Linux Beginners Test
Answers to Test.
Answer: You will be in your HOME directory when you first open a terminal. If you open a SuperUser Terminal then you will be placed in the Root HOME directory.
Answer: Type in the command pwd
Answer: Ethernet cards, also called NIC (Network Interface Card) are call by the abbreviation ethX in Linux. Where the X is a number. If you have only one Ethernet card it will be eth0. If you have more than one, the the second one will be called eth1 and so on.
Answer: If you start a program and it crashes, start the program in a terminal and there is a good chance it will give you more clues as to why it crashes or doesn't start. I might just be a permissions thing.
Answer: The /etc folder contains system global configuration files and settings.
Answer: The settings that you can edit for the XWindows are kept in subfolder of the global setting directory /etc. In /etc/X11 is where they are kept. If you are using Version 4, which most people are, the most important file for you is XF86Config-4. If you are using an older version (3), then it is XF86Config. If your keyboard doesn't work or your mouse they are also setup in this file.
Answer: Really there is no difference. If you log in as Root at Login, you have the same privilages (everything) as if you Login as a User and change to SuperUser. SuperUser is a User with Root privilages. Many programs require SuperUser status to use them. For example Mandrake Control Center, User Manager, edit files anywhere else but in your home folder. If you are in a terminal and want to change to SuperUser to do something, you would type in su, then your password when prompted to. I usually just use su all by itself and have no problems. Technically you are not root though, there may be some instances where it doesn't work right. If you notice when you su you are still in your home directory. If you su - root though you will be in the root directory and fully root. Apparently the enviroment is set more correctly when you "su - root". Read the manpages for su for more information and uses.
Answer: There are many answers to this, but you probably should at least do these: 1) Use a program like User Manager and setup the permissions and groups for the Users on the system (do not put them in groups: root, nofiles, nobody), 2) Open a terminal and go to root (SuperUser) and type in: updatedb to update the database so you can locate files. 3) Add a few items that you might use a lot like Mozilla, Gedit and a couple others to the taskbar for easy access.
Answer: What happened is your XWindows didn't start and you are in a console. If you just installed and are on the first boot, you may not have said YES to having XWindows start at boot or your configuration didn't work. If you have been running Linux fine and it just happened then either you screwed something up or somehow you Init level changed. Many things can cause this. Try starting the X-Server over again with the command startx and see if it will give you a clue. You could type in the command dmesg | less to look through the boot messages and see if it will give you a clue. I had two mice connected once and removed the PS/2 mouse, then because this happened I had to remove that section from the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file or all I got was the console at boot.
Answer: The answer to that one is simple. The Gimp. I have created most of the graphics for this website with Gimp.
Answer: On most systems you will find the bulk of binary (executable) programs in /usr/bin (basically stands for user binaries). There are other executables that are for the system that you either have to have permission or in SuperUser mode to use in /sbin (basically stands for system binaries). Then there are are also executable ones in /bin (basically stands for binaries) that everyone can use.
Answer: This depends a lot on which distro you use. Mandrake has several: KPackage which comes with KDE, it is good for installing or removing one package at a time, have never gotten it to work with the internet. Software Manager (also called rpmdrake), this is the main package installation application. You can get programs for the internet and from local sources and install more than one package at at time, because it will solve dependancy problems and determines if it can get the other programs it needs to install the one you want. I would not use it to uninstall something though cause it does not give you the Option to not check dependancies and will uninstall a lot of software usually. There is also RPM, which you can use from a terminal to install packages. RedHat comes with RPM also and KPackage, not sure if they have something like Rpmdrake. I think they have something called AutoRPM, but have never used it. They also have Glint. Both Mandrake and RedHat also have GnoRPM, which I have never liked.
Debian and its variants use APT which is very handy and probably one of the better installers. I think there are a few GUI's you can use, but have only used it in a terminal.
Answer: The Source Kernel files are kept in /usr/src/linux. You may or may not have this if you did not install the sources when you installed the system. The Compiled Kernel files (modules and such) are kept in the /lib/modules/kernel_version_name. This is where your working Kernel is located. Even if you have more than one kernel installed, it will be there, just in a different folder.
Answer: Since it is a global setting you are trying to add where do you think they are kept? They are in the /etc folder in a file called modules.conf You still might find information on the internet calling it conf.modules, but that is old. So, if you want to add a new module to the Kernel when the system boots (and you have it compiled as a module and not compiled in the kernel) then you can add it here.
Answer: One of the ways to check if something is a module or compiled into the Kernel is the open the file /boot/config-version , where version is the version numbers of your Kernel. If might be a little hard to read if you don't know how, but if it is a module it will have a m and if compiled into the kernel then a y. If you want a little more information and you are running KDE as your Window Manager, then you can click on the taskbar on the Control Center (looks like a monitor with a electronic card in front) and go to System/ Linux Kernel Configurator and look thru that.
Answer: When you try to open a drive (harddrive, floppy, cdrom) you have to mount it in Linux. If your system is configured to not mount a drive at bootup it will say so in the /etc/fstab file, with the option noauto. Otherwise it will try to mount it. Let us say that your cdrom is not set to auto mount at boot and you want to put a CD in an read it. You can open a terminal and type: mount /mnt/cdrom, then you can view the contents. To exit and put another CD in and do the same you would have to umount /mnt/cdrom to be able to remove the CD and put another in. Then you would mount the new CD. I know this seems like a lot of work, there are ways to automatically mount/unmount a drive when you insert and remove media.
Answer: If you want to burn CD's in Linux there are several programs: GCombust, Eroaster, Gnome Toaster, X-CD-Roast just to name a few of the main ones.
Answer: You can look on the Desktop and open your Home folder. Then click on Tools at top and Open Terminal. In the terminal type in: kicker.
Answer: The Defacto Standard for using Scanners in Linux is XSane. There are other programs that you can use with your scanner. For example, you can aquire a Image from the Scanner with Gimp, or with Kooka and several others. Still they all rely on XSane. So if you don't have XSane installed and configured than they will not work either. Well, Gimp will work, but it won't aquire an image.
Answer: There are several ways. One is to put your BootDisk that you made in and get back into the system. Then rerun lilo -v as root. Look for any errors, if there are some, than correct the problem and rerun lilo. The file you must edit if you have to is /etc/lilo.conf . That is the configuration file that Lilo runs to make the bootloader.
Another way if you are running Mandrake is to put the CD1 in and hit F1 when it first comes up. Then at the prompt type in rescue. Then from the menu selection that comes up, pick the Re-install Bootloader.
Answer: Generally you type the command in, followed with a space and then type --help. You can also type man command, where command is the command you want info on. That will bring up the Manual Page for the command and tell you more (usually) than the help does.
