Notes on Linux

  1. Recommended Books:
    Click to read reviews or buy
    		Click to read reviews or buy
    		Click to read reviews or buy
  2. Working behind an authenticated proxy in Ubuntu

    Add this code to your .bashrc

    http_proxy=https://username:password@host:port/
export http_proxy
  3. To install apache2 in Ubuntu 
    sudo apt-get install apache2
  4. File hierarchy
    1. /bin - essential binaries for system to function - cat, cp, ls, ps, - (note: no subdirectories in /bin)
    2. /etc - config files for local machine and users - hosts, X11, gimp/1.2/gimprc, bashrc - (note: no binaries)
    3. /home - location for all user files - /home/mfincher
    4. /lib - libraries needed to run the system, binaries in /bin and /sbin
  5. Manually mounting the windows file system

    In case SuSE does not mount the windows drive try the following: 

    su
mkdir /home/c
mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /home/c

    To find clues on devices:

    # mount  //this will show a variety of devices
# cat /etc/fstab
#ls /media

    To mount a usb device, try something like

    mkdir /home/usb
mount -t usbfs /proc/bus/usb /home/usb
  6. Fonts

    shared fonts in the new Fontconfig subsystem live in /usr/share/fonts/local/ and are updated with the fc-cache command.

    I tried the automated method of downloading the microsoft fonts, but due to our proxy server and other issues, no success. here are my notes on manually installing the fonts:

    visit https://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/corefonts/ 
        and download the times32.exe and other font files
mkdir /usr/share/fonts/local/
cd /usr/share/fonts/local/
mkdir times32
cabextract times32.exe .   #you can get this executable from the above web site
ttmkfdir  
ttmkfdir > fonts.dir
/usr/sbin/chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/local/times32/
/sbin/service xfs reload   #  restart the font server
xlsfonts | grep -i micro  # to test install
  7. Notes: 
    to change your prompt, set the env variable 'PS1', example:  
PS1='\u@\w:>' will set it to be the username at the current working directory. 
You can set this in your .bashrc file or /etc/bashrc.  
See 'man bash' for a list of magic escape sequences

/etc/rc.d/init.d/ypbind (start|status) // to start a demaen
/sbin/service httpd restart  //restart apache
shutdown now
alt-f2 // gets to other virtual sessions (1-6)
/etc/motd // welcome message
/etc/fstab // file systems
mount -a -t devpts //mounts all file systems of type devpts
/etc/sysconfig/network //primary ethernet controller's configuration
/etc/rc.d/init.d/ypbind start
in command mode: ALT-F7 goes back to XWindows
ctl-alt-shift backspace to quit X
startx //start xwindows
/usr/sbin/mouseconfig //redo mouse configuration for /etc/sysconfig/mouse
/usr/X11R6/bin/Xconfigurator // to redo config
rpm -iv --nodeps opera-6.02-20020701.1-static-qt.i386.rpm // ignore dependencies
/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart // to restart the network subsystem
vi /etc/sysconfig/network //to change name of system
/usr/X11R6/bin/X -showconfig //to show configuration of X
/etc/X11/F86Config //text file containing x windows setup
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom //to mount the cdrom device
umount /mnt/cdrom //to unmount cdrom device
/usr/sbin/chkfontpath --list // to check which font directories are loaded
su -c "mkdir /usr/local/cvsroot" //execute a single command as root
/sbin/ifconfig //set or display network interfaces

To add a user:  /usr/sbin/useradd bgates
                /usr/bin/passwd bgates

To add TrueType fonts:
# cd /usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType
# ttmkfdir > fonts.dir
Restart the X Font Server: 
# /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart
To add directories to your path edit bash_profile:  
   PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:/usr/java/j2sdk1.4.1_01/bin