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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Getting Started with Linux</font></H1>
<P align="center"><i><b>Version 1.0 November 98</b></i></P>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:prakash@freeos.com">Prakash Advani</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<b>This document is written for people who have just installed Linux but don't
know what to do next. Most of the commands discussed here should work on all
distribution of Linux but since I use Red Hat 5.0 some of them may be specific
to Red Hat 5.0. I have also used Caldera OpenLinux 1.3 and have included some
Caldera specific information. If any of you have any suggestions or ideas to
improve this document, they are most welcome. All commands are in quotes and
you need to type them without the quotes. For example if you see type "ls" then
you just need to type ls. You will also have to press the ENTER key after typing
each of the commands. There are some useful commands in the document but for
complete command reference you will need to refer to additional documents.</b>
<P> <HR>
<P>Let us begin with first booting into Linux. When you boot Linux, you will see
a lot of messages coming up. You need not understand all of them right now but
if you get some errors while booting, you may want to look at them. These help
in understanding them and do any troubleshooting if required. First thing you
must do is login in to your Linux system. At the login prompt type "root" (or
whatever username you have created) and put in the password. The password is
selected at installation. If you installed linux on your machine then you are
the root user and you have supervisory access to the system. If you didn't choose
any password then the system will not ask for a password, instead take you straight
to the Linux prompt. You will now come to the Linux prompt. The prompt will
be a # if you are root or will be a $ if you are some other user and have chosen
the BASH shell. If you are new to Linux then you should use the BASH shell.
Out of several shells under Linux, I prefer BASH because it is easy to use.
BASH is also the default on most Linux Distributions. Your prompt may look something
like.</P>
<P>[root@yoom.com /root]#</P>
<P>If you need to logout just type "exit".</P>
<P>Once you have logged in type "dmesg" to see the bootup messages. You will see
something like:</P>
<P><code>Serial driver version 4.13 with no serial options enabled<br>
</code><code>tty00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16450<br>
</code><code>tty01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16450<br>
</code><code>Real Time Clock Driver v1.07<br>
</code><code>hda: QUANTUM FIREBALL_TM2110A, 2014MB w/76kB Cache, CHS=1023/64/63<br>
</code><code>hdc: CREATIVECD2421E, ATAPI CDROM drive<br>
</code><code>ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14<br>
</code><code>ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15<br>
</code><code>Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M<br>
</code><code>FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077<br>
</code><code>md driver 0.35 MAX_MD_DEV=4, MAX_REAL=8<br>
</code><code>raid0 personality registered<br>
</code><code>DLCI driver v0.30, 12 Sep 1996, mike.mclagan@Linux.org.<br>
</code><code>Partition check:<br>
</code><code> hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 hda7 ><br>
</code><code>VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.<br>
</code><code>Adding Swap: 16092k swap-space (priority -1)<br>
</code><code>Soundblaster audio driver Copyright (C) by Hannu Savolainen 1993-1996<br>
</code><code>SB 3.1 detected OK (220)<br>
</code><code>sb: Interrupt test on IRQ5 failed - device disabled.<br>
</code><code>YM3812 and OPL-3 driver Copyright (C) by Hannu Savolainen, Rob
Hooft<br>
</code><code>1993-1996<br>
</code><code>sysctl: ip forwarding off<br>
</code><code>Swansea University Computer Society IPX 0.34 for NET3.035<br>
</code><code>IPX Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera, Inc.</code></P>
<P>You will realise that the messages scrolled down before you could read them.
To see them page by page type "dmesg | less" or "dmesg | more".</P>
<P>The dmesg command provides valuable information about the hardware devices
detected by Linux. It also helps in knowing if there was some problem somewhere.
Like if you see the line: sb: Interrupt test on IRQ5 failed - device disabled.
It means there was a problem with setting up of the Sound Blaster sound card
at IRQ5. If you get such errors, it may mean that some of your hardware is not
working correctly under Linux.</P>
<P>The BASH shell has a lot of ease of use. If you like working a lot on the command
line, you will find it very easy. The bash shell allows using the previous command
by press the up arrow key. You can also search for previous commands by typing
"CTRL-R" and typing some words from the previous commands. To clear the screen
press CTRL-L or simply type "clear".</P>
<P>Another important command is df. Just type "df" and you will see something
like:</P>
<P>
<pre>Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on<br>/dev/hda6 388362 341804 26501 93% /<br>/dev/hda5 614672 572176 42496 93% /dosd </pre>
<P>This gives information of all your mounted hard disk partitions, available
space and used space. The space shown is 1024 blocks which is 1024 bytes or
one Kilo Byte. It also shows at which directory the partition is mounted. Like
in DOS and Windows partitions and devices are allotted drive letters such as
C:, D:, E:; in Linux partitions or devices are mounted onto directories. For
example /dev/hda5 is mounted on /dosd. Normally /dosc, /dosd, would be your
mounted dos partitions. It could also be anything else. Which means you can
access your Dos files through Linux by going through these directories.</P>
<P>Another useful command is ls. Type "ls" and you will see something like:</P>
<P><code>bin/ dev/ etc/ lost+found/ proc/ tmp/<br>
boot/ dosc/ home/ mnt/ root/ usr/<br>
cdrom/ dosd/ lib/ opt/ sbin/ var/</code></P>
<P>Type "ls -l" to see a more complete list. This will show the owners, permissions,
date and time of when last modified and file sizes. You will need to understand
file permissions once you get the hang of the basic Linux operations. Permissions
are useful for multiuser Linux system where you need to restrict or allow access
to files or directories.</P>
<P>
<pre>drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 Sep 17 12:49 bin/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Oct 4 23:24 boot/<br>drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Sep 2 17:32 cdrom/<br>drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 21504 Oct 22 12:54 dev/<br>drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Oct 2 21:59 dosc/<br>drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 21504 Jan 1 1970 dosd/</pre>
<p>The cd command is used to change directories, you can try by typing "cd /"
to go the root directory. Type "cd -" to return back to where you were. If you
just type "cd" you will return back to your home directory.
Installing softwares, opening compressed files under Linux.
<P>If you download documents, utilities, softwares or anything else for Linux,
you will find that a lot of them have extensions of .tgz or .tar.gz. In that
case you will have to type the following command to extract the files. Replace
filename.tar.gz with the name of the file. </P>
<P>gzip -dc filename.tar.gz | tar xvf -</P>
<P>If you downloaded some Linux files under DOS, chances are that the file names
may get truncated. In that case you will have to rename your files before extracting
them under Linux. To rename files just type "mv oldfilename newfilename". Replace
oldfilename with what the current file name is and replace newfilename with
what you want the file name to be.</P>
<P>Several files are also in the .rpm format. These formats are for the Red Hat
and Caldera distribution and they are also used by other distributions. To install
rpm's type </P>
<P>rpm -i filename.rpm</P>
<P>If you are upgrading an existing software type</P>
<P>rpm -U filename.rpm</P>
<P>If your distribution does not support RPM's you can add that support by installing
the RedHat Packet Manager (RPM). Similarly there is pkginstall under some distributions
to manage .tar.gz files.</P>
<P>Man Man! What's man man ? These are help pages or manuals to get some help
on a specific command. To get help on man type "man man". Similarly to get help
on rpm type "man rpm". To get help on ls type "man ls" and so on. You can get
help on all the command using man. To begin with get help on commonly used commands.
These commands will help you move around files and directories. Some commonly
used commands are:</P>
<P>
<pre>cat To type the content of a file
cp Copy files
du	To check the disk space used
pine	Email client<br>find Find files on the linux system<br>grep Search for keywords on a file or a command
kill To kill any process, ps to see the process number
less If you cat a file you can pipe it to less for page by page viewing
ln Create or remove links between files or directories<br>lpr Print files or output to a printer<br>ls List files or directories
mkdir	To create a new directory<br>more Similar to less but less is better than more!
mount	See the mounted devices or mount additional devices
umount	Unmount mounted volumes<br>mv Move or rename a file<br>passwd Change your password
ps	To see the processes running<br>rm Remove files or directories<br>rmdir Remove directories<br>useradd Add a user to the linux system
userdel Delete a user on the linux system<br>usermod Modify a user on the linux system<br>which Find where a program is located<br>who Displays the users logged in<br>zless To see the content of a .gz file (compressed)</pre>
<P>Some more tips for bash users. If you know that the first letter of a command
for example is a but don't know the rest type "a" and then press TAB twice and
bash will show the list of possibilities. You can also press a single tab to
complete a command if there is only one possibility. This saves a lot of typing
time. Example type "mou" and then press TAB, bash will put mount on the command
line.</P>
<P>Pressing TAB twice shows all the Linux commands. It looks something like:</P>
<P>There are 1212 possibilities. Do you really wish to see them all? (y or n)</P>
<P>Type "y" and you will see all of them!</P>
<P>Sometimes if you type a command, the screen may scroll by too fast for you
to read, unless you are superman. In that case you can see the previous screen
by pressing Shift and PG-UP keys together.</P>
<P>If you type some commands, you can break by pressing CTRL-C or ESC. It may
not work in man or less, in that case just type "q".If you need to edit some
files try pico or joe. These are two easy to use editors. Joe works more like
WordStar and pico is the editor for Pine. Power users may try vi or emacs. These
two are very powerful editors but have a high learning curve. Examples would
be type "joe filename". Replace the filename with the name of the file that
you wish to edit.</P>
<P>Most distrbutions install X-Window. To start X-Window type "startx". X-Window
is a GUI for Windows. There are several flavours available which give you different
look and feel. To configure a redhat system type "setup". If you are under Caldera
type "lisa". You can also configure through a GUI interface under X-Window.</P>
<P>Most users may want to use some dos floppies or partitions. You can type some
dos commands under Linux without mounting your devices. Type "man mtools" to
see a list of these commands. These commands start with m, example the dos copy
command would be mcopy. Similarly there are several commands such as mattrib,
mcd, mcopy, mdel, mdeltree, mdir, mformat, mlabel, mmd, mrd, mmove, mren, mtype,
mzip, etc.To see some more Linux documentation's look under the following directories.
If the files have .gz extension the to view them type "zless filename.gz" replace
filename with the name of the file.</P>
<P>/usr/doc/FAQ<br>
/usr/doc/LDP/install-guide<br>
/usr/doc/mini/usr/doc/HOWTO</P>
<P> </P>
<P><a href="mailto:prakash@freeos.com">Prakash Advani</a> is an Internet and Systems
consultant based in Mumbai, India. Currently we are setting up a Web site dedicated
on Free Operating Systems [<a href="http://www.freeos.com">www.FreeOS.com</a>]
including Linux. Any help would be greatly appreciated.</P>
<P> </P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Prakash Advani <BR>
Published in Issue 35 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, December 1998</H5></center>
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