Linux FAQ Thread - Dev Shed

Dev Shed Forums Sponsor:

SlickEdit: Code in over 40 languages across 7 platforms. SlickEdit’s unmatched power, speed, and flexibility allows even the most accomplished developers to write better code faster. Download a free trial today!

May 21st, 2006, 07:27 AM

LinuxPenguin

fork while true;

Dev Shed God 1st Plane (5500 - 5999 posts)

Join Date: May 2005

Location: England, UK

Posts: 5,535

Folding Points: 11590 Folding Title: Novice Folder

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 3 Weeks 1 Day 19 h 23 m 58 sec
Reputation Power: 1008

Linux FAQ Thread

Other members, Please use sensible titles when you post something, use size tags to make it size 5 and post in a sensible order. Please also follow numbers. I will make every attempt to edit your question into this post so others can find it easily. If there's any technical information you wish to include, please include it in [ highlight=technical information ] tags.

This thread is for posts that are to be included in the FAQ. To discuss anything in this thread, please post in the FAQ Thread Discussion thread.

Comments on this post

dotancohen agrees: I'd like to see this thread expanded and stickied. Will add.

B-Con agrees!

__________________
~James [Not currently seeking freelance work]
Like philosophy or interested in spirituality? Philosophorum.
Game Dev Experts Forums
Foresight Linux - Because your desktop should be cool!
Linux FAQ FedoraFAQ UbuntuGuide

Last edited by ishnid : June 21st, 2007 at 04:52 AM. Reason: Updated

May 21st, 2006, 07:33 AM

LinuxPenguin

fork while true;

Join Date: May 2005

Location: England, UK

Posts: 5,535

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 3 Weeks 1 Day 19 h 23 m 58 sec
Reputation Power: 1008

1. How do i dual-boot windows and linux?

This guide assumes you're using a simple distribution like Ubuntu, Fedora Core, SuSE or Mandriva

NOTE: SuSE has special instructions at the bottom of this post which are way easier, if you're not really technically inclined.

First of all it IS going to require a reinstall.

Know how big your HDD (Hard Disk Drive) is and how much RAM you have.

The general rule is that you give twice as much swap as your RAM, but not more than 4GB.

Let's assume you have an 80GB HDD and 512MB of RAM

You will split it like so:
[code]hda1 : 0.5GB - Linux boot partition
hda2 : 39GB - Windows
hda3 : 39.5GB - Linux main partition
hda4 : 1GB - Linux Swap

If you need more swap space because of your ram level, take it from windows' and linux' space.

Now, insert your linux disc and create the partitions in those sizes. The linux boot partition should be ext2, windows should be ntfs, linux main i would recommend ext3, linux swap should be swap. Make sure you write the changes.

Now, take the linux disc out and insert your windows disc. Install windows to the partition you gave it. Now put your linux disc back in and install linux.

Mount the boot partition on `/boot`, The main linux partition on `/`, you've already formatted them so don't worry about that.

When you install grub, make sure you check that you want to be able to boot windows too.

It's imperative you do things in this order, or XP will mess things up for you.

Technical Information Code:

Original - Technical Information Code
Doing things in reverse will cause Windows' loader, NTLDR, to occupy the MBR instead of GRUB/LILO. It will also result in the linux partition being marked inactive, which is a pain to resolve

Doing things in reverse will
cause Windows' loader, NTLDR, to occupy the MBR instead of
GRUB/LILO. It will also result in the linux partition being marked
inactive, which is a pain to resolve

NOTE: CentOS doesn't support creating the NTFS partition. Fpr CentOS, do the following:
1. Create the boot partition
2. Insert the windows disk and create the windows partition and install
3. Reinsert the CentOS disk and create the remaining partitions and then install CentOS.

For SuSE (at least versions > 10.0), the installer automatically takes care of resizing the windows partition by default, if it detects a windows partition on the disk. You don't need to worry about reinstalling anything as the installer does everything correctly (at least on all the computers that your humble Forum Admin has done). Simply follow the proposed partitioning scheme that the installer suggests and it will automatically adjust everything to work right.

Last edited by Scorpions4ever : September 11th, 2006 at 03:46 PM.

May 21st, 2006, 10:56 AM

LinuxPenguin

fork while true;

Join Date: May 2005

Location: England, UK

Posts: 5,535

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 3 Weeks 1 Day 19 h 23 m 58 sec
Reputation Power: 1008

2. Which Distribution/distro/'Linux' should I choose for a desktop machine?

What do you want out of it? Is there any specific software you need?

If you are a beginner looking for a desktop machine, go for Fedora Core or Ubuntu or
SuSE or Foresight Linux. Which one you choose depends on personal taste. SuSE, Foresight Linux and Fedora Core are generally 'nicer' to use while ubuntu feels more like a real linux system. Fedora, Ubuntu and SuSE Linux also have the larger userbases, so any specific hardware questions (such as laptop installations, adjusting monitor resolutions, drivers for wireless cards etc.) are usually covered by their forums, where someone has already posted working solutions for any problems.

If you're more advanced and looking for a desktop machine, go for the Debian Network Install CD. It requires a little more work to get it going, eg apt-get install gnome to install a user interface.

If you're looking to take your linux experience to the next level and want to try out more bleeding-edge software, I recommend Gentoo. It's a hard job getting it going but you will learn a lot about linux in the process.

Technical Information Code:

Original - Technical Information Code
If you need a specific package management system, be aware that Suse and fedora core use RPM, Ubuntu and Debian use DEB and Gentoo use Ebuilds with portage.

If you need a specific package management system, be aware that
Suse and fedora core use RPM, Ubuntu and Debian use DEB and
Gentoo use Ebuilds with portage.

Comments on this post

dotancohen agrees: For beginners: Ubuntu or Fedora. Best choices by far.

Last edited by Scorpions4ever : September 11th, 2006 at 03:32 PM.

May 21st, 2006, 11:11 AM

LinuxPenguin

fork while true;

Join Date: May 2005

Location: England, UK

Posts: 5,535

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 3 Weeks 1 Day 19 h 23 m 58 sec
Reputation Power: 1008

3. Which Distribution/distro/'Linux' should I choose for a server machine?

Do you have any specific software needs? Will you be using something like CPanel or Plesk?

If you need CPanel or plesk, you should go with Debian (I recommend the network install), CentOS, Fedora Core or SuSE (Plesk is officially certified/supported for SuSE Enterprise)

If you want a lot of administration tools and performance is slightly less important, go for CentOS, or if you want more bleeding edge software, Fedora Core or SuSE.

If you want better performance and you know what you're confident at administrating a server, choose Debian or even Slackware.

If performance is extremely important and you can cope without administration tools, choose Gentoo. Beware that in large quantities it can become difficult to administer, however. It also lacks an easy installer. Slackware also has no graphical installer, but offers a number of tweaking options.

Last edited by Scorpions4ever : September 11th, 2006 at 03:37 PM.

May 21st, 2006, 02:32 PM

dotancohen

המבין יבין

Join Date: Jul 2001

Location: Haifa

Posts: 2,005

Time spent in forums: 2 Weeks 1 Day 1 h 9 m 56 sec
Reputation Power: 1001

4. How do I install package xxx on distro yyy?
Your best bet is to use your distro's package management tools. On Fedora, that's Yum. On Debian/Ubuntu it's apt-get. On older versions of RedHat, it is rpm. On SuSE, it is called YaST Other distros have other package management tools.

Usually, the command in yum looks like this:

Code:

$ su -
# yum install programName

In apt-get it's the same command:

Code:

$ su -
# apt-get install programName

For YaST, all you need to do is bring up the Software Management Tool (YaST --> Software --> Software Management). You can then browse through various categories (e.g. Graphics, Development, Games etc.) for software packages and simply point and click. You can also search for packages by name and then click on the ones that you want to install.

For Gentoo, things are a lot more tricky
---
To install a custom ebuild on gentoo, you need to create an overlay.
Ours will be at /usr/local/portage

bash Code:

Original - bash Code
mkdir /usr/local/portage echo 'PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"' >> /etc/make.conf

mkdir /usr/local/portage
echo 'PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"' >> /etc/make.conf

Then decide where your ebuild will go, a category and name. Lets imagine
we're using scribes' ebuild.

bash Code:

Original - bash Code
cd /usr/local/portage mkdir -p app-editors/scribes cd app-editors/scribes #copy our ebuild in cp ~/scribes-3.0.ebuild . mkdir files ebuild scribes-3.0.ebuild digest

cd /usr/local/portage
mkdir -p app-editors/scribes
cd app-editors/scribes
#copy our ebuild in
cp ~/scribes-3.0.ebuild .
mkdir files
ebuild scribes-3.0.ebuild digest

Now if you're not using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS to use testing software, you
need to

bash Code:

Original - bash Code
#This may fail if you've got this as a file or the directory exists. If you have this as a file, just echo this onto the file, if the directory exists, carry on mkdir -p /etc/portage/package.unmask echo "app-editors/scribes ~arch" > /etc/portage/package.unmask/scribes

#This may fail if you've got this as a file or the directory 
exists. If you have this as a file, just echo this onto the file, if the 
directory exists, carry on
mkdir -p /etc/portage/package.unmask
echo "app-editors/scribes ~arch" > 
/etc/portage/package.unmask/scribes

But ~arch is not valid, you must replace it with your own, eg. ~x86.

And sometimes the ebuild author wasn't kind enough to set the keywords
in the ebuild, this means you have to

bash Code:

Original - bash Code
#Same goes as before mkdir -p /etc/portage/package.keywords echo "app-editors/scribes ~arch" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords

#Same goes as before
mkdir -p /etc/portage/package.keywords
echo "app-editors/scribes ~arch" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords

---

To install from source, use these commands for bz2 files:

Code:

$ tar -xvjf downloadedFile.bz2
$ cd downloadedFile-folder
$ ./configure
$ make
$ su
# make install
# logout

And use these commands for gz files:

Code:

$ tar -xvzf downloadedFile.tar.gz
$ cd downloadedFile-folder
$ ./configure
$ make
$ su
# make install
# logout

$ designates regular user
# designates root user

Avoid installing from source if you can. If you must, make sure that you know what you're doing, and doing it in a way that is compatable with your current system and installed programs.

Comments on this post

LinuxPenguin agrees: Good post. Please include names of distributions, however, and there's an extra 'v' in your tar
command. Please also provide a .gz example

__________________
. . . What is Firefox?
. . . . . . What is Linux?
. . . . . . . . . . . What is Love?

What is?

Last edited by Scorpions4ever : September 11th, 2006 at 03:40 PM.

May 21st, 2006, 02:47 PM

dotancohen

המבין יבין

Join Date: Jul 2001

Location: Haifa

Posts: 2,005

Time spent in forums: 2 Weeks 1 Day 1 h 9 m 56 sec
Reputation Power: 1001

5. What program for Linux is like program zzz for Windows?

I'm maintaining a list here:
Windows Equivalent Software Guide for Linux

If you have anything to add, then please PM me and I'll add it. If you are looking for software that is not on that list, then PM me and I'll find something, and add it to the list.

Comments on this post

LinuxPenguin agrees: Would be nice to have a list of gnome equivalent too. Gaim, Nautilus, epiphany, rhythmbox, Inkscape,
etc.

May 24th, 2006, 01:35 AM

LinuxPenguin

fork while true;

Join Date: May 2005

Location: England, UK

Posts: 5,535

Time spent in forums: 1 Month 3 Weeks 1 Day 19 h 23 m 58 sec
Reputation Power: 1008

6. What's the best software for xx?

Please stop asking this question, it's clearly opinion based.

Since it will stop a lot of questions, however, i'll provide a brief answer on my personal views

Audio
amaroK (KDE/Qt)
Rhythmbox (Gtk/Gnome)
Audacious (Gtk/Gnome

I happen to like amarok the best, but rhythmbox with audacious pinned on top isn't a bad combo.

Video
Mplayer (with no gui)
Videolan/VLC (Gtk/Gnome)
Totem (Gtk/Gnome)
Kaffeine (Qt/KDE)

Mplayer is just the nicest. Be sure to tip it the -fs -zoom switches and set it to default open .avi and .mpg in nautilus.

If I see any more of this type of question, I'll expand this post.

May 24th, 2006, 02:02 AM

LinuxPenguin

fork while true;

Join Date: May 2005

Location: England, UK

Posts: 5,535