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1000 HOWTOs for various needs [WINDOWS]

  zsh</p>
<p>The most popular and powerful shell is 'bash' (borne again shell). We won't 
  go that much into shells, because you don't need to know that much about them 
  just yet.</p>
<p> <br>
  <b>5.2 - Navigating The File System</b></p>
<p>The most important thing to know when using the console is how to navigate 
  the file system without a graphical program.</p>
<p>The first thing to understand about this is that the bottom directory, the 
  directory that everything else is a subdirectory of is '/'. It's like 'C:\' 
  in Windows.</p>
<p>Ok, you start at the console and as a default you're either in your home directory 
  (every user has a home directory which contains his personal configurations 
  files). Now you want to navigate to another directory. But wait, you don't know 
  any other directories! You'll a directory listing for this, right? To do this 
  type 'ls' at the prompt. 'ls' is the equivlant to 'dir' in MS-DOS, and stands 
  for list. You'll get a list of files and folders. To make the list a bit more 
  readable, try ls -Fla. The -a shows files which start with a period (for example: 
  .Xclients-default). The -l displays file permissions and displays everything 
  in neat columns. The -F option adds a / after a directory and a * after an executable 
  file. I also<br>
  suggest using ls -Fla --color to let the system color-code different files (may 
  not be available on some systems).</p>
<p>Anyway, now that you what directories there are, you need to know how to get 
  into them. Luckily, you use the same command as you you use in MS-DOS, the 'cd' 
  (change directory) command. Let's say you're at the bottom directory, '/' and 
  you want to get to '/root'. You simply type 'cd root'. There is no need to type 
  'cd /root', because you're already in '/'. Now let's say you want to get to 
  '/root/bin'. This would be done by typing 'cd bin'. There is no need to type 
  'cd /root/bin' (the &quot;full path&quot; of the directory), since you're already 
  in '/root'. Instead, you can use a &quot;relative path&quot;, which is a path 
  that is relative to the current directory you're in. Type pwd to find out where 
  you are (pwd stands for print working directory).</p>
<p>Now let's say you're in '/root/bin' and you want to get to '/usr'. You would 
  type 'cd /usr'. This is to signify that the 'usr' directory is under '/', not 
  '/root/bin', or even '/root'. Got it? Ok, just one more thing. If you're in 
  a subdirectory, and you want to get to the top directory, just type 'cd ..'. 
  Let's say you're in '/root/bin', and you want to get to '/root'. You could<br>
  just type 'cd /root', but hey, '/root' is five characters! If you want to save 
  precious miliseconds, just type 'cd ..', since '/root' is the directory in which 
  '/root/bin' is a subdirectory of. So in other words, . is the current directory, 
  .. is one directory above, ... is two directories above etc'.</p>
<p><b>5.3 - Basic File and Directory Commands</b></p>
<p>There are lots of file and directory commands in Linux, but we'll start with 
  directory commands because they're easier. First off, you have 'mkdir'. 'mkdir' 
  stands for make directory and the context is:</p>
<p>mkdir the_directory_you_want_to_make</p>
<p>Some rulse apply. If you're '/', it will make the new directory under '/'. 
  If you're in '/usr', it will make the directory under '/usr'. Of course though, 
  if you're in '/' and you want to make a directory called 'stuff' under '/usr', 
  you would simply type '/usr/stuff'.</p>
<p>The next command is the 'rm' command. It works with files and direcotires and 
  is used to delete some, it stands for 'remove'. If you want to remove a file 
  called 'this.gif', you would go to the directory where that file is and type 
  'rm this.gif'. Or let's say again you're in '/' and 'this.gif' is in '/usr', 
  you would type 'rm /usr/this.gif'. It works the same way<br>
  with a directory.</p>
<p>Next are the 'cp' and 'mv' commands. They're both relativley simple, but we'll 
  start with 'cp'. 'cp' stands for copy, and is used to copy a file from directory 
  to another. The context is:</p>
<p>cp /directory_where_it_is/filename /directory_where_you_want_to_copy_it</p>
<p>Of course if you're already in the directory where the file is, all you need 
  to type is:</p>
<p>cp filename /directory_where_you_want_to_copy_it</p>
<p>'mv' works the exact same way, except it moves the file instead of copying 
  it. This means it deletes in from the original directory and puts it in the 
  new one.</p>
<p><b><br>
  5.4 - Finding and Viewing Commands</b></p>
<p>To find a file, oyu use the 'find' command. It then followed by the directory 
  where you want to start looking, then the '-name' arguement to say that you're 
  searching for a filename. Next you type the name of the file. Let's say you're 
  looking for the 'this.gif' in the '/usr' directory, the context would look like 
  this:</p>
<p>find /usr -name this.gif</p>
<p>The find command doesn't stop at filenames, it can also search a file for a 
  paticular string of text. It has the same context as the find file command except 
  you put quotes and asteriks around the string of text. So if you wanted to search 
  the '/usr' directory for a file containing the string 'hello', you would type</p>
<p>find /usr -name &quot;*hello*&quot;</p>
<p>Ok, once you find a file, you want to view it right? Well, you could open the 
  file with a text editor, but we haven't learned to use tetx editors yet, and 
  anyway if the file you want to view is important you might accidently change 
  it and save it using a text editor. That's what the 'cat' command is for. Let's 
  say you want to view a file called 'stuff.txt' in '/root'. You would navigate 
  to the '/root' directory and type 'cat stuff.txt'. Or from any directory, type 
  'cat /root/stuff.txt'</p>
<p>-= For more commands, buy a good basic Unix book =-</p>
<p><b>5.5 - linuxconf</b></p>
<p>There are lots of commands in Linux for configuring everything to user passwords, 
  networks, and the message that comes up when you start Linux. With so many things 
  to configure, luckily there is one program that does it all. <br>
  Just type 'linuxconf' at the command prompt, and you'll be brought to the Linux 
  Configuration program.</p>
<p><b><br>
  5.6 - Mounting</b></p>
<p><b>5.61 - Mounting Drives</b></p>
<p>In Linux, drives not only have to be physically mounted to the computer, but 
  mounted in software too. In the KDE and GNOME GUIs, you can easily mount a CD-ROM 
  or disk drive by clicking on the 'CD-ROM' or 'Disk Drive' icons on the desktop.</p>
<p><b>5.62 - How to mount</b></p>
<p>Remember earlier in this tutorial when we went over how a hard drive partition 
  is almost like a separate hard drive? Well, just like a separate drive, partitions 
  also have to be mounted. The main use in this is being able to<br>
  mount Windows partition and access Windows files in Linux. Obviously, Windows 
  software will not run under Linux but there is still a use for accessing Windows 
  files in Linux.</p>
<p>Let's say you can't use the internet in Linux. You ISP only allows to dialup 
  with software and they don't make it for Linux, you're not used to Linux yet 
  so you don't want to use the net in it yet. This is a down point, but it doesn't 
  mean you can't download Linux files to use. All you have to do is download the 
  files in Windows and access them in Linux.</p>
<p>To mount a windows partition in Linux, yhe first thing you must do is create 
  a directory in Linux where you will mount the windows partition to reside. Go 
  into file manager (it should be under utilities no matter what distribution 
  you're using) and create a new directory under '/'. Call anything, I suggest 
  calling it 'windows'. Now exit file manager and go<br>
  into 'terminal' (should also be under utilities). Terminal will give you a command 
  prompt just like MS-DOS. This is what you would have to do everything from if 
  there were no X Windows GUI. The command to use is simply enough- 'mount'. But 
  don't type it just yet, you need to give the system more info. The full command 
  is</p>
<p>mount -t vfat /dev/xxxx /yyyyyyy (yes there is a space between 'xxxx' and '/')</p>
<p>Or mount -t vfat32 /dev/xxxx /yyyyyyy in case this is a FAT32 partition.</p>
<p>Where 'yyyyyyy' is the directory you just created, and 'xxxx' is the device 
  name of the partition where Windows resides. It is usually hda1 or something.</p>
<p>There, now just go into file manager and click on the directory you created 
  and you will have all the files that are on your windows partition.</p>
<p>When you're done, don't forget to unmount the drive by typing:</p>
<p>umount /dev/xxxx /yyyyyyy </p>
<p>Each time you want to access your windows files, just mount the partition (unless 
  they're set for automount. Edit /etc/fstab, find the line that represents your 
  Windows partition and look for a place with says noauto. If you find the word 
  noauto, change it into defaults. If you don't, your Windows partition will probably 
  get automounted whenever you boot-up Linux). When you're done with them, just 
  unmount the partition.</p>
<p><b><br>
  5.7 - Runlevels</b></p>
<p>While Windows is booting, have you ever pressed the F8 key? Well, if you have, 
  you're probably familiar with a screen that pops up giving you a list of ways 
  you can load Windows. There's safe mode, command prompt, step-by-step confirmation, 
  etc. Linux has something just like that, and they're called 'runlevels'. There 
  are six runlevels in all, and some are pretty much the same. A runlevel is a 
  list of commands to load-up as soon as you start up Linux (there's a mini-tutorial 
  about runlevels at blacksun.box.sk/byteme.html). Your default runlevel is probably 
  5. If you configured the GUI to start up when you boot the system, and if your 
  default runlevel is 5, then that is the runlevel configured to boot the GUI 
  when it starts up...simple, right?</p>
<p>Well anyway, if you use linuxconf to change your default runlevel to 2 or 3 
  or something, then you change it so that the GUI won't start as soon as the 
  system boots....all without touching the actual runlevel. When you want to change 
  it back, just use linuxconf to set the default runlevel back to 5.</p>
<p>Now let's say you only want to load it without the GUI coming up once. Instead 
  of having to change the configuration in linuxconf, and then changing it back, 
  you can load Linux into another runlevel. Suppose You want to load runlevel 
  2...not for any paticular reason, just because it's not configured to load the 
  GUI when it boots up, and well, you like the<br>
  number 2. To do this, as soon LILO comes up (whether it's on your computer, 
  or your boot disk), you have the option to type something next to 'boot:'. Just 
  type 'linux x'. 'x' refers to the number of the runlevel, in this case the number 
  2, so you type 'linux 2', and press enter. This will load Linux without loading 
  the GUI. When you restart Linux, it will load the default runlevel again.</p>
<p>For an interesting runlevels-related local hack, read the Byte-Me mini-tutorial 
  about runlevels at blacksun.box.sk/byteme.html.</p>
<p><br>
  You are now officially a Linux user. Check out www.linuxlinks.com for links 
  to some great Linux sites. The best way to learn about Linux is by messing around 
  with it. In an hour of playing with Linux you can learn a lot. If you want more 
  interesting yet simple and easy-to-understand tutorials, check out <a href="http://blacksun.box.sk" target="_blank">http://blacksun.box.sk</a>.</p>
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