing to do is usually to just see what is popular, that often means they're doing something right. DistroWatch maintains statistics on which distributions generate the most visitor traffic. DistroWatch Hit Counter If it is recommendations you seek, take them from this list. You might also consider trying what's known as a "LiveCD," which is essentially a Linux installation on a bootable CD. To use one simply download a pre-built CD image, burn it onto a CD, put the CD in your CD-ROM drive and reboot your computer. It's a good way to give Linux a test run without committing part of your hard disk to it. If you're interested, a list of these LiveCDs can be found here: FrozenTech.com Thanks to aefstoggaflm for the updated link. Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by hacheelle edited by No_Strings Linuxiso.org is a place to start. They have a majority of Linux distribution ISOs (ISOs are CD Images) where you could download and burn or put onto CD. iso.linuxquestions.org also maintains a list of ISO mirrors and bitorrents. Also, you could download from each distributions web site, such as Red Hat could be found at »www.redhat.com and Debian could be found at »www.debian.org/. by hacheelle edited by bmn A Linux system may run in one of seven possible states numbered from 0 to 6, as well as the single-user state that the letters s or S represent. Here is a description of all these states: •State 0 is the halt state. When you switch a system to state 0, it will shutdown immediately. •State 1, known as the administrative state, allows access only to a super-user. Using this state, a system administrator can perform various maintenance operations and installations without interference from other users. •State 2 is the partial multiple user state. It allows multiple users to login but it disables remote file sharing. •State 3 is the multiple user state. It allows multiple users to login and enables remote file sharing. This is the default state for the command line interface. •State 4 is unused. •State 5 is the default state for graphical logins that use display managers such as gdm and xdm. If you choose to use graphical logins during the installation process, this will be your default state instead of state 3, which would be the default otherwise. •State 6 shuts down the system and reboots (note that state 0 shuts down the system without performing an automatic reboot afterwards). •State s or S is the single-user state. It restricts the number of logged in users to one. Detecting and Setting the System's State To detect the state in which your system is currently running, use the runlevel command (the term 'runlevel' is a synonym for 'state'). For example: On startup, Linux enters the default state. The system's default state is stored in a file called /etc/inittab. You may override it by changing the value of the init default entry. To change the current system state, use the init command. For example, to switch to a single-user mode, type the following command: Likewise, to shut the system down immediately, use the following command: Note, however, that, in general, you should use the 'shutdown' command. It allows you to include a warning message that is sent to all the users that are currently logged in or specify a delay. by nil First download the new kernel from Kernel.org or from their ftp site. Usually I download to /usr/src/ so I could work from there. Now untar the newly downloaded kernel source by typing:
Once you have meet all the minimal requirements start the configuration by typing either one of these:
Now that you have configured the options to build your new kernel, be sure to set up all the dependencies correctly by typing:
The next step is to start compiling and building the new kernel. To do this, issue the following command:
If you specified the use of modules during the configuration, then you will need to issue the next line, if you did not specify the use of modules then you can safely skip this step:
cp System.map /boot
For those with SCSI hard disks, you will need to create initial ramdisk images for preloading modules. To do this, type:
Full documentation can be found here. by hacheelle RPM stands for Red Hat Package Manager. These files are similar to those self-extracting zip files in Windows. by hacheelle Although it stands for Red Hat Package Manager, it's not just Red Hat that uses them. Mandrake along with other Linux distributions use them as well. by hacheelle Best place to find RPMs is at SpeakEasy.Rpmfind.Net. Feel free to submit more sites and I will continue to update this entry to include them. by hacheelle RPMs contain the compiled binaries, whereas SRPMs contain the source code ready to be compiled. RPMs can also be created or built from SRPMs using the follow line:
by hacheelle LILO stands for Linux Loader. LILO is Linux's boot loader which is used to boot up Linux. It can also be used to dual-boot or multi-boot different operating systems. by hacheelle To install LILO, run lilo as root. You can either install it to the master boot record (lilo /dev/hda) or the root partition of your Linux installation (lilo /dev/hda1 or lilo /dev/hda2). Additiona information can be found in the LILO mini-HOWTO. by hacheelle To configure LILO, simply edit the /etc/lilo.conf then make additional changes and run lilo as root to update your system. A typical /etc/lilo.conf file should look similar to this: boot = /dev/hda # or your root partition by hacheelle When Lilo overwrites a boot sector, it saves a backup copy in /boot/boot. xxyy, where xxyy are the major and minor numbers of the device, in hex. You can see the major and minor numbers of your disk or partition by running "ls -l /dev//device''. For example, the first sector of /dev/hda (major 3, minor 0) will be saved in /boot/boot.0300 , installing Lilo on /dev/fd0 creates /boot/boot.0200 and installing on /dev/sdb3 (major 8, minor 19) creates /boot/boot.0813 . Note that Lilo won't create the file if there is already one so you don't need to care about the backup copy whenever you reinstall Lilo (for example, after recompiling your kernel). The backup copies found in /boot/ are always the snapshot of the situation before installing any Lilo.If you ever need to uninstall Lilo (for example, in the unfortunate case you need to uninstall Linux), you just need to restore the original boot sector. If Lilo is installed in /dev/hda , just do "dd if=/boot/boot.0300 of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1'' (I personally just do "cat /boot/boot.0300 > /dev/hda'', but this is not safe, as this will restore the original partition table as well, which you might have modified in the meanwhile). This command is much easier to run than trying "fdisk /mbr'' from a DOS shell: it allows you to cleanly remove Linux from a disk without ever booting anything but Linux. After removing Lilo remember to run Linux' fdisk to destroy any Linux partition (DOS' fdisk is unable to remove non-dos partitions).If you installed Lilo on your root partition (e.g., /dev/hda2 ), nothing special needs to be done to uninstall Lilo. Just run Linux' fdisk to remove Linux partitions from the partition table. You must also mark the DOS partition as bootable.LILO mini-HOWTO by hacheelle If LILO fails at some point, the letters printed so far can be used to identify the problem.
0x00 through 0xbb . See the LILO User Guide for an explanation of these.These error codes can be found here. Consider reading the LILO, Linux Crash Rescue HOWTO thanks to ronmon by hacheelle You sure can. Here are the steps to take: 1. You can take whatever image you want and make it into a boot image. The image can be no bigger than 640 by 480 and 15 colors. It must be saved in xpm format. 2. Once you have the picture that you want gzip it. The filename should be whateveryouwant.xpm.gz 3. Copy/Move the file to /boot/grub 4. Edit grubs config file. It might be grub.conf or menu.lst depending on your distro. splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/whateveryounamedit.xpm.gz Thats it. Reboot to see your purty new grub image! Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by elboricua edited by hacheelle ext3 is a Journalizing file system for Linux. It was written by Dr Stephen C. Tweedie for 2.2 kernels. The filesystem was ported to 2.4 kernels by Peter Braam, Andreas Dilger and Andrew Morton , with much valuable assistance from Stephen Tweedie. by hacheelle As stated by Michael K. Johnson, why do you want to migrate from ext2 to ext3? Four main reasons: availability, data integrity, speed, and easy transition. Availability By contrast, ext3 does not require a file system check, even after an unclean system shutdown, except for certain rare hardware failure cases (e.g. hard drive failures). This is because the data is written to disk in such a way that the file system is always consistent. The time to recover an ext3 file system after an unclean system shutdown does not depend on the size of the file system or the number of files; rather, it depends on the size of the "journal" used to maintain consistency. The default journal size takes about a second to recover (depending on the speed of the hardware). Data Integrity Speed
Easy Transition
by hacheelle To install ext3 support, download the patch for 2.4 kernels from Andrew Morton's ext3 for 2.4 site. NOTE: There are quite a few patches available and it is recommended to download the correct patch against the correct kernel version. Also, have your kernel source ready to be compiled with ext3 support. Now copy the patch over into the untarred kernel source directory, in this case it's usually /usr/src/linux/, and apply the patch as stated:
Install and reboot into the new kernel to make sure that your kernel boots up without errors. Once this is done, you may now convert your ext2 partitions to ext3. Additional information can be found here - Using the ext3 filesystem in 2.4 kernels by Andrew Morton. by hacheelle Once your kernel is compiled for ext3 support, you can convert your current ext2 partition to ext3 by following these simple steps:
by hacheelle To mount drives such as CD-ROMs, floppy disks etc. on Linux use:
by hacheelle This answer comes straight from »www.redhat.com/docs/manu ··· ess.html Disabling Shutdown Via Ctrl-Alt-Del By default, /etc/inittab specifies that your system is set to shutdown and reboot the system in response to a [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del] key combination used at the console. If you'd like to completely disable this ability, you will need to comment out the following line in /etc/inittab: ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now Alternatively, you may just want to allow certain non-root users the right to shutdown the system from the console using [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del]. You can restrict this privilege to certain users, by taking the following steps: Add a -a option to the /etc/inittab line shown above, so that it reads: ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -a -t3 -r now The -a flag tells shutdown to look for the /etc/shutdown.allow file, which you'll create in the next step. Create a file named shutdown.allow in /etc. The shutdown.allow file should list the usernames of any users who are allowed to shutdown the system using [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del]. The format of the /etc/shutdown.allow file is a list of usernames, one per line, like the following: stephen jack sophie According to this example shutdown.allow file, stephen, jack, and sophie are allowed to shutdown the system from the console using [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del]. When that key combination is used, the shutdown -a in /etc/inittab checks to see if any of the users in /etc/shutdown.allow (or root) are logged in on a virtual console. If one of them is, the shutdown of the system will continue; if not, an error message will be written to the system console instead. by elboricua edited by hacheelle Linux on Laptops is an invaluable resource for those considering using Linux on a laptop. It contains thousands of mini-HOWTO style documents for specific brands of laptops, with the lessons learned by those who have gotten it all to work. by thompson42 edited by hacheelle Using Fdisk to Prepare for a Linux Install This will just go into the basics of setting up your partitions. If you want in depth info on fdisk man fdisk J Before using FDISK you need to identify which drive it is that you are going to partition. Here is a short listing that should help you out. hda = first drive attached to ide 1 hdb = second drive attached to ide 1 hdc = first drive attached to ide 2 hdd = first drive attached to ide 2 And if you have a Promise or other PCI IDE controller those are hde = first drive attached to ide 1 on the card hdf = second driver attached to ide 1 on the card hdg = first drive attached to ide 1 on the card. The same scheme goes for SCSI hard drives. The only difference is that the drives name will start with an S sda = first hard drive attached to the scsi interface Now that you know which drive you are going to partition type fdisk /dev/hda You will now be in the fdisk interface. Type p and press enter. This will print out the current partition scheme. It is a GOOD idea to write this info down. It can help you out later if something screwy happens. Now these instructions are going to assume that you want to wipe out the entire drive and prepare it for linux. Type d and press enter. You will now be asked for the partition number that you want to delete. You should have the number of partitions from the print function we did one step ago. Enter the partition number and press enter. Repeat until there are no longer any partitions 1. Now that the old partition table is gone we need to create a new one. Type n and press enter. This tells fdisk that you are going to create a new partition. It will now ask you to select Primary or Extended partition type. The first partition that we are going to create is for the /boot directory so we make it Primary. Next fdisk will ask you for a partition number 1-4. Since this is the first partition press 1 and press enter. Now Fdisk is going to ask you for the cylinders to use. Just press enter once to accept the default first cylinder. Now it will ask you for the ending cylinder. You do not have to know how many cylinders are in a MB. Just type in the size that you want in MB. Lets say for example that I want the partition to be 25 MB. I would type +25M and that would create a 25 MB partition. Now since this first partition is going to be for /boot we only need to make it 25 MB max. Some people will tell you to make it bigger. It all depends on your tastes. I personally keep mine at 25 MB. 2. Now we need to create a swap partition. Again this is a personal preference. I usually just use 2x ram up to 512 MB. Next step is to type n and press enter. Select the partition type and number. Primary and partition number 2. Fdisk again is going to ask you for the cylinders to use. Just press enter once to accept the default first cylinder. At the second prompt enter the size in megabytes. +512M 3. If you are going to be creating a workstation all you really need is one more partition. Have this partition just take up the rest of the hard drive. Next step is to type n and press enter. Select the partition type and number. Primary and partition number 3. Fdisk again is going to ask you for the cylinders to use. Just press enter once to accept the default first cylinder. At the second prompt just press enter if you want to use the rest of the free space on the drive. 4.Now we need to set which partition is Active. The active partition will always be /boot. In our previous steps we set hda to be the /boot partition. So type a and press enter Fdisk will now ask you which partition you want to make active. Enter 1 to select partition number 1. 5.Now we need to change the partition type of the swap partition. Press t and press enter. This will ask you which partition you want to change. Press 2. It will now ask you for the partition type. Type in 82 and press enter. This changes the partition type to swap. 6.Type p again to see the new partition table. You should see an a next to partition number one and partition number 2 should say linux swap. 7.If you are happy with the partition scheme press w. W tells fdisk to write the new partition table and exit fdisk. If you are not happy with the scheme and want to start over type q and press enter. Q tell fdisk to exit and not save any changes. Next step after fdisking is to format these newly created partitions. That is for another FAQ :) by elboricua edited by hacheelle Although we do not recommend it, uninstalling Linux may be a necessary thing to do for some reason or another. Whether it be your wife and kids not letting you sleep inside the house until their computer is working normally again, or that you are just frustrated with it and don't have the time to fix it. Anyways the quickest and easiest way to uninstall Linux is to simply delete the linux partitions and clear the master boot record using fdisk. To do this you need to boot a Windows CD or a boot floppy that includes fdisk. Once you do that, at the command prompt type "fdisk" and from there you can go through the prompts to delete your linux partition(s). Then you can quit and save changes. Finally at the command line type "fdisk /mbr" to get rid of LILO or GRUB. You can now go and install Windows if you haven't already. WARNING: fdisk is a powerful program and its changes are generally not reversible. Use it at your own risk. by Techie2000 edited by bmn GRUB stands for GRand Unified Bootloader. It is a multiboot loader that can deal with many types of hardware and knows how to load a wide variety of UNIX-based operating systems as well as Windows. by SpitefulCrow edited by hacheelle The first syllable 'Lin' is pronounce like bin, while 'ux' is pronounced like the ux in tuxedo. Thus it is 'lehnucks', linnuks. You can hear, or watch Linus Torvalds pronounce it himself at any of the following links: »video.google.com/videopl ··· &q=Linux »/r0/do ··· inux.wav You can read debate about it at: »Don't *Ever* Argue Again About The Pronunciation Of Linux »Can you say Linux? »dmiessler.com/archives/246 by Maxo edited by yock Sometimes it's just more convenient to use a GUI editor to edit configuration files or to use nautilus to drag'n'drop various files and folders for backup. Here's the easy way: Open Nautilus, press CTRL-L and enter ssh://user@location (example: ssh://root@192.168.1.165) You will be prompted for the password. Enter it and you will be able to securely browse the remote location via Nautilus. Another useful tip: You can drag frequently accessed folders to the Places sidebar in Nautilus, so you can just click on it and enter the password. by FiReSTaRT edited by FastEddie |