Linux – Tips for Newbie

Installations: If you are newbie and wanted to try Linux and install it on your system with windows also on it (Dual boot ) then you can do it easily 1. Download any Linux flavor from internet (For e.g., Fedora or Ubuntu) 2. Write these ISO files onto CDs. (First Disc will be bootable disc)  3. Lets assume that you have more than one partition (c: d: e: f: ) and you want to install it on f: drive then remove all the files and data from that disc, because we are now going to install it on this drive only. 4. Restart your system 5. Insert Linux bootable disc 6. It will start installation using step by step wizard. It is as simple as windows. 7. While installing it will ask you whether you want to manually partition or automatic partition, always select manually, and it will show you your hard disk, now you can easily identify your partitions on which you want to install Linux, select that drive and specify mount point ( / ). Don’t try to make any changes to other drives, it could erase all your data. 8. It will also ask you what packages you want to install, in the Desktop section select KDE and GNOME, and other packages and software as you wish. 9. That’s it, it will get installed and ready for use. Now after installation when you reboot your system it will show OS choices, you can select Windows or Linux from that

Tips for Installing Packages If you want to install a rpm package then type this command as root user #rpm -ivh package.rpm or #rpm -Uvh package.rpm to upgrade the existing package You can find many rpm packages at http://rpmfind.net and http://rpm.pbone.net sometimes this might happen that it will not install because of dependencies problem , you can find those dependencies at http://rpm.pbone.net If you have got source code package like packagename.tar.gz then what you will do ? How will you install it? Just go to console and type #cd /location_where_you_have_kept_package for e.g #cd /home/abc #tar fzxv packagename.tar.gz it will unzip and untar the package go into the unzipped directory #cd packagename first of read README file or INSTALL file, it will tell you how to install if it is having config file then type #./configure #make #make install These are some very simple steps to install package. If u have .bin file like RealPlayer.bin then u have to run it like this #./RealPlayer.bin If it doesnt hav Execute permission then execute this command #chmod 777 RealPlayer.bin then Run previous command

If You want to get systems information then try below commands using root user for cpuinfo #cat /proc/cpuinfo for memory #cat /proc/meminfo for version #cat /proc/version

Some Common Linux Questions 1.how to play mp3 songs for playing mp3 on linux systems such as Fedora or Redhat you need to install xmms player (http://www.xmms.org/) and install mp3 patch for it, (try searching http://rpm.pbone.net it will list all the available rpms (packages) with its dependencies) for e.g if you are using Fedora 3 then you need to istall these rpms xmms-1.2.10-9.1.1.fc3.fr.i386.rpm mikmod-3.1.6-36.99_1.rhfc3.at.i386.rpm xmms-mp3-1.2.10-9.1.1.fc3.fr.i386.rpm Although these rpms will also work on Fedora 2 4 and 5 2.how to change forgotten root password Restart your system Press ‘e’ as soon as you see the OS choice list Now you will see three lines, select the second one and again press ‘e’ Now edit that line and add ‘1’ at the end of the line. Press enter Press ‘b’ It will boot the system and directly go into console mode, there you can type this command #passwd It will ask you to change the password for root. That’s it. 3.how to mount HDD and CDROM Mounting windows partition is very easy, Go to console and type #fdisk -l It will show the all the available hard disks and their partitions for e.g /dev/hda1 is your windows partition which you want to mount then type #mount /dev/hda1 /mnt here /mnt is the folder where you want to mount this partition, It can be any directory Another way is to add entry in to /etc/fstab file, for automatically mounting the partition at startup or boot up. Open /etc/fstab file in any editor (kedit, gedit, vim, emacs etc) and add these lines /dev/hda1               /mnt     vfat    defaults        1 1 save and close, restart the system 4.useful commands To check all the available hard disks and partiotions #fdisk -l To mount HDD and CD-ROMs #mount /dev/hda1 /mnt To check current processes #top To check available hard disk space #df To check specific folders space #du -sh /directory  5.Browse network using smb4k smb4k is very useful tool to browse the network you can get it from http://rpm.pbone.net or just google it

Some More Tips 1.If you are new to Linux then try installing Fedora or Mandrake OS, theses are very simple to use 2. Always select package KDE desktop Environment, because it is very user friendly 3. Always try to install on separate HDD or on last partition of HDD 4. You do not have to slavishly type in the whole of a command’s name or the whole of a file’s name if it is an argument to a command. bash can complete these things for you if what you have already typed in is unambiguous. Try for example: mor<tab> That is hit the tab key after tying in ‘mor‘ Under most circumstances, bash will complete it to ‘more ‘ for you, and wait for you to type in a file name. Next, try: mo<tab> In this case, nothing happens, except that bash may beep at you. Here, what you have typed is ambiguous, so bash can’t complete it. To see what commands are available, hit the tab key twice in succession. bash will display all the possibilities, and you can usually enter one or two more characters and hit tab again, and bash will complete the command for you. The same is true for file names as arguments.