Hey I'm Learner..
A crash coarse in Linux for ya buddy.
Linux keeps files in a single hierarchical directory structure, that (behind the scenes) is made up of a combination of hard drives, CD-ROMs, floppy disks, ZIP drives, etc.
The typical Linux filesystem looks like this:
/
|- bin >>>===========>Essential programs (or binaries)
|- boot >>>===========>startup (or boot) information
|- dev >>>===========> Devices
|- etc >>>==========>Configuration files
|- home >>>==========>Users' home directories
| |- user1
| |- user2
| |- user3
|
|- lib >>>==========>System libraries and other various program files
|- lost+found >>>======> Files recovered after filesystem checks
|- mnt >>>==========> Mount point for removable disks
| |- cdrom >>>==========> (An alternative is /cdrom and /floppy)
| |- floppy
|
|- proc >>>=============>A special directory with file-based system information
|- root >>>=============>Home directory for the root user
|- sbin >>>============> Essential system programs
|- tmp >>>===========>Temporary work space
|- usr
| |- X11R6 >>>========> X-Windows files
| | |- bin >>>===========> X-Windows programs
| | |- include
| | |- lib
| | |- man
| | |- share
| |
| |- bin >>>============> General programs
| |- dict >>>============> Dictionary
| |- doc >>>============> Documentation
| |
| |- etc >>>============> Additional configuration files
| |- include >>>==========> Include files for the C preprocessor
| |- info >>>===========> GNU info files
| |- lib >>>===========>Additional libraries
| |- local >>>===========>Files generally not supplied by the distribution
| | |- bin
| | |- doc
| | |- etc
| | |- include
| | |- lib
| | |- man
| | |- sbin
| | |- share
| |
| |- man >>>============>Man (ie. user manual) pages
| |- share >>>=============>Files that can be shared between computers of different architectures
| |- sbin >>>=============>Additional system programs
| |- src >>>===========>Source code directories (eg. /usr/src/linux/)
|
|- var
|- lock >>>===========>Lock files
|- log >>>===========> Log files (system messages, error logs, etc.)
|- spool >>>==========> Spool files
|- mail >>>==========> Users' mailbox files
Here is a list of some basic Commands.
ls
List the contents of the current directory. kinda like "dir" in MS DOS.
ls name
List the contents of the named directory (eg. ls /etc)
ls -l
List the directory contents in "long" format, including file permissions, ownership details and file size
ls -a
List all the files in a directory, including files that start with a '.'
cat filename
Display the contents of a file to the screen
more filename
Display a file on the screen, with scrolling and search facilities. less is an enhanced version of more
cp source destination
Copy the source file to the destination (eg. cp /etc/passwd . copies the password file to the current directory)
mv source destination
Move (or rename) the source file to the destination, which can be a directory or another file
rm filename
Remove (ie. delete) a file - use with caution!
mkdir name
Make a directory
rmdir name
Remove an empty directory
locate keyword
Displays a list of files that contain the keyword in their filename.
su
Temporarily become the superuser - useful for system administration tasks (can also be used to become another user - see the man page for further information)
passwd
Change the password used to access your user account
who
Display a list of users currently logged onto this computer
Getting help about commands
Linux has two on-line documentation systems: man and info. There is a man page for every command on the system, while info is normally used to document applications from the Free Software Foundation, such as EMACS (a text editor) and gcc (a C compiler for programming).
man command
Display a manual page for the specified command. The "man" page provides a brief explanation about the command, possible options and switches and detailed information about using the command
apropos keyword
Displays a list of man pages that contain information about the supplied keyword
Shutting down a Linux computer(If you in the tex mode that is)
A Linux computer needs to be turned off correctly, to ensure that files are correctly written to the hard drive, and that programs are closed properly.
Reboot the computer
/sbin/shutdown -r now
Shutdown (halt) the computer
/sbin/shutdown -h now
Reboot the computer
Press Control-Alt-Delete
When the shutdown command starts, it will display information as each step of the shutdown sequence is completed, until the computer finally displays:
The system is halted
in which case you can turn off the computer, or
Please stand by while rebooting the system...
for a computer that is being rebooted
Meet bash
Good news: with Linux you type much less at the prompt, because the bash shell types for you whenever possible, and features cool line editing capabilities. To begin with, the arrow-up key recalls previous command lines; but there's more. Pressing <TAB> completes file and directory names, so typing
$ ls /uTABloTABbTAB
is like typing
$ ls /usr/local/bin
If there were ambiguities, as typing
$ ls /uTABloTABiTAB
bash stops because it doesn't know if you mean /usr/local/info or /usr/local/include. Supply more characters then press <TAB> again.
Other useful key presses are <ESC-BACKSPACE> that deletes a word to the left, while <ESC-D> deletes a word to the right; <ESC-F> moves the cursor one word to the right, <ESC-B> to the left; <CTRL-A> moves to the beginning of the line, <CTRL-E> to the end. The <ALT> key is equivalent to <ESC>.
Enough for now. Once you get used to these shortcuts, you'll find the DOS prompt very annoying..
If you read all that.... You should know, That is the start.