jbirdie1

i am comitted to switching to linux and everybody says that i gotta know a bunch of command line stuff...well there was a book called "DOS for Dummies" that had references and details of the DOS commands. Is there any such thing for Linux? maybe something like "Linux for Lamers", else how/where do i find the commands that i will need - i cant make a post here each time i need a command to enter. also is there any way, in ubuntu, to just boot and continue to operate as administrator? i dont want to do the sudo (su) thing each time i want to do an admin action...win2k allowed me to be admin all the time...needless to say, i am a single user machine and NOBODY ever gets near my machines, so security wont be a prob. thanks for your help, aloha

K-B

Well, I'm sure if you googled for a Linux book you'd find one. yustr always mentions a book he found very useful in learning Ubuntu. There's also websites that are helpful. There's a list of Linux commands here. Also check this site out.
As far as being logged in as root all the time, it is not recommended. There are more things that can go wrong than with Windows. For one thing, it can make your system more vulnerable to intruders. (If you're connected to the internet and have certain programs running). And you can screw your system by accidently deleting or editing files without knowing it.
But, it is possible to log in as root. If you really want to know, I can tell you how.

K-B

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/re...lance&n=283155

A book recommended by a TSF member

Bartender

"everybody" is wrong. I've had to figure out about a dozen commands to get a fully functional Ubuntu PC going.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you won't ever have to do anything in the terminal. You probably will. It is not the end of the world unless you're horribly dyslexic or born with ten thumbs. The fact that you got on this forum and wrote a coherent post gives me confidence that you can learn the handful of terminal commands you may need to get around.

Please allow me to suggest that this is an opportunity to be embraced, not avoided. Start right now. Get yourself a notebook or 3 ring binder, start writing down commands that you see in these forums along with a short description of what they do. Start an electronic notebook. Open a document in OpenOffice or Word. Copy/paste commands into that document, again with a short note on what they do. When you get to a situation where you need to do something in terminal, you could paste in a command you've already saved instead of trying to figure out how to type it, where to put a space, etc.

Commands in Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu are a little different than the other distros, so can you tell us which distro you're leaning toward? I'll be back in a coupla days and give you a list of a few basic Ubuntu commands if that's where you're going...

EDIT: Hey, kbalona, I was thinking it'd be handy to have a sticky at the top of the Linux forum with a list of the "Top 25 Commands You're Most Likely to Use".
Have them all typed up correctly and ready to go. Instead of trying to explain something for the umpteenth time, we could just say, "Go to the 'Command Sticky', copy Command #17, paste it into your terminal, hit Enter, and reply back with the results".
What do you think?

K-B

Good idea. I'll talk to Skie about it.
EDIT:You'd have to state which distro it works with.
Like:
To update Fedora without being prompted for confirmation, type:
The only thing is, commands like that are easy to type and it might make it easier for the person we're helping if we'd just type them out.

jbirdie1

i was gonna use ubuntu but didnt know there were others, which of the 3 is best/easiest with Minimum command line interface!!! let me whine/moan/cry for a minute because i dont understand something...WHY do i have to know xwindows/fstab/mount/etcetera in order to use firefox, or send e-mail via smtp/pop, or surf/reply newsgroups or do personal finance...i dont even have a printer so i dont do that office stuff, i dont work so i just kill time 12-16 hrs per day on my computers. i format my windows machines every 3-4 months, dont ask why, its like washing yer underware...it just feels good!!!. i want to do the same stuff with linux and i am not a developer, programmer, admin or anything else except a single user who WILL operate in sudo mode just to piss everybody off. its MY computer and i want to use it my way - thats why i am getting away from microsnot. now that my rant is over, what are some minimum command line commands that will actually be beneficial but seldomly used ( except for the wipe/zero-fill format/restore options as well as whatever i will need to install/uninstall appz... like i said, a very generous offer, its just that i dont want all the extra crap that i dont need, if i ever do then i will go learn it at that time. btw none of these 'live' cd's give any hint of the amount of time and energy that must be spent in command mode and that seems to be a bit misleading. tkz for the support!!!

Cellus

Ubuntu is slowly trying to distinguish itself as a "user-friendly" (in comparison to others) Linux distribution and has met with some success so far. It is a good choice.

If you can help it, pick up a book on basic Linux. Linux, and its associated distributions, are a different world compared to Windows and as such really can not be given proper justice without some degree of instruction (including self-taught). If you can use the Synaptic Package Manager you should be well off in using the common GUI applications. Infact you will spend far less time in a terminal window than you may think since you can get away with quite a lot without one.

Kyle is spot on in regards to logging in as root. Unlike Windows, logging on as a "non-administrator" gives you fairly good security all by itself - if someone tried to terrorize your system, they'd be hard pressed without root permission. It's coded directly in the Linux kernel to be that way. If you do have to do a legitimate action that requires root permission, a GUI window will ask for the root password (if it's a GUI asking for it), or a quick sudo or su - root in a command line shell.

Bartender

The 3 easiest distros. Hmmm. If you think you're going to get me to list the 3 best, then sit back and watch while I get flamed, you are sadly mistaken, young man!

BTW, the 3 easiest distros are Simply Mepis, PCLinuxOS, and Kubuntu/Ubuntu

No, seriously, I don't know which are "easiest". First, we would have to define "easy" and too often that gets distorted into "the most like Windows".

I read that Simply Mepis will automatically detect Windows partitions, which means the user skips having to edit fstab. This is a small thing, really - I edited my fstab by following the directions on hermanzon'es website. He laid it out well enuf that I just did what he said without even understanding what I was doing.

If you're looking for "most like Windows" then you probly want Xandros or Linspire/Freespire. I get the impression that neither distro gets much respect from the Linux community. Elitism? I don't know.

Perhaps the "easiest" would be the one that has the largest, most active and supportive community. Probly Ubuntu holds that distinction right now, but that could change.

You ask why you might have to do some command line work? Might as well ask why we still have to hold the steering wheel when we drive. That's just the way things are right now. Linux is becoming more comprehensible very quickly. 2 or 3 years ago I don't think I woulda got anywhere with any version of Linux.

There are many people who're very comfortable with the command line and would abandon any distro that tried to eliminate it. If you are quite sure that you'll always hate the command line maybe Linux isn't for you.

EDIT: Just read back thru your post. You may be making this out to be worse than it is. I'm using Juno, which is a stupid ISP that doesn't work very well outside of Windows. Still, I can get my e-mail via Evolution. It only took a few minutes to type the correct entries into the Evolution set-up. There was no command line work at all. Of course, someone had to tell me the correct entries, which I never woulda figured out on my own.

K-B

Just to clarify, you don't have to use the command line everyday with all tasks you do. For example when I installed fedora I used the comman line heavily to set things up and get them just like I wanted. After that I basically forgot about.
PCLinuxOS is an up-and-coming Linux distro. I've heard of people switching to it after using Ubuntu. I've never personally tried it (which will change as of a couple days) but I've heard that it "just works" or "works out of the box". In general, Linux takes more time and is a little more difficult to configure than Windows.
You say you want to operate in sudo just to piss everybody off. If you get hacked, you'll be that everybody. I mean, in regular mode, it doesn't even really matter if you get hacked. A hacker can't do much without needing the root password. But in sudo mode, he has the whole computer laid out before him. But then again, maybe you wouldn't mind getting hacked.

Cellus

Be very careful with accessing NTFS partitioned drives on any Linux distribution - NTFS support is still experimental and writing to a NTFS partition can cause corruption.

jbirdie1

i still can't even figure out what questions to ask because i don't know how this thing works. but i will install it and leave it alone until i can find a college student to answer some questions for me. How do i partition? i was gonna use partition magic ( a windows partitioner that supports ext3) and make 3 partitions swap@128mb.../root@60gb...and /home@75gb. does this look right? i have approx 70gb of mp3 files that i will need to store( i believe in the /home directory cause it has the "data, right). oh yea, i have the music also stored on a usb external drive that is just formatted ntfs(NO o/s on it). can i use this device for my mp3's and free up 70gb of space on the hard drive? lessee that is hda right??? and the usb drive would be hdb, correct?!?!?! i need to know about the usb drive and wether it would work with linux or not...it does just fine with winders and i hate to throw it away, just because of linux. anyway how to partition...oh yea i DO plan to dual boot until i can figure this thing out. sorry to ramble but this whole thing is blowing my mind. finally, regarding storage, does linux support the usb ram disk/pen drives??? i presume it does but havent seen anything as to device names, stopping/unloading them etc, assuming linux does then it would be hdc??? anyway your feedback is appreciated...i have hardware and software firewalls as well as a/v and 9 different anti-malware clients and i have had 0 breeches since august when i did my last format, thats why i say bring on the wanker hackers, they can see me but they cant get to me and i will remain defiant about that unless i get busted, i see that a big navy security installation got hacked yesterday so everybody is vulnerable, but its like riding a bike real fast - its EXHILIRATING!!!

K-B

I'll try and answer your question.
Yes you can use partition magic for your partitioning. I believe Ubuntu also comes with a partitioner on the disk. When partioning, you can just make the partitions and Ubuntu will format them to the required filesystem. When I install Linux, I only make 2 partitions, one swap and one root. Home is optional. How much RAM do you have? Depending on how much, you should have at least 256 swap. If your external drive is formatted in NTFS, you can read it and play the music from it but not write to it. You'd have to boot to Windows for that. If you formatted it to FAT32 you could write to it from Linux. Ubuntu should detect the drive automatically, not sure because I don't have one and never tried it. Sure you can use pen drives.
What do you have on the hard drive right now, is Windows installed? Is it on it's own partition?

Bartender

Wow -
jbird, your last post reminds me of myself about a year ago. Well, except for the part about feeling exhilarated by living dangerously...you realize of course that all those Windows-based defenses you've built won't do anything for you in Linux, right? I mean, a router with a hardware firewall doesn't hurt, but all the software based defenses will be moot

When you're on one side of a new learning experience it's frightening because the confusion seems infinite. Several years back I took a new job at my workplace. It involved 2 years of training. Very scary at first. One day I started a new module, looked at the study materials, and realized that I understood it. From then on things went better.

You'll have to work your way thru a few Linux puzzles, spend some time absorbing things, then one day you'll go "I understand what they're saying".

kbalona is right - again - at first you may have to do some command line work, but after you've got it going you can use the terminal as much or as little as you wish. Some new project may come along that requires terminal, but it's not a daily chore.

Partitioning is very scary if you haven't done much before. However, you may be making it more complicated than necessary. All you really need to do is give your Linux distro one partition. It'll make swap within that space. Having a separate /home partition is entirely optional. Some swear by it, others not. If you have Partition Magic and like it, then go ahead. If not, I'd download GParted LiveCD.

A PATA hard drive is recognized as /dev/hda for the first one, /dev/hdb for a second drive. /dev/hda1 is the first partition on the first drive.

When I plug a USB thumb drive in, it's recognized as /dev/sda, not "hd". It's recognized automatically. There's at least one trick to remember - Linux (well Ubuntu anyway, I think it's the same with all of them) may not actually write the data to a USB device until you eject it. Lots of people just pull their USB thumb drives and don't understand why the file isn't there. When I plug in a thumb drive (this is in Ubuntu Dapper) i get an icon on the desktop. When I want to remove it, I right-click on the icon and left click on Eject. A message flashes across the screen that says something about "Writing data to disc" when that's done the device can be removed.

Thanks, Cellus, for the reminder - it's not yet safe to write to your NTFS data. That's why some folks set up another partition, written as FAT32. This partition acts as a common ground, where you can leave data from one OS and pick it up in the other.

Cellus

There are a few advantages to having set swap partitions and /home partitions during installation:

* Having a dedicated swap partition that is at least the size of RAM is a very good idea. If the worse-case scenario occurs and the kernel panics, it will dump everything from RAM into your swap space with absolutely no regard to any useful information that it may overwrite if the swap space is too small. That would be a bad thing. Also keep in mind that swap space is not the same as, say, ext2/3 as it is raw space (not indexed or journaled or all that fancy stuff that comes with some file systems).

* A dedicate /home partition is very useful in situations where you, let's say, want to toss your current distro and install another one (or who knows what) because your personal data will be on its own separate partition. So long as the /home partition is recognized by the new distro installed (if it's ext3 you should be fine with any new distros) you will be golden.