Skip to content

You are here: Home Documentation

Free Hosting Online for WorkStations

Introduction to Linux

A Hands on Guide

Machtelt Garrels

Garrels.be

<tille wants no spam _at_ garrels dot be>

1.27 Edition

Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Machtelt Garrels

20080606

Table of Contents Introduction 1. Why this guide?2. Who should read this book?3. New versions and availability 4. Revision History 5. Contributions 6. Feedback 7. Copyright information 8. What do you need?9. Conventions used in this document 10. Organization of this document Chapter 1. What is Linux?1.1. History 1.1.1. UNIX 1.1.2. Linus and Linux 1.1.3. Current application of Linux systems 1.2. The user interface 1.2.1. Is Linux difficult?1.2.2. Linux for non-experienced users 1.3. Does Linux have a future?1.3.1. Open Source 1.3.2. Ten years of experience at your service 1.4. Properties of Linux 1.4.1. Linux Pros 1.4.2. Linux Cons 1.5. Linux Flavors 1.5.1. Linux and GNU 1.5.2. GNU/Linux 1.5.3. Which distribution should I install?1.6. Summary 1.7. Exercises Chapter 2. Quickstart 2.1. Logging in, activating the user interface and logging out 2.1.1. Introduction 2.1.2. Graphical mode 2.1.3. Text mode 2.2. Absolute basics 2.2.1. The commands 2.2.2. General remarks 2.2.3. Using Bash features 2.3. Getting help 2.3.1. Be warned 2.3.2. The man pages 2.3.3. More info 2.4. Summary 2.5. Exercises 2.5.1. Connecting and disconnecting 2.5.2. Passwords 2.5.3. Directories 2.5.4. Files 2.5.5. Getting help Chapter 3. About files and the file system 3.1. General overview of the Linux file system 3.1.1. Files 3.1.2. About partitioning 3.1.3. More file system layout 3.2. Orientation in the file system 3.2.1. The path 3.2.2. Absolute and relative paths 3.2.3. The most important files and directories 3.2.4. The most important configuration files 3.2.5. The most common devices 3.2.6. The most common variable files 3.3. Manipulating files 3.3.1. Viewing file properties 3.3.2. Creating and deleting files and directories 3.3.3. Finding files 3.3.4. More ways to view file content 3.3.5. Linking files 3.4. File security 3.4.1. Access rights: Linux's first line of defense 3.4.2. The tools 3.5. Summary 3.6. Exercises 3.6.1. Partitions 3.6.2. Paths 3.6.3. Tour of the system 3.6.4. Manipulating files 3.6.5. File permissions Chapter 4. Processes 4.1. Processes inside out 4.1.1. Multi-user and multi-tasking 4.1.2. Process types 4.1.3. Process attributes 4.1.4. Displaying process information 4.1.5. Life and death of a process 4.1.6. SUID and SGID 4.2. Boot process, Init and shutdown 4.2.1. Introduction 4.2.2. The boot process 4.2.3. GRUB features 4.2.4. Init 4.2.5. Init run levels 4.2.6. Shutdown 4.3. Managing processes 4.3.1. Work for the system admin 4.3.2. How long does it take?4.3.3. Performance 4.3.4. Load 4.3.5. Can I do anything as a user?4.4. Scheduling processes 4.4.1. Use that idle time!4.4.2. The sleep command 4.4.3. The at command 4.4.4. Cron and crontab 4.5. Summary 4.6. Exercises 4.6.1. General 4.6.2. Booting, init etc.4.6.3. Scheduling Chapter 5. I/O redirection 5.1. Simple redirections 5.1.1. What are standard input and standard output?5.1.2. The redirection operators 5.2. Advanced redirection features 5.2.1. Use of file descriptors 5.2.2. Examples 5.3. Filters 5.3.1. More about grep 5.3.2. Filtering output 5.4. Summary 5.5. Exercises Chapter 6. Text editors 6.1. Text editors 6.1.1. Why should I use an editor?6.1.2. Which editor should I use?6.2. Using the Vim editor 6.2.1. Two modes 6.2.2. Basic commands 6.2.3. The easy way 6.3. Linux in the office 6.3.1. History 6.3.2. Suites and programs 6.3.3. Remarks 6.4. Summary 6.5. Exercises Chapter 7. Home sweet /home 7.1. General good housekeeping 7.1.1. Introduction 7.1.2. Make space 7.2. Your text environment 7.2.1. Environment variables 7.2.2. Shell setup files 7.2.3. A typical set of setup files 7.2.4. The Bash prompt 7.2.5. Shell scripts 7.3. The graphical environment 7.3.1. Introduction 7.3.2. The X Window System 7.3.3. X server configuration 7.4. Region specific settings 7.4.1. Keyboard setup 7.4.2. Fonts 7.4.3. Date and time zone 7.4.4. Language 7.4.5. Country-specific Information 7.5. Installing new software 7.5.1. General 7.5.2. Package formats 7.5.3. Automating package management and updates 7.5.4. Upgrading your kernel 7.5.5. Installing extra packages from the installation CDs 7.6. Summary 7.7. Exercises 7.7.1. Shell environment 7.7.2. Graphical environment Chapter 8. Printers and printing 8.1. Printing files 8.1.1. Command line printing 8.1.2. Formatting 8.2. The server side 8.2.1. General 8.2.2. Graphical printer configuration 8.2.3. Buying a printer for Linux 8.3. Print problems 8.3.1. Wrong file 8.3.2. My print hasn't come out 8.4. Summary 8.5. Exercises Chapter 9. Fundamental Backup Techniques 9.1. Introduction 9.1.1. Preparing your data 9.2. Moving your data to a backup device 9.2.1. Making a copy on a floppy disk 9.2.2. Making a copy with a CD-writer 9.2.3. Backups on/from jazz drives, USB devices and other removables 9.2.4. Backing up data using a tape device 9.2.5. Tools from your distribution 9.3. Using rsync 9.3.1. Introduction 9.3.2. An example: rsync to a USB storage device 9.4. Encryption 9.4.1. General remarks 9.4.2. Generate a key 9.4.3. About your key 9.4.4. Encrypt data 9.4.5. Decrypting files 9.5. Summary 9.6. Exercises Chapter 10. Networking 10.1. Networking Overview 10.1.1. The OSI Model 10.1.2. Some popular networking protocols 10.2. Network configuration and information 10.2.1. Configuration of network interfaces 10.2.2. Network configuration files 10.2.3. Network configuration commands 10.2.4. Network interface names 10.2.5. Checking the host configuration with netstat 10.2.6. Other hosts 10.3. Internet/Intranet applications 10.3.1. Server types 10.3.2. Mail 10.3.3. Web 10.3.4. File Transfer Protocol 10.3.5. Chatting and conferencing 10.3.6. News services 10.3.7. The Domain Name System 10.3.8. DHCP 10.3.9. Authentication services 10.4. Remote execution of applications 10.4.1. Introduction 10.4.2. Rsh, rlogin and telnet 10.4.3. The X Window System 10.4.4. The SSH suite 10.4.5. VNC 10.4.6. The rdesktop protocol 10.4.7. Cygwin 10.5. Security 10.5.1. Introduction 10.5.2. Services 10.5.3. Update regularly 10.5.4. Firewalls and access policies 10.5.5. Intrusion detection 10.5.6. More tips 10.5.7. Have I been hacked?10.5.8. Recovering from intrusion 10.6. Summary 10.7. Exercises 10.7.1. General networking 10.7.2. Remote connections 10.7.3. Security Chapter 11. Sound and Video 11.1. Audio Basics 11.1.1. Installation 11.1.2. Drivers and Architecture 11.2. Sound and video playing 11.2.1. CD playing and copying 11.2.2. Playing music files 11.2.3. Recording 11.3. Video playing, streams and television watching 11.4. Internet Telephony 11.4.1. What is it?11.4.2. What do you need?11.5. Summary 11.6. Exercises Appendix A. Where to go from here?A.1. Useful Books A.1.1. General Linux A.1.2. Editors A.1.3. Shells A.1.4. X Window A.1.5. Networking A.2. Useful sites A.2.1. General information A.2.2. Architecture Specific References A.2.3. Distributions A.2.4. Software Appendix B. DOS versus Linux commands Appendix C. Shell Features C.1. Common features C.2. Differing features Glossary A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Index

Menu

Top OS Cloud Computing at OnWorks: