ArBiTaL 24 said:
The first that i'm going to ask is probably the hardest to answer: what now? Where do i go from here? what are the possibilities and/or limitations of linux?
Well... what do you want to do? Linux is quite verisital, and there is quite a lot of open source software available for download. To see a good amount of it, check out:
www.freshmeat.net
www.sourceforge.net
One thing I suggest is to learn the command line. It will become your best friend.
#1: In the boot loader, i have three entries. One is windows 2000, one is called "Red hat linux (2.4.20-8smp)" and the third is called "Red hat linux (2.4.20-8)" (basically without SMP). So what's the differance? i had a problem during the first install, and did it again. Is one of these options the bad install? and if so, how do i get rid of it?
Those are two different kernels. I'm not sure exactly why they are both installed, but it doesn't really hurt to leave them both their. I always try to keep a 'backup' kernel around in case I break the main one, because other wise I'd have to boot off a CD.
They can be removed by editing your bootloader's config file. Are you using LILO or Grub?
(note that removing them isn't really a big deal, having two doesn't break anyhting)
#2: I notice on the desktop there's items called "arbital24's home" and "start here" (my user name is arbital24). What are these? I.e. if comparing them to a windows system, what would they be equivalent to?
Well, the home thing is your home directory. This is the place on the system where your user should store at its files. Unlike Windows, were you can just randomly run around the file system saving things where ever, on Linux, your user tends to only have write access in its home directory (and in a few other places, but that's not relevent, so I won't go into it).
The Start Here thing isn't really of much importance. I think it basically gives you access to a bunch of settings of the desktop environment, but nothing you can't find through the control panels. I've never bothered with this feature.
#3: How do i access the CD-ROM and floppy drive?
Well, there are several answers to this question, namely the Red Hat way, and the Linux way. The Red Hat way is probably much easier coming from a Windows background. I don't remember precisely how it is done, but I think you can add icons to your desktop (if not already there) that should allow you to access either the floppy or CDROM. Try right clicking on your desktop, might bring up a menu that let's you create the icons.
And now for the Linux way. In order to access any filesystem, you must first mount it. This is done via the mount command (at your command line, or terminal window). Normally, you'll need to be root for this (but not always, I'll get into that later).
There are two things you need to tell the system when you goto mount something: what device you want to mount, and where to mount it. Once mounting is complete, you will be able to goto a directory, know as the mount point, and see all the files on the mounted filesystem. The basic syntax of mount is as follows:
mount /device/here /mount/point/here
Traditionally, mount points are in the /mnt directory, although they can go anywhere and any empty directory can function as a mount point. So, in order to mount your floppy, you would do:
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
Then if you do the following, you should see all the files on the floppy:
cd /mnt/floppy
ls
You mount a CD ROM drive in a similar manner. However, since there are often more than one IDE device on your average system, you have to understand how Linux names its IDE devices before you can continue. The basic structure is as follows:
/dev/hdxy
where:
x = a letter, indicating which IDE device you want to mount.
a stands for the primary master, b the primary slave, c the secondary master, d the secondary slave, and so on.
y = a number, indicating the number of partition you want to mount. 1 is the first partition, and so on. Since we aren't talking about hard drives here, you don't have to worry about partitions (but you'll want to know soon enough, probably)
For example, my CD-ROM is my secondary master. If I want to mount it on the /mnt/cdrom directory, I would do:
mount /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom
Let's say you've written a file to a floppy, and now your done and ready to take it out. You can't simply take out the disk, because Linux does not write data to a disk right when you tell it to, it insteads waits until it has nothing better to do. So, you first must unmount the disk, which is done as follows:
umount /mnt/mountpoint/here
Take note that there is no 'n' where you would expect it to be in umount.
For example, to unmount the floppy drive mentioned earlier, you would do:
umount /mnt/floppy
After that command has finshed and you get your prompt back, you can safely remove the disk.
Now, it would seem like an awlful lot of effort to have to enter these commands ever time you wanted to access a certain filesystem, especially if its a commonly used one. That's what the /etc/fstab file is for: it contains a list of all the filesystems that will be mounting on boot. It also allows a non root user to mount a filesystem, which is usually disallowed.
I don't want to overwelm you with information, so I'm not going to do into detail about /etc/fstab just yet. However, I'll take this oppurtunity to introduce a very important thing in Linux: manual pages. This is a system of documentation, whcih allows you to get information on many commands and files. To view the man page on a command, just type 'man command'. Read through the file, and press q to quit.
If you would like to learn more about /etc/fstab, just do 'man fstab' to read the man page.
#4: How do i get it to pick up my internet connection? (it's a cable modem through ethernet lead)
Usually Red Hat configures this during installation. Have you attempted accessing the internet yet, and if so, did you get an erorr message?
I think Red Hat includes a GUI configuration tool for this, look around in your menus for it. If you still have trouble, get back to us with the chipset of your NIC and we'll try to point you in the right direction.
#5: it had a problem installing sound. I don't think my sound card's yet compatible (audigy2). Is there any way i can get linux drivers for it?
I'll let someone else tackle that one, not exactly my area of knowledge.
#6: how do i get drivers for my printer?
Red Hat has a GUI configuration tool for this as well, try looking for it. If that fails, take a look at
http://www.linuxprinting.org/ .
#7: once i'm online, is there an update feature like "windows update" that i can use to get the latest drivers and patches, etc?
Yes, Red Hat calls it 'up2date' and it can be run from the command line. You have to register with Red Hat before using it, however. Its free for one system at a time.
#8: Does it matter if i'm logged in as arbital24 or root? are there things i can't do as arbital24? can i give arbital24 the same access rights as root?
Yes! root is intended for system maitenance and administration purposes only, and it has unlimited control over the system. This means it has unlimited potential to destroy your system and your data, so use the root account carefully.
Mistakes as root can be really nasty. For example, the following command would normally remove the user "test"'s home directory:
rm -rf /home/test
But, if you typed it too fast, and put in an extra space, like so:
rm -rf / home/test
You would wipe every file on the system. Only as root, however. Running that command as a normal user (not recommended!) will destory plenty of files, but not important system files.
I highly suggest not using the root user when not necessary, or giving your regular user root privledges.
i'll add any more if i find them
Thankyou for taking the time to read this post. Please help me
Thanks, ArBiTaL24.
My pleasure, welcome to Linux !
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