Linux

[Direhit]

This section is dedicated to all flavors of Linux technical discussion. Be sure to specify what version you are using, as there are dozens of flavors out there.

[Direhit]

Q: Where can I download the items needed to install Linux? What exactly do I need?

A: There are literally over a dozen ways to install Linux, but the most preferred method is by installation CD. Most flavors of Linux are distributed in their ISO format, which are available from the companies as a free download, or from various mirror sites (recommended).

Beware, though, that it's not unusual that you have to download 3 or more ISO files, each being 600+ megabytes large. If you have a broadband connection, it's recommended that you setup your downloads before you go to bed, and then wake up hoping that your downloads completed.

Some of the more popular flavors:

Mandrake Linux: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#mirrors
Red Hat Linux: http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html
SuSE Linux: http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html

Just create the installation discs from the ISO files using your favorite CD burning software, and boot from CD #1.

[Twizted]

For those not faint of heart and prefer a little harder to install and configure but 3 times as stable linux, go try Slackware.

http://www.slackware.com

You can also get Dropline Gnome for Slackware, which is an entirely customized version of Gnome that is pretty snazzy.

http://www.dropline.net

And go pick up Swaret, upgradepkg tool that goes out to slackware mirrors and gets the latest slackware-current or slackware8.1 files. Forget link for that though, first one on google after searching for it though.

[Direhit]

Q: Can I run my Windows applications on my Linux PC?

A: The short answer is "Yes."

The long answer is "Yes, but be prepared for a lot of disappointment, and be prepared to run into troubles running the more advanced applications."

This can be accomplished by using a Windows emulator, such as WINE, but again, the full features you would see in Windows are probably not going to be well-implemented.

If you are using your PC for more resource intensive Windows applications, such as today's games, stick with running them on a Windows-based PC. While this may change in the future, emulation still can't come close to running things natively.

[Direhit]

Q: What are some good informative / resource sites on Linux?

A: Here's the start of a list. More will follow.

http://www.linuxapps.com/
http://www.wwits.net/linuxapps/
http://www.linux.org/apps/

[Direhit]

Q: OK. I'm ready to build myself a PC for Linux. What kind of hardware should I get? I want to get something fairly recent.

A: As a GENERAL rule of thumb, you should build your Linux PC out of hardware that is not at the cutting edge. Also, you will want to check with the makers of your Linux operating system, as their web sites may have hardware compatibility lists.

Red Hat, for example, has a fairly good database:

http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/

That page also includes some links to other websites on general topics as well.

http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/technical/hcl/

although these lists are by no means complete. Some of the hardware on those lists are only partially supported, such as the ATi Radeon 9700 only working for 2D applications.

If your hardware is not listed, you may as well still go through the operating system installation, and search for Linux drivers on the hardware manufacturer's website.

For the most part, you will be installing generic drivers that identify the hardware through its chipset, and not its specific brand name, especially when it comes to modems, video cards, etc.

[Direhit]

Q: Are there any major vendors that make systems with Linux pre-installed? What about support?

A: There are several vendors that offer systems with Linux as an option, although your choices will be somewhat more limited. Dell, for example, offers their workstation line of computers with Red Hat Linux as an option, and gives full support for Linux-related matters. You cannot, however, get their Dimension PC's in such a configuration, though.

[phister]

Q: What about Knoppix? Where can I get it?

A: Knoppix is a Linux distribution that fits entirely on one CD and is bootable. It has hardware autodetection and autoconfiguration for almost every piece of hardware made. Also, it includes a lot of software such as network management tools, source compilers, and an office suite.

All you do is download the ISO and burn the image to a 700mb disk and then boot to it. If you're getting a wierd display try hitting F2 before is boots and type knoppix xmodule=glint

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44

(edited to be more readable, and to keep things in the proper format)

[Direhit]

Q: OK. I'm installing Red Hat, and see that there are a bunch of options that I can install. What are the more useful programs?

This is under construction:

A: One of the most useful tools is the ARK archiving program, which allows you to combine and / or compress / uncompress various files, using a graphical user interface. Generally, it does the same thing as Winzip does for Windows.

Thus, you don't need to type the tar -cvf or tar -xvf commands anymore.

Another useful tool is X-CD-Roast. This is a CD-burning program that has a very simple interface, yet does a pretty darn good job of CD-burning. It's very similar to the drag-and-drop interfaces used by Nero / Roxio.

XPDF is a very useful program, allowing you to read PDF files. Very simple interface, but also effective.

Open Office is highly recommended. It basically is the equivalent of Microsoft Office, and can even work with various Microsoft Office files as well. It is much superior to the K-Office.

[Direhit]

Q: I didn't install any compression / archive utilities when I installed the operating system. How do I make archives "the old fashioned way?"

A: There are two separate utilities you can use. The first utility, is known as tar. This will simply lump a bunch of files (of your choosing) into a single archive, without doing any compression, and does this fairly quickly. Generally, you can do this to an entire folder, or separate files:

tar -cvf name_you_want_to_use.tar name_of_file_or_folder_you_want_to_archive

To extract files from this archive, and preserve the original file placement within the directory structure, simply use the tar command on the .tar file:

tar -xvf name_of_tar_archive.tar

If you want to compress the .tar file, just use the gzip command:

gzip name_of_tar_archive.tar

and you will compress it, and the new file will have the same name as the old, but with a .gz extension tacked on.

Unzipping gzip files is easy:

gunzip name_of_gz_archive.gz

[Direhit]

Q: I was given some files that were encrypted using "Crypt" and wanted to know how to decrypt them?

A: Crypt is an old, and rather ineffective, encryption program used in many older versions of UNIX. Nevertheless, some people still use it to this day.

First, make sure you have the crypt program on your system. Secondly, make sure you have the crypt key (password) to the crypt files.

Just type in the command as follows:

crypt crypt_key_goes_here < name_of_the_crypt_file_goes_here > name_of_the_decrypted_file_goes_here

Be sure to include the < >, and to leave a space between the < and the crypt file, as well as another space after the crypt file followed by the >.

[Direhit]

Q: I tried to install Open Motif v2.1.3 on my Red Hat Linux workstation, and the installation simply quits before even getting to an options screen. it worked fine with Red Hat 8.0 and earlier. What's happening?

A: You need to manually do this from a terminal.

For example:

rpm -ivh openmotif-2.1.30-1_IST.i386.rpm

[Direhit]

Q: Will my nForce2 motherboard work under RedHat Linux?

A: Yes. RedHat 7.3 and above, seem to work quite well, but you still need to patch things a bit:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_1.0-0261

The link above points out to some of the other flavors of Linux as well.

I suspect that in the near future, the next version of the operating systems should have native support, but in the meantime, you can get a system working quite well with the drivers from NVIDIA.

At this time, I have an Epox EP-8RDA+ board working very well, under RedHat 8.0, although because I wasn't able to get the ethernet controller working, I sprung for a 20 dollar PCI ethernet card.

One note: it may be a bit tricky getting the onboard ethernet controller to work.

[Direhit]

Q: My sound card seems to work OK in Linux, but not all of the features are present. Is there any way to get some of those features, such as recording, etc., working?

A: There's a decent chance. You can try the ALSA drivers:

http://www.alsa-project.org/

Here's is a list of what soundcards are supported by ALSA:

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/

You shouldn't have to recompile the kernel to install these drivers, for the most part, since you can just build the drivers as separate modules, but that's your choice.

[Direhit]

Q: Why won't my ATi Radeon 9700 / 9800 video card allow me to select a higher refresh rate than 60 Hz in RedHat Linux? Also, I don't get the option to enable 3D Hardware acceleration!

A: Download the latest RPM package from ATi and install it according to the directions they give you. Remember to chmod a+x (filename) for each of the .sh files that you need to run.

Note: Even though this gives some improvements, it's still not perfect, and making adjustments from one resolution and / or color depth to another will be a pain in the butt.

[Direhit]

Q: I try to boot my Linux system, and right as I get to the login screen, it doesn't start up the X-server.

"Id 'X' respawning too fast: disabled for 5 min"

Instead, I get a message saying that the X server is attempting to respawn too quickly. What's going on?

A: This is a difficult question to answer, as there could be many possibilities, and I do not have even the majority of the answers here.

Possible reasons (this list is by no means complete):

1) Your X-configuration has been damaged / corrupted somehow. You can try to diagnose what went wrong by reading the log files in your X11 directory. You can also try running XFconfig (or whatever your distribution uses) to see if you can correct the problem, using the text-based configuration.


If you want to make configuration changes from a GUI (let's face it; almost all of us hate vi with a passion), then you can simply hit "Enter" when you get the "respawning too fast" message and type "gdm" or "kdm" to get into your GNOME or KDE interface.

[Direhit]

Q: I have just installed Fedora, and want to use the KDE interface as my default one, but I can't seem to find the "switch" that makes Fedora remember which one I want as my default. I don't want to use GNOME, but it automatically does this by default.

How can I fix it so that I can always have KDE as my default?

A: Go to /etc/sysconfig/

Edit the following file:

desktop

Make sure the line reads

displaymanager="KDE"

[miyagi]

Q: What are some useful Linux apps?

A:

Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) - Pretty much a universal IM client for Linux (and Windows I think). Supports MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AOL, and a few others.

XMMS (http://www.xmms.org/) - Plays music. Fedora Core/ Red Hat had some licensing issues with the MP3 format though, but a patch took care of it.

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org) - Awesome web browser with tab support, integrated search bar, pop-up filter, and the choice of a variety of themes.

Xine (http://xinehq.de/) - Movie player for Linux. Supports a range of formats including DivX.

The Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/) - Image editor. Sometimes compared to Photoshop, although I would compare it to Paint Shop Pro.

X-Chat (http://www.xchat.org/) - Very nice GUI IRC client for Linux. Comes as an installation option with most major distrobutions.
Irssi (http://www.irssi.org) offers a command line IRC interface, useful for chatting remotely via SSH or if you haven't figured out how to get X started yet.

Gkrellm (http://web.wt.net/~billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.html) - offers a system monitor for the desktop, has theme support and plugins for your wireless card.

more to come...

[Direhit]

Q: I just installed Fedora Core, and wanted to use my ENVY 24-based sound card (M-Audio, Gainward Hollywood, Turtle Beach Catalina). The Kudzu detection picked it up and configured it, but I'm not getting any sound.

A: By default, the audio mixer is set to the lowest possible settings. Just raise the volume using the mixer.

Incidentally, the VIA Envy24 series of audio seems to be very well-supported, natively, by Fedora Core 2 and later.