linux question

[hjack]

I finally got Red Hat/XP dual boot going and am now using linux!!! woohoo!! BUt I have a question (actually quite a few). How do I connect to irc? OKay heres a few more. How do I setup a firewall. How do I access the other computers on my home nework? We have cable and 2 computers behind a router. Also how do I get my ip addy? I'm sure I'll think of more in the nest few hours.

hjack


One more thing.......How do I install anything in Linux?!?!

[Nadir]

Check out http://www.linux.org for general help, or the redhat website.
Sorry i cant really help you with the other stuff, but for IRC id reccomend getting either BitchX or Xchat. Both are good clients (if your a mIRC user id reccomend xchat, going from a GUI to a text based client is hard++).

[Shrekkie]

Well If you have shares on win-boxes, use samba and LinNeihgborhood, works just nice.
To install you can use the function 'add packages'. Normally all linux-iso's come with great amount of different packages.
Also every linux I know let's you install most to choose packages with the installation.

I'm on suse 8.1, and he requires to install packages afterwards, it's just what you want and how you prefer it....

Here are some very useful links :

First of all , the best linux tuts and books ever from O'reilly : http://linux.oreilly.com/
Ask here every linux question : http://www.linuxquestions.org/
distro's here : http://www.linuxiso.org/
driver problems - go here : http://www.driverguide.com/

And last but not least: do always try http://www.google.com/linux first

Greetz,

[MrLinus]

Some other suggestions: look through the tutorials here as there are a few on the various commands you can use.

To find out your IP address type ifconfig -a which should show all the ips on your machine at present.

You can install packages or applications two ways: by source or pre-packaged.

By source generally means you untar/unzip the package using tar xzvf <filename.tgz> or <filename.tar.gz>. Then you go into the directory, take a look at the README or INSTALL file and generally do a ./configure && make && make install.

The other way, prepackaged, will usually involve RPM files (RPM = RedHat Package Manager). They are identified by the extension .rpm at the end. You can install packages by typing rpm -ivh <package name.rpm>. One location to get up-to-date RPMs is RPM Find.

To find out how commands work use man <commandname. e.g. man ls will tell you about the ls command. You can also search for commands by using man -k <pattern to search> e.g. man -k ipconfig which will list all the commands that have the word ipconfig in them.

For a firewall, you'd probably want to setup IPTables. Go to google.com and type "iptables + tutorials". It should bring up a lot. (Might have a tut in the next newsletter).

http://www.justlinux.com/ <-- newbie forum

http://www.tldp.org/ <-- Linux Documentation Project. By far the biggest and best collection of HOWTOs on EVERYTHING.

Hope this helps.

<edit>

D'oh. I always think of something after I post. You might not know how to get to a command window. If you look on the panel on the bottom you should see something that looks like a monitor/terminal. Click on that. Or, right click on the desktop and choose New Terminal (I use Gnome but I think KDE has the same features)

</edit>

[hjack]

I tried the ipconfig -a and got this....

[hjack@localhost hjack]$ ipconfig -a
bash: ipconfig: command not found

Also, I seem to be using the desktop enviroment Blue Curve? How do I get to kde or gnome?


hjack

[MrLinus]

What version of RH are you using? And I evidentally wasn't awake. The command should have been ifconfig -a.

D'oh. If you ever want to find a command you can type whereis <commandname>. That should give you the absolute/full path to the command. So if you can't find ifconfig (because you are logged in as a regular user say) try /sbin/ifconfig -a

Sorry about the gaff.

[hjack]

the ifconfig -a by itself didn't work but the other one did. Took me a second to understand everything. Thank you for your help MsMittens.

hjack

[bballad]

I would recomend finding out if there is a LUG in your area...try the local comunity college, you will find a lot of people very knoladgeable about Linux there, most of whom will be willing to help you. I ahve allways found that personal help is a lot better then messge board questions...it helps toavoid gaffs like MsMitten's

[linuxad]

I think it's great that you are trying to hop in the Linux world, it can be frustrating at first, but once it get the basics the rest is easy. Since you are new to Linux, the best thing to do is to go to the book store and buy a book on Linux. I started with Red Hat Linux 5.1 by Que 5.1(yeah I 've been using it for awhile). The book will answer all of your questions. To get the true enjoyment it is aslo important that you get a grasp of the shell. This is where I do most of the work.

Good Luch, Hang in There;

Linuxad