Preserved Topic: Ahh! Linux! I'm scared....

As some of the members around here know, I'm doing my first year of a network engineering degree this year. One of the things we have coming up soon is Linux, something that I've never even looked at before. I've gotten a distro of RedHat 9 (i386 version, apparently, which I'm assuming is the Intel 386 chipset architecture), and I've been told (by my uncle, who's a network admin of many years experience) to use the BASH shell and the GNOME desktop. OK, that's all great, but I want to ask all of you that have ever installed and used Linux, for any tips, tricks, a complete walkthrough of how to do it and all that, and anything else I'll need to get, driver considerations and the like, if I need to download BASH (I know I need to get GNOME, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be downloading). Basically I'm asking for all the information you all can provide, and any advice besides, on installing Linux and what I'm going to need beforehand.

A "distro" is a complete package of Linux and a (usually large) batch of associated software. You'll get a command-line shell (such as bash), a windowing environment (such as GNOME), and everything else you might need, all preconfigured when you install. You won't have to worry about how it all fits together, except when it comes to tweaking and reconfiguring. And even that isn't terribly hard once you know what to look for -- almost all Linux software is configured using plain text files, usually with names like "cfg" or "rc" (for "run-control"), which are usually heavily-commented.

This isn't to say that you can't run into serious confusion! But Linux is generally pretty easy to handle, if you're a tech-head already. And there are tons of forums and mailing lists and things for it, probably more than for Windows if the truth be told, so Google will turn up answers for most common problems.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

As PT said the installation is not the hard part. The installation for Red Hat which you said you have, is as easy as any windows installation, simply read and click your way through. When you first go to install your system I would reccomend that you install all of the program that they allow you to. In particular you will definately want to install the development tools. You might at first think that you won't need this, but it can be painful if you later find out that you should have had the gcc compiler and you do not.

Once you get the thing up and running you will more likely than not find that it is very much like windows on the outset (at least redhat is).

The difference is the control you have. Your terminal can be customized as well as almost everything else. You would want to start out by finding your terminal and openning it up. Then you should type "man man" which will tell you how to use the manual pages.

Don't feel that you need to be tied into your particular enviornment. You don't need to use bash, your don't need to use gnome. I would however reccomend bash as it is very easy. Take some time just using the system. Instead of using all of the graphical tools use the terminal as much as possible. If you come across something you don't understand try "man <command>" or if you come upon and error, try searching for it on google groups.

You might think that it will be hard, but using a linux system is just as easy as using a windows system. It is just the extra's that you can use, that make it different.

*nix trys to make the easy stuff doable and the hard stuff possible. You can simply do a lot on unix like systems that you can not easily or cheaply do with windows.

You will have no problems at all.



-Dan-

I took the plunge last month (also with RH9) and found it just as easy as installing Windows. It's more intimidating than it is difficult.

I installed fresh on a used P-III 600MHz box I picked up especially for the purpose. If you're going to do a dual-boot install, have someone else chime in on that.

Boot right from the CD, hit <enter> to do the graphic installation (as opposed to text mode) and follow the instructions. The first time through you may want to use the default partioning and choose the to install apllications using the packages so you don't have to pick individual items, (like buying a car, cold-weather package, trailering package, etc.) You'll most likely want the desktop applications packages and, to set up your own test web server, the server packages. Everything is automatic after that. (Wait for and follow the onscreen instructions to go for a snack.)

Don't worry about downloading anything. BASH is the default shell (and you may never need or want to go there depending on your geekiness), GNOME is the default GUI.

Any Q's, just ask away. It's fresh enough in my mind (and I wiped it out and did it over a few times just for kicks) that I can probably still put it into English.

What I've found is that experienced *nixheads just can't speak to the n00b level, and most books are geared towards those who want to learn how to administer a Linux box, rather than those who just want to use one. (All any of that did was confused the issue for me.) If all you want to do is use it, I wouldn't worry about books or uncles or anything, just point, click and see what happens.



[This message has been edited by brucew (edited 02-22-2004).]

As everyone has said; installing LInux isnt' hard. Using it can be a bit hard to begin with since you've got such big amounts of control and possibilities, but you'll soon get used to it

Except from the things mentioned above there aren't many tips to come with at this stage. Install it, play with it, break it and then install it again. Do that enough times and you'll learn a lot

quote:

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BASH is the default shell (and you may never need or want to go there depending on your geekiness), GNOME is the default GUI.

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If you plan to use Linux a lot I would seriously recommend learning how to use the terminal. Every configuration you might consider doing in the beginning might be possible from a gui. But you've got much more control (and once you learn it, it is also faster) when using a terminal to work.

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

RedHat is probably going to make everything pretty simple for you. Never used that distro myself, but I've heard it's very newbie-oriented. That of course has its pros and its cons. I myself prefer Slackware because it has a reputation for being a very Unix-like distro without a lot of hacks at what I guess could be quaintly termed 'the guts' of the system. I also really didn't like the idea of RPM's, having dealt with them in SuSE. Anyways, distro will make a difference as all distro's are not created equal, just keep that in mind for down the road.

Some helpful sites:

LinuxQuestions.Org
RuteUsersTutorial
TheLinuxCookbook
LinuxSelfHelp
TheLinuxDocumentationProject
TheGnuProject
TheGnomeProject

That should get you started. Some good stuff in there. Don't forget that your OS will come with a metric shit-load of documentation on it already in the form of info, man, readme, doc pages, etc.

Have lots of fun! (hehe)

quote:

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BASH is the default shell (and you may never need or want to go there depending on your geekiness)

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like installing software

I am not sure if RH has it but Mandrakes Site has a "command line manual" . Very usefull. I would definately download that and get a copy of the O'Reilly book "Running Linux". Great book.

One of the things that I had the biggest battle to get over is the way the file system is set up. I am used to clicking on the "My computer" and seeing everything. Not so with Linux. You have a "Home" icon but that works kind of like "My Documents". ninmokey has given me some very useful tips like unpacking the tarballs (i love that term) in /usr/local/src/ instead of the home directory.

One thing that you will not if at all possible is to actually login as root from the login manager. You can do that from the console when you need to.

Just install it and play around with it. It's a little different but I am sure you will get used to it.

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

Linux is pretty easy to use once you get past the hype. I don't really agree with the idea that RH is newbie-oriented or certain distros are better then others. I've used various distibutions and once you get past the flame wars they're nearly all the same. With that said, while all distributions are the same, how you go about installing that distribution isn't the same. If you're interested in really learning about Linux I would suggest taking a look at the LFS Project.

I would suggest customizing your distribution immediately if you go with RH or Fedora. Compile your kernel, install a new theme, play with your icons, and figure out the file structure. Also, google apt-get. That makes things real easy. Check out LinuxCommand.org

Jestah

[This message has been edited by Jestah (edited 02-22-2004).]

The biggest difference between the distors (except initial installation procedure) is how you install new software on them. The most used options are RPM (RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE), .deb (Debian), portage (Gentoo) and the standard source install which all distros can use. But to keep the software you've installed organized you should stick to a single system and not switch between them. In your case that means use RPMs as much as possible and try to avoid the other options. Reason is that those distros that are based on RPMs have good support for removing installed RPMs, downloading extra RPMs to fix depenancy trouble etc. If you use a couple of different systems they won't know what has been installed and might ask you to install software that you've allready installed through another system.

But sooner or later you've got to start using source packages. The options are then either to convert them to your chosen system or compile them on your own. When using RPMs I'm unsure how easy they are to create, but compiling isn't hard. The important part is to remeber where you install the programs to, so you will have an easier time removing them if you need to do that. Therefore it might be nice to always install to /usr/local so it is easy to remeber.

If you really want to learn a lot about Linux you could either install the LFS that Jestah mentioned above, or install Gentoo from Stage 1. I've done both of them and I learnt equally much from both of them. I would recommend Gentoo, since you then also end up with a very good system ready for use. With LFS there is more work to do if you plan to use the system afterwards.

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

I don't use linux myself as I am a hardcore FreeBSD fanatic, but many of my computer science friends are all linux geeks, and they all use gentoo. One of my x-girlfriends actually had Gentoo intalled on her box recently, and she said it was "pretty good," and she is only a download geek and not a real computer fanatic.

-Dan-

The only one who needs to be afraid of Linux is Microsoft......If you run into problems, just take a deep breath, remind yourself this isn't rocket science, and start over. I'm no Guru myself, but the work I do at the command line has sure helped me solve problems at work because it has given me an understanding of what is happening, instead of just what button to push.


hey WarMage:

Which window manager do you use to run x-girlfriends?

I believe she is being a little more traditional and is running KDE, I didn't set this up for her, I tried to talk her into trying XFCE4 but she got sucked into pretty KDE penguins or something to that effect. She is one of those weird girls who thinks Linus is adorable, and loves everything about Tux. I think her love uf Tux as opposed to the BSD deamon is what must have driven us appart, the desktop image of the BSD Deamon fucking tux in the ass couldn't have helped much.

-Dan-

You're probably better off without her.....How is a guy supposed to compete with a penguin anyway?

And you may be right about that desktop......

Another big hurddle to taking the plunge is, you're not just given a distro, window manager, file manager, destop environment etc. You have a variety of choices for each component and its often hard to find the one that suits you best. The best strategy I've found is to read up on the ones you're interested in and try as many as possible.

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm feeling slightly less intimidated by it now...

And yes, the installation is going ot be dual booted...are there any special considerations I need to make with that?

Only problem that I've had with a dual boot is when I installed Linux first, sinceWindows don't recognize the linux partitions. So install Windows first, then Linux, and everything should be fine.

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

And ofcourse there is the :FAQ: Linux

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finally: www.rinswind.nl

I set up a LAMP server using redhat 9 and found it to be a piece of cake for my first time setting up a linux box. I have had the server online here at work since October of last year and it seems to be much more stable than the IIS server that I also admin.

OK...so finally, after much preperation, I have installed RedHat.

Boots up OK, I can create user accounts nad log in and so all that stuff. Didn't like my NIC at first (until I realise I was giving it the wrong driver specification), but now i can access the net from it. So now I just have these questions:

1. Linux boots straight into X-Windows on startup, and the root login doesn't work in there (Once I created other user accounts it would no longer let me log in as root, comes up telling me that there's a file missing in the X-profile sequence). I need to, however, get to the files that allow me to specify what shell I boot up into so I can change it, which I can't do (regardless of the fact that I don't know what they are anyway...) unless I'm logged in as root. What file/s do I need ot edit and where are they usually located? (I know I can get to a virtual-terminal and login there as the superuser, so really I just need to know where the file is and what command I use to edit it.)

2. I know there's a way to mount my vfat partitions in linux and be able to read/write from them, so how do I mount stuff? I know the drives are located in the /dev directory, but where?

To change whenever you're booted directly into X-windows or to the terminal you'll need to to edit '/etc/inittab'. Somewhere near the top the top of the document you'll find a line that looks like this 'id:5:initdefault:'. That line says that the default runlevel is nr 5, which is X-windows. Change the line to 'id:3:initdefault:' to make it boot to the terminal instaed. You can edit the file with any of the text-editors in Linux, doesn't really matter.

Don't really know how to change which shell you log in to, since I've always been happy with Bash. But I think things like that is decided in '/etc/profile/' in RedHat.

To mount partitions you can either have it done on boot, or you can do it manually. The manual command for mounting partitions are 'mount'. To find out where you're windows partitions are located you can use 'fdisk'. First log in as root. Then run the fdisk command like this 'fdisk /dev/hda' (change hda for whatever harddrive your partition is on, if you're unsure try everything from a-d and you should find it). Once 'fdisk' has started you'll be greeted with a nice litte prompt. Type 'p' and it will print the harddrives partition table. On the left side you've got the partition name, and on the far right you've got which format the partition has. Once you've figured out which partition it is you can mount it.

The way that partitions are useually named in Linux is that /dev/hd? are the IDE devices. /dev/hda is the primary master, /dev/hdb is the primary slave, /dev/hdc is the secondary master and /dev/hdd is the secondary slave. For SCSI devices the prefix is something like /dev/sc. Not really sure, but if you've got any you can just browse the /dev directory and you'll find out.

To manually mount it you use the 'mount' command. Syntax for that one is 'mount -t <file system> <device> <target>'. In your case it would be something like 'mount -t vfat /dev/hdx /mnt/windows'. It is important that you create the target directory before running the mount command, if not you'll get an error message. After that you can browse the windows partition like any other folder on your harddrive.

To have the partition mounted at boot you've got to edit '/etc/fstab'. It is in that your partitions are mounted as the computer boots. You got to add a line looking something like this:

/dev/hd[i]x[/i]               /mnt/windows           vfat            noatime          0 0

What that line does is tell Linux that /dev/hdax should be mounted to /mnt/windows and that it is formated as vfat. The 'noatime' is there to make the partitions 'faster'. It is saft to use it since almost no hardrives need atime anymore. The two last zeros disables dump and pass for the partition. Those are only needed on the /boot partition, so we disable them here.


_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

[This message has been edited by Veneficuz (edited 02-29-2004).]

Thanks for that Ven...all that worked out

Now, I'll be buggered if I can figure out this latest problem I'm having. In any of the GUIs, my resolution is always set to 800 x 600. This is far too small for me. I'm more used ot something like 1600 x 1200. Now, in the display configuration, all the other resolutions, from 640 x 480 to 1900-something are listed there, but I can only switch to 800 x 600 or 640 x 480. if I try to swtich to one of the others, I get told to reboot, so I do, then I log back in, and nothing's changed. I don't get any error messages or anything, it just doesn't change the resolution. CTRL + ALT + - only switches between 640 and 800, so I'd really love to know what's going on here. I hate working at a resolution this damn big.

For the root problem try using 'su -' at commandline with no quotes.

Not sure if redhat does it any different, but try /etc/X11/XF86Config for your resolution problems. Once edited and saved by root hit CTRL+ALT+Backspace to restart X. To edit you may need to use a commandline text editor like nano, pico or something. You can also use a gui one if you like but they sometimes leave garble on the top of the file so make sure you use plain text. Just 'su -c "favoriteEditor --options"' at a commandline put in roots pw and your set.

To fix the resolution problem edit the XF86Config file as At0mic said. The file might be named XF86Config-4 instead, but the syntax is the same. In the file look for something like this:

Section "Screen"

    Identifier  "Screen 1"

    Device      "Matrox"

    Monitor     "Mini"

    DefaultDepth 16



    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       16

        Modes       "800x600" "640x480"

    EndSubsection

EndSection

'DefaultDepth' is the default color depth that you want to use. In this case it is 16. You then find the line bellow the 'Depth 16' in the subsection. That line says which resolutions to use. The way it works is to first try the first resolution listed, then the second and so forth. So add '"1600x1200" "1280x1024"' in front of the other resolutions there and it will try those resolutions first. Then press CTRL+ALT+Backspace to restart X-windows with the new resolution.
_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

[This message has been edited by Veneficuz (edited 03-01-2004).]

Well, you see, there's my problem. All those resolutions are listed in XF86Config. They're also listed the configuration screen in the GUI. It just simply will not load into them.

[edit: OK...I went back and checked my XF86Config file, and for some reason the values I entered yesterday were no longer there. I've added them back in now, and restarted. Now my display says that it's operating at a resolution of 1280 x 1024, but it very obviously isn't. Everything is still huge, and I can't see all of the 1024 x 768 background I applied. I should be seeing a border around all sides of it if I was at that high a resolution.

I did come across one thing though. I checked my XFree86.0.log file, and it came up with various information messages telling me things like 'cannot use display mode "1280 x 1024" (no mode by this name)'. And messages further up telling me that it cannot use these modes becuase 'HSync is out of range'. OK then...does anyone know of a resource that will tell me what the minimum hsync range for, at least, 1152 x 864 is?]

[This message has been edited by Skaarjj (edited 03-01-2004).]

If you tell us which monitor (and graphics card) you've got and upload a copy of the XF86Config it would be easier to help...

The hsync (and vsync) range are dependant on your monitor. If you haven't done so you should configure your monitor, RedHat probably have some nice gui tool for doing that. If you're monitor isn't listed among the default monitors you'll have to set the vertical and horizontal sync rates manually. You should be able to find the sync rates among your monitors specs either on the internet or in the manual. Once you've found them you've got to find the 'Device "monitor(or some other similar name)"' part of the XF86Config and change the sync rates listed there.



_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

*stands there and feels stupid*

It's all so easy when you have the right specs for your monitor.

And you enter them in the right place.

I was just about to post stating that even the right Hsync and Vsync for my monitor didn't work, until I realised that I put them in the wrong way round.

*looks sheepish*

Thanks for your help.

Is it possible to get a copy of the Arial and Verdana fonts for Linux? The Asylum looks very strange in Helvetica.

[This message has been edited by Skaarjj (edited 03-01-2004).]

Yes. There are a few things you need to do getting some fonts to work. Go to www.linuxquestions.org and search for fonts under the slackware forum. Not sure if Red Hat would do different, but they have a forum for it as well.

quote:

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...or install Gentoo from Stage 1

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Which build is that? Which build is recommended? 1.2 or 1.4? 1.4 is in alpha stages, so, I guess 1.2?

I'm interested in trying out Gentoo and would like to know.

"Nothin' like a pro-stabbin' from a pro." -Weadah

I'm using Gentoo1.4 and I haven't had any problems so far. If your going for a computer that needs to be 100% stable (server or something similiar) I would use 1.2, but for anything else I would use 1.4.

If you read the first two chapters of the Gentoo Install handbook you'll get an idea what the difference between the 3 stages of install are. I'll gladely answer any questions you have after reading that

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

[This message has been edited by Veneficuz (edited 03-02-2004).]