Computer Beginner Guide

If you haven’t installed Linux on your machine yet and are wondering whether you can, it is relatively safe to say that Ubuntu will run on most machines out there today. Of course, this statement comes with a major caveat: You just never know until you get up and running. There are so many minor parts to your machine that it is difficult to say whether each part will cooperate with your installation. Ignoring minor parts for the time being, there are video cards, sound chips, LAN cards, monitors, and so on, and they all need to be considered. If you are going to buy a new machine on which to run Ubuntu, then it is reasonable enough to do a bit of worrying and check things out first, but if you are going to install it on the machine you have, I recommend just diving in. After all, you don’t really have to install anything the first time out. If you have a live CD, just pop that CD in your drive, boot up your machine, and, biff, bam, zowie, you’ll be up and running (or not) ...

Ubuntu is a completely free, easy-to-use, and extremely popular Linux distribution that is geared toward the desktop user. It is one of the hottest Linux distros in the marketplace today. It is also one of the few Linux distros with what could be described as a social agenda behind it. Ubuntu was the brainchild of South African millionaire entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, who is probably better known for being one of the first space tourists—the first African in space, to be exact. Shuttleworth invested over $10 million starting up the Ubuntu Foundation based on his belief in free software and in order to fix what he describes as “bug #1”—Microsoft’s dominance of the desktop PC marketplace. As Shuttleworth states in his blog (available at wiki.ubuntu.com/MarkShuttleworth ): I believe that free software brings us into a new era of technology, and holds the promise of universal access to the tools of the digital era. I drive Ubuntu because I would like to see that promise...

An operating system consists of a lot of files that perform a lot of different functions. And because there is no Linux corporation to package and distribute the files that make up Linux, the task of getting Linux onto your computer in working order, along with the applications that you are likely to want, has fallen to a varied group of entities—companies, universities, user groups, and even private individuals. These entities create Linux system and application collections called distributions, or distros. You could bypass such distros and try to collect everything you’d need to set up a system all on your own, but you would undoubtedly lose your mind in the process. Most people, even the geekiest, opt for the distros. The majority of these distros, whatever their ultimate target audience, basically consist of the same main elements: the core operating system (better known as the Linux kernel), some sort of installer program to get all the system parts and applications ...

People use Linux for different reasons. For many it is a matter of power, stability, multilingual capabilities, or even personal philosophy. However, for others, crass as it may sound, it is a matter of money. Just think for a moment about what it usually costs to get started with an operating system. Go to wherever it is you go to buy software, and take a walk down the aisles. Make a list in your head of all the things you want to buy and how much each costs: an office suite; a game or two; maybe a graphics program with which to make yourself look better in your digital photos; and a collection of all those firewall, antispam, antivirus, and anti-adware programs that you really need to protect yourself in the Windows world. Now do the math. After you pick yourself up off the floor, you will understand that we are talking big bucks here. On the other hand, for the price of this book you will have all of the things you wanted and more in the Linux world. Despite the worries...

Your computer, despite being a collection of highly sophisticated parts, is really just . . . well, a collection of highly sophisticated parts. On its own, it can do nothing other than switch on and off and spin a disk or two. In order for it to do anything truly useful, it needs an operating system (OS) to guide it. The OS takes an essentially well-endowed but completely uneducated hunk of a machine and educates it, at least enough so that it will understand what you want it to do. You already know of and have probably used at least one of the many operating systems that exist today. Windows, DOS, and the Mac OS are all such operating systems, and Linux is yet another. Linux is, however, different from these other operating systems, both in terms of its capabilities and its heritage. Linux was not created by a corporation or by some corporate wannabes out to make money. The Linux core, referred to as the kernel, was created by computer enthusiast Linus Torvalds, a Finn a...

Because the Debian system strives to maintain standardization, it can accommodate other types of packaged applications. Of course, source code for the programs can always be compiled, but you also can use pre-compiled packages such as RPM and tar. The Red Hat Package Management (RPM) system was developed by Red Hat for their package. Since then, many other distributions have begun to use this package manager. The one thing RPM lacks is the customization scripts that are installed after a package is installed with the Debian system. Debian can, however, receive RPM packages. To install an RPM package, you need to first install the rpm tool from the Debian archive. Once installed, you can install the RPM package. RPM can operate in several modes, although the two important ones for most cases involve querying and maintaining. To query an RPM file, you list the content information about that file. This is similar to getting information about a Debian package using the -i opt...

Welcome to the last time you will ever have a need to install Debian from scratch. This may not seem like a rational statement, but you will agree once you understand the power in Debian’s package management system. This system combines the power, flexibility, customization, and stability all into one system. As you read through and begin to use some of the features available, you too will agree with me that the package-management system used in Debian makes this distribution stand out among others. This unique and handy approach to managing packages led the way for other package managers. To help users install and manage their software, packages were developed to encapsulate each application. This encapsulation makes installations much easier. One package contains all the information that a specific application needs to operate properly. Some applications use shared resources, such as libraries that may be contained in a second package. The first package notifies the use...

Apt is the main component in the Debian package-management system. The apt tools enable packages to get installed from a variety of sources, manage the package archive sources, maintain a record of what you have installed and are used to install and remove packages for your systems. From here, you set the initial configuration for the system. Once initially set, you can always make changes later. After the CD is scanned for all the packages that it contains, you will be asked if you want to scan another CD. The options for configuring Apt are cdrom, http, ftp, filesystem, and edit sources list by hand. Unless you want to choose another installation location, insert the installation CD in the CD-ROM drive, and press Enter while cdrom is selected on the screen. As mentioned, you can configure Apt to use several means of installing packages— CDs, the Internet, or other file systems. If you intend to install Debian over the network or Internet, you will need to select the netw...

Because every computer and situation is a little different, your results may be slightly different from what you find here. These instruction were written to be as generic as possible; however, at some points you will find notes indicating deviations, such as between networks and standalone systems. One final instruction before continuing: You can navigate the menus with the arrow keys or the Tab key. You can select options with multiple choices using the spacebar. Now you are ready to begin the installation of Debian GNU/Linux on your system. If for some reason you are unable to boot from the CD, you can create boot floppies to get the installation started. You will need two DOS pre-formatted floppy disks. From DOS or Windows, go to the \dists\potato\main\ disks-i386\2.2.20.0.1-2000-12-03\dosutils directory on the CD and execute the rawrite.exe program. When asked for the source file, enter ..\images- 1.44\rescue.bin . For the destination, enter A:. Repeat again, replac...

Installing the Debian GNU/Linux operating system on a computer is no different than installing any other operating system by following straightforward guidelines. With over 4,000 applications to choose from, most can be installed using the Debian package- management system. However, some applications aren’t available in the format used by the Debian package-management system; for these you will learn other installation methods. Before beginning the installation process, you need to prepare your system. Namely, you need to take inventory of your machine’s hardware. At certain points during the installation, you are asked questions about the hardware, such as monitor refresh rate, network card used, and such. Clearly, opening the machine to find that information is very inconvenient, to say the least. Therefore, proper preparation will save you the headaches later. If you purchased your computer as a commercial system, you might be able to go to the company’s Web site for a ...

One of the oldest distributions of Linux, Debian GNU/Linux has an awesome reputation. At the heart of this distribution is a faithful community of programmers, all dedicated to advancing free software. This is the purest in the sense of noncommercial and most stable flavor of Linux because all base components are community created, community supported, and no-strings-attached free. There are over 500 developers working together from around the world to put out the latest version. Debian is the oldest distribution that does not have corporate strings attached. However, because this distribution is volunteer driven, the releases tend to be slow. This slowness could be considered a drawback, but in my opinion, it’s worth the wait. How did Debian get its start? In 1993, Ian Murdock attempted to create a distribution that combined the Linux kernel with GNU. In the process, the concept of packages developed. A package is a collection of all the compiled components needed to mak...

Stallman’s dream of having an operating system free from commercial purse strings came true with the completion of the kernel by Torvalds. As the community of programmers grew, so did the draw to GNU/Linux. The metamorphosis of the operating system grew to gain the attention of the world. More and more people started joining the Linux movement by adopting GNU/Linux as their operating system of choice. Many migrated to it looking for a stable environment from which to create programs, while others sought something that wouldn’t crash when performing simple daily tasks like word processing. Both groups of users were pleasantly surprised with GNU/Linux. With the popularity of GNU/Linux increasing, some programmers created special distributions of the operating systems by adding in their own special programs as enhancements. You can easily obtain some of these systems, while others encourage the purchase of their packages. Still others include software at a price, which dilut...

Free operating systems are not a new concept in the computer world,. (The academic versions of UNIX, Slackware, and FreeBSD come to mind.) Then a student of the University of Helsinki, Linus Torvalds announced in 1991 that he had created a very experimental operating system core called a kernel, based on a clone of UNIX called Minux. This new operating system kernel later became known as Linux. Torvolds chose this UNIX variant because of the well-respected stability, design and functionality of the UNIX operating system developed by Bell Laboratories. This new operating system kernel was refined for maximum performance on the Intel 386 microprocessor, which made this new Linux kernel platform specific. This generated criticism from some corners of the UNIX software world. Traditionally, UNIX was independent of platform, meaning that you could use the softeware with different computer processors without much trouble. This didn’t stop Torvalds from continuing to develop his ...

The operating system controls the interaction between hardware and the software applications. The hardware consists of the processor, hard drives, video cards, sound cards, and more. Each processor has built into it a language that only it understands, plus each manufacturer creates a different language for its processor. For instance, an Intel x86 processor uses a different internal language than, say, a Motorola 68000 processor. Therefore, any software must be complied (converted into the processor language) or customized for the processor (often referred to as the computer platform). Some of the platforms include: x86 (Intel [386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron], AMD [K6-2, Athlon, or others equivalent to the Intel line]) Alpha (Was DEC, Now Compaq) Power PC, also known as PPC (Motorola/IBM Power PC) M68k (Motorola 68000 series) Sparc (Sun Microsystems’s SPARCstation) The core component to the operating system is called the kernel in UNIX and UNIXlike op...