aoryx
July 30th, 2007, 12:38 PM
Hello all,
Enjoy the howto.
It was designed with newbs in mind, so that's why there are so many Windows references
-- Useful Resources --
http://www.fedoraproject.org -- Fedora Project site
http://fedoranews.org/cms/ -- Fedora News
http://fedorasolved.org/ -- Fedora Solved
http://www.fedorafaq.org/ -- Fedora F.A.Q. a must-read
Jman's Where to find Answers
Fedora Forum Guidelines
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=74554 -- The New Yum Guide
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz -- A GREAT Linux starter's guide. a must-read
My open-source programs -- They may be useful to you, maybe not...
http://stanton-finley.net/ -- Stanton Finley's excellent setup guides
** EDIT: It seems these guides are no longer maintained.
-- Installing / Partitioning --
How do I install Linux? Can I have Windows & Linux at once?
For sure! See Newb's guide to installing and resizing NTFS for how.
What's a partition?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia for "Partition (computing)"
Partitioning allows one to have multiple file systems on a single hard disk.
So what's a filesystem then?
Quote:
Originally Posted by File System Wikipedia
In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data or for data over a network (e.g. NFS).
How should I setup my partitions?
My personal setup preference uses this setup formula:
-> Use Custom Partitioning during the install
- Start off with a swap partition that's double the size of you're RAM. Swap doesn't need a mount point, so you should just be able to set the size and click "OK". Just a note, however, that having more than 1GB of swap is pointless. 1GB is about the upper limit in terms of practicality. If you're wondering what the heck swap space is, it's like the Windows paging file - When you don't have enough RAM to run something, it can overflow a little into the swap space.
- Make a ext3 partition with mount point /home with half of your hard drive's remaining free space
- Make a ext3 partition with mount point / the rest of remaining space -- the other half of the free space
What are ISO's?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia for "iso image"
As is typical for disk images, in addition to the data files that are contained in the ISO image, it also contains all the filesystem metadata (boot code, structures, and attributes). All of this information is contained in a single file. These properties make it an attractive alternative to physical media for the distribution of software which requires this additional information as it is simple to retrieve over the net.
It's simply a file containing an exact replica of what goes onto the CD. Therefore, when burning it, you must burn it as an image, and not just put the file into a data CD.
From the Fedora download site I see a bunch of things. i386, x86_64, PPC, SRPMS. What do they mean? Which is right for me?
These are all the different architectures builds of Linux. The processor, also known as the CPU inside your computer is what does all the thinking. The style in which it does so is like the architecture. Because there are many types, there are many builds for your architecture.
i386 --> Intel (32-bit), this includes the new Intel Macs
ppc --> Macintosh, but not the Intel Macs (32-bit)
ppc64 --> Macintosh, but not the Intel Macs (64-bit)
x86_64 --> Mostly AMD Athlon 64, although Intel has some 64-bit processors. (64-bit)
sparc --> Not sure, I think it's Sun's servers.
SRPMS --> Never use these. These are provided for developers and are of no use to you unless you are building your own distribution.
-- System Managment --
Do I need to defragment my Linux system?
No - Linux uses the ext3 filesystem which ext3 handles file fragmentation far better than FAT(32) or NTFS, so in general you should never have the need to.
My disk is getting full. How can I clean up to get some extra space?
Please see this howto
-- Security --
Do I need a virus scanner in Linux?
Simply put, no. Linux has next to no viruses that affect it if one takes the proper security measures such as a firewall. If you want to be safe, however, one called ClamAV does exist:
Code:
su -
yum install clamav clamav-libs clamav-update clamav-data
Installing a Firewall
Run this in a terminal:
Code:
su -
chkconfig iptables on
service iptables start
Configuring the firewall
--> First, install the configuration tool:
Code:
su -
yum install system-config-securitylevel
from now on, you can configure your firewall with
Code:
system-config-securitylevel
What's this SELinux?
SELinux stands for Security Enhanced Linux. It's a security tool that monitors what goes on in your system and block applications from performing actions that are out of line. In other words, it basically severely restricts what havoc hackers can unleash in your system. The only negative thing about it is it's very intrusive -- Sometimes applications that you want running will be blocked because it requires explicit permissions & configuration. I personally disable it as I find it too much of a hassle to configure and have had no hackers. The only thing I can say is if you do disable it, run a firewall. This is critical. Also, before reporting problems about servers (see below) not working, try disabling SELinux.
-- Servers --
What's a server?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia for "Server (computing)"
[...] The typical server is a computer system that operates continuously on a network and waits for requests for services from other computers on the network [...]
It is simply a piece of software that will listen to a network (one of which could be the Internet) and respond to requests. These "requests" can be for virtually any purpose -- WWW pages (Web servers), remote administration (SSH, VNC, telnet servers), file sharing (SMB/NFS servers), the list goes on.
How can I install one?
See the Every Server Setup Imaginable thread that shows how to configure:
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor, used for making dynamic web pages and for (MySQL) database communication)
MySQL (Database, stores information that can be dynamically)
HTTPD (Web server, serves web pages)
SMB/Samba (Samba or SMB server, for file and printer sharing)
SSH (CLI remote administration)
VNC (Graphical remote administration)
VPN (Virtual Private Networking)
-- Software --
What are these RPM packages everyone's talking about?
RPMs are installer .exe or .msi files of Linux. They are compressed packages of files that will install a certain program on your system, and make an entry in the RPM database. This allows for great package management. You can ask the system to tell you what packages owns a certain file easily install, remove or upgrade packages and much more.
How do I install a program?
See FedoraFAQ's Using Yum.
Are there games for Linux? I miss WoW.
Yes! For commercial support, you can use Cedega to run your Windows games in Linux, or for free you can use
- Wine Windows Emulator to install games. Run
Code:
su -
yum install wine
Enjoy the howto.
It was designed with newbs in mind, so that's why there are so many Windows references
-- Useful Resources --
http://www.fedoraproject.org -- Fedora Project site
http://fedoranews.org/cms/ -- Fedora News
http://fedorasolved.org/ -- Fedora Solved
http://www.fedorafaq.org/ -- Fedora F.A.Q. a must-read
Jman's Where to find Answers
Fedora Forum Guidelines
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=74554 -- The New Yum Guide
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz -- A GREAT Linux starter's guide. a must-read
My open-source programs -- They may be useful to you, maybe not...
http://stanton-finley.net/ -- Stanton Finley's excellent setup guides
** EDIT: It seems these guides are no longer maintained.
-- Installing / Partitioning --
How do I install Linux? Can I have Windows & Linux at once?
For sure! See Newb's guide to installing and resizing NTFS for how.
What's a partition?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia for "Partition (computing)"
Partitioning allows one to have multiple file systems on a single hard disk.
So what's a filesystem then?
Quote:
Originally Posted by File System Wikipedia
In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data or for data over a network (e.g. NFS).
How should I setup my partitions?
My personal setup preference uses this setup formula:
-> Use Custom Partitioning during the install
- Start off with a swap partition that's double the size of you're RAM. Swap doesn't need a mount point, so you should just be able to set the size and click "OK". Just a note, however, that having more than 1GB of swap is pointless. 1GB is about the upper limit in terms of practicality. If you're wondering what the heck swap space is, it's like the Windows paging file - When you don't have enough RAM to run something, it can overflow a little into the swap space.
- Make a ext3 partition with mount point /home with half of your hard drive's remaining free space
- Make a ext3 partition with mount point / the rest of remaining space -- the other half of the free space
What are ISO's?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia for "iso image"
As is typical for disk images, in addition to the data files that are contained in the ISO image, it also contains all the filesystem metadata (boot code, structures, and attributes). All of this information is contained in a single file. These properties make it an attractive alternative to physical media for the distribution of software which requires this additional information as it is simple to retrieve over the net.
It's simply a file containing an exact replica of what goes onto the CD. Therefore, when burning it, you must burn it as an image, and not just put the file into a data CD.
From the Fedora download site I see a bunch of things. i386, x86_64, PPC, SRPMS. What do they mean? Which is right for me?
These are all the different architectures builds of Linux. The processor, also known as the CPU inside your computer is what does all the thinking. The style in which it does so is like the architecture. Because there are many types, there are many builds for your architecture.
i386 --> Intel (32-bit), this includes the new Intel Macs
ppc --> Macintosh, but not the Intel Macs (32-bit)
ppc64 --> Macintosh, but not the Intel Macs (64-bit)
x86_64 --> Mostly AMD Athlon 64, although Intel has some 64-bit processors. (64-bit)
sparc --> Not sure, I think it's Sun's servers.
SRPMS --> Never use these. These are provided for developers and are of no use to you unless you are building your own distribution.
-- System Managment --
Do I need to defragment my Linux system?
No - Linux uses the ext3 filesystem which ext3 handles file fragmentation far better than FAT(32) or NTFS, so in general you should never have the need to.
My disk is getting full. How can I clean up to get some extra space?
Please see this howto
-- Security --
Do I need a virus scanner in Linux?
Simply put, no. Linux has next to no viruses that affect it if one takes the proper security measures such as a firewall. If you want to be safe, however, one called ClamAV does exist:
Code:
su -
yum install clamav clamav-libs clamav-update clamav-data
Installing a Firewall
Run this in a terminal:
Code:
su -
chkconfig iptables on
service iptables start
Configuring the firewall
--> First, install the configuration tool:
Code:
su -
yum install system-config-securitylevel
from now on, you can configure your firewall with
Code:
system-config-securitylevel
What's this SELinux?
SELinux stands for Security Enhanced Linux. It's a security tool that monitors what goes on in your system and block applications from performing actions that are out of line. In other words, it basically severely restricts what havoc hackers can unleash in your system. The only negative thing about it is it's very intrusive -- Sometimes applications that you want running will be blocked because it requires explicit permissions & configuration. I personally disable it as I find it too much of a hassle to configure and have had no hackers. The only thing I can say is if you do disable it, run a firewall. This is critical. Also, before reporting problems about servers (see below) not working, try disabling SELinux.
-- Servers --
What's a server?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia for "Server (computing)"
[...] The typical server is a computer system that operates continuously on a network and waits for requests for services from other computers on the network [...]
It is simply a piece of software that will listen to a network (one of which could be the Internet) and respond to requests. These "requests" can be for virtually any purpose -- WWW pages (Web servers), remote administration (SSH, VNC, telnet servers), file sharing (SMB/NFS servers), the list goes on.
How can I install one?
See the Every Server Setup Imaginable thread that shows how to configure:
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor, used for making dynamic web pages and for (MySQL) database communication)
MySQL (Database, stores information that can be dynamically)
HTTPD (Web server, serves web pages)
SMB/Samba (Samba or SMB server, for file and printer sharing)
SSH (CLI remote administration)
VNC (Graphical remote administration)
VPN (Virtual Private Networking)
-- Software --
What are these RPM packages everyone's talking about?
RPMs are installer .exe or .msi files of Linux. They are compressed packages of files that will install a certain program on your system, and make an entry in the RPM database. This allows for great package management. You can ask the system to tell you what packages owns a certain file easily install, remove or upgrade packages and much more.
How do I install a program?
See FedoraFAQ's Using Yum.
Are there games for Linux? I miss WoW.
Yes! For commercial support, you can use Cedega to run your Windows games in Linux, or for free you can use
- Wine Windows Emulator to install games. Run
Code:
su -
yum install wine