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Introduction to Linux

This Reference Manual applies to: All
This Reference Manual is intended for: Beginner

A Hands on Guide, 1.27 Edition, Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Machtelt Garrels

All content on one page (useful for printing, presentation mode etc.)

  1. What is Linux?
    1. History
      1. UNIX
      2. Linus and Linux
      3. Current application of Linux systems
    2. The user interface
      1. Is Linux difficult?
      2. Linux for non-experienced users
    3. Does Linux have a future?
      1. Open Source
      2. Ten years of experience at your service
    4. Properties of Linux
      1. Linux Pros
      2. Linux Cons
    5. Linux Flavors
      1. Linux and GNU
      2. GNU/Linux
      3. Which distribution should I install?
    6. Summary
    7. Exercises
  2. Quickstart
    1. Logging in, activating the user interface and logging out
      1. Introduction
      2. Graphical mode
      3. Text mode
    2. Absolute basics
      1. The commands
      2. General remarks
      3. Using Bash features
    3. Getting help
      1. Be warned
      2. The man pages
      3. More info
        1. The Info pages
        2. The whatis and apropos commands
        3. The --help option
        4. Graphical help
        5. Exceptions
    4. Summary
    5. Exercises
      1. Connecting and disconnecting
      2. Passwords
      3. Directories
      4. Files
      5. Getting help
  3. About files and the file system
    1. General overview of the Linux file system
      1. Files
        1. General
        2. Sorts of files
      2. About partitioning
        1. Why partition?
        2. Partition layout and types
        3. Mount points
      3. More file system layout
        1. Visual
        2. The file system in reality
  4. Processes
    1. Processes inside out
      1. Multi-user and multi-tasking
      2. Process types
        1. Interactive processes
        2. Automatic processes
        3. Daemons
      3. Process attributes
      4. Displaying process information
      5. Life and death of a process
        1. Process creation
        2. Ending processes
        3. Signals
      6. SUID and SGID
    2. Boot process, Init and shutdown
      1. Introduction
      2. The boot process
      3. GRUB features
      4. Init
      5. Init and Tools
        1. Init run levels
        2. Tools
      6. Shutdown
    3. Managing processes
      1. Work for the system admin
      2. How long does it take?
      3. Performance
      4. Load
      5. Can I do anything as a user?
        1. Priority
        2. CPU resources
        3. Memory resources
        4. I/O resources
        5. Users
        6. Graphical tools
        7. Interrupting your processes
    4. Scheduling processes
      1. Use that idle time!
      2. The sleep command
      3. The at command
      4. Cron and crontab
    5. Summary
    6. Exercises
      1. General
      2. Booting, init etc.
      3. Scheduling
  5. I/O redirection
    1. Simple redirections
      1. What are standard input and standard output?
      2. The redirection operators
        1. Output redirection with > and |
        2. Input redirection
        3. Combining redirections
        4. The >> operator
    2. Advanced redirection features
      1. Use of file descriptors
      2. Examples
        1. Analyzing errors
        2. Separating standard output from standard error
        3. Writing to output and files simultaneously
    3. Filters
      1. More about grep
      2. Filtering output
    4. Summary
    5. Exercises
  6. Text editors
    1. Text editors
      1. Why should I use an editor?
      2. Which editor should I use?
        1. GNU Emacs
        2. Vi(m)
    2. Using the Vim editor
      1. Two modes
      2. Basic commands
        1. Moving through the text
        2. Basic operations
        3. Commands that switch the editor to insert mode
      3. The easy way
    3. Linux in the office
      1. History
      2. Suites and programs
      3. Remarks
        1. General use of office documents
        2. System and user configuration files
        3. But I want a graphical text editor!
    4. Summary
    5. Exercises
  7. Home sweet /home
    1. General good housekeeping
      1. Introduction
      2. Make space
        1. Emptying files
        2. More about log files
        3. Mail
        4. Save space with a link
        5. Limit file sizes
        6. Compressed files
    2. Your text environment
      1. Environment variables
        1. General remarks
        2. Exporting variables
        3. Reserved variables
      2. Shell setup files
      3. A typical set of setup files
        1. /etc/profile example
        2. The profile.d directory
        3. .bash_profile example
        4. .bash_login example
        5. /etc/bashrc exampl
        6. .bash_logout example
      4. The Bash prompt
        1. Introduction
        2. Some examples
      5. Shell scripts
        1. What are scripts?
        2. Some simple examples
    3. The graphical environment
      1. Introduction
      2. The X Window System
        1. The X Window System
        2. Display names
        3. Window and desktop managers
      3. X server configuration
    4. Region specific settings
      1. Keyboard setup
      2. Fonts
      3. Date and time zone
      4. Language
      5. Country-specific Information
    5. Installing new software
      1. General
      2. Package formats
        1. RPM packages
          1. What is RPM?
          2. RPM examples
        2. DEB (.deb) packages
          1. What are Debian packages?
          2. Examples with DEB tools
        3. Source packages
      3. Automating package management and updates
        1. General remarks
        2. APT
        3. Systems using RPM packages
      4. Upgrading your kernel
      5. Installing extra packages from the installation CDs
        1. Mounting a CD
        2. Using the CD
        3. Ejecting the CD
    6. Summary
    7. Exercises
      1. Shell environment
      2. Graphical environment
  8. Printers and printing
    1. Printing files
      1. Command line printing
        1. Getting the file to the printer
        2. Status of your print jobs
        3. Status of your printer
        4. Removing jobs from the print queue
      2. Formatting
        1. Tools and languages
        2. Previewing formatted files
    2. The server side
      1. General
      2. Graphical printer configuration
      3. Buying a printer for Linux
    3. Print problems
      1. Wrong file
      2. My print hasn't come out
    4. Summary
    5. Exercises
  9. Fundamental Backup Techniques
    1. Introduction
      1. Preparing your data
        1. Archiving with tar
        2. Incremental backups with tar
        3. Compressing and unpacking with gzip or bzip2
        4. Java archives
        5. Transporting your data
    2. Moving your data to a backup device
      1. Making a copy on a floppy disk
        1. Formatting the floppy
        2. Using the dd command to dump data
      2. Making a copy with a CD-writer
      3. Backups on/from jazz drives, USB devices and other removables
      4. Backing up data using a tape device
      5. Tools from your distribution
    3. Using rsync
      1. Introduction
      2. An example: rsync to a USB storage device
    4. Encryption
      1. General remark
        1. Why should you encrypt data?
        2. GNU Privacy Guard
      2. Generate a key
      3. About your key
      4. Encrypt data
      5. Decrypting files
    5. Summary
    6. Exercises
  10. Networking
    1. Networking Overview
      1. The OSI Model
      2. Some popular networking protocols
        1. TCP/IP
        2. TCP/IPv6
        3. PPP, SLIP, PLIP, PPPOE
        4. ISDN
        5. AppleTalk
        6. SMB/NMB
        7. Miscellaneous protocols
    2. Network configuration and information
      1. Configuration of network interfaces
      2. Network configuration files
        1. /etc/hosts
        2. /etc/resolv.conf
        3. /etc/nsswitch.conf
      3. Network configuration commands
        1. The ip command
        2. The ifconfig command
        3. PCMCIA commands
        4. More information
      4. Network interface names
      5. Checking the host configuration with netstat
      6. Other hosts
        1. The host command
        2. The ping command
        3. The traceroute command
        4. The whois command
    3. Internet/Intranet applications
      1. Server types
        1. Standalone server
        2. (x)inetd
      2. Mail
        1. Servers
        2. Remote mail servers
        3. Mail user-agents
      3. Web
        1. The Apache Web Server
        2. Web browsers
        3. Proxy servers
          1. What is a proxy server?
          2. Proxy configuration
      4. File Transfer Protocol
        1. FTP servers
        2. FTP clients
      5. Chatting and conferencing
      6. News services
      7. The Domain Name System
      8. DHCP
      9. Authentication services
        1. Traditional
        2. PAM
        3. LDAP
    4. Remote execution of applications
      1. Introduction
      2. Rsh, rlogin and telnet
      3. The X Window System
        1. X features
        2. Telnet and X
      4. The SSH suite
        1. Introduction
        2. X11 and TCP forwarding
        3. Server authentication
        4. Secure remote copying
        5. Authentication keys
      5. VNC
      6. The rdesktop protocol
      7. Cygwin
    5. Security
      1. Introduction
      2. Services
      3. Update regularly
      4. Firewalls and access policies
        1. What is a firewall?
        2. Packet filters
        3. TCP wrappers
        4. Proxies
        5. Access to individual applications
        6. Log files
      5. Intrusion detection
      6. More tips
      7. Have I been hacked?
      8. Recovering from intrusion
    6. Summary