User manual MANDRAKESOFT MANDRAKELINUX 10.1

Discovering Mandrakelinux Mandrakelinux 10.1 http://www.mandrakesoft.com Discovering Mandrakelinux: Mandrakelinux 10.1 Published September 2004 Copyright © 2004 Mandrakesoft SA by Camille Bégnis, Christian Roy, Fabian Mandelbaum, Roberto Rosselli del Turco, Marco De Vitis, Alice Lafox, John Rye, Wolfgang Bornath, Funda Wang, Patricia Pichardo Bégnis, Debora Rejnharc Mandelbaum, Mickael Scherer, Jean-Michel Dault, Lunas Moon, Céline Harrand, Fred Lepied, Pascal Rigaux, Thierry Vignaud, Giuseppe Ghibò, Stew Benedict, Francine Suzon, Indrek Madedog Triipus, Nicolas Berdugo, Thorsten Kamp, Fabrice Facorat, Xiao Ming, and Snature Legal Notice This manual is protected under Mandrakesoft intellectual property rights. By reproducing, duplicating or distributing this manual in whole or in part, you explicitly agree to conform to the terms and conditions of this license agreement. This manual may be freely reproduced, duplicated and distributed either as such or as part of a bundled package in electronic and/or printed format, provided however that the following conditions are fulfilled: · That this copyright notice appears clearly and distinctively on all reproduced, duplicated and distributed copies. That the "front cover texts" below, About Mandrakelinux, page 1, and the section stating the names of authors and contributors are attached to the reproduced, duplicated or distributed version and remain unchanged. That this manual, specifically for the printed format, is reproduced and/or distributed for noncommercial use only. · · The express authorization of Mandrakesoft SA must be obtained prior to any other use of any manual or part thereof. "Mandrake", "Mandrakesoft", "DrakX" and "Linux-Mandrake" are registered Trademarks in the US and/or other countries. The related "Star logo" is also registered. All rights reserved. All other copyrights embodied in this document remain the property of their respective owners. Front-cover texts Mandrakesoft October 2004 http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ Copyright © 1999-2004 by Mandrakesoft S.A. and Mandrakesoft Inc. Tools Used in The Making of This Manual This manual was written in XML DocBook. The set of files involved were managed using Borges (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/doc/project/Borges/). The XML source files were processed by xsltproc, openjade and jadetex using a customized version of Norman Walsh's stylesheets. Screen shots were taken using xwd or GIMP and converted with convert (from the ImageMagick package). All these programs are free software and are available in your Mandrakelinux distribution. Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. About Mandrakelinux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1. Contacting the Mandrakelinux Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2. Join the Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.3. Subscribe to Mandrakeonline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.4. Purchasing Mandrakesoft Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.5. Contribute to Mandrakelinux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. About this Quick-Startup Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 I. Installing Mandrakelinux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1. Installation Warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. Before Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.1. Configuring your BIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2. Creating a Floppy Boot Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3. Supported Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3. Installation with DrakX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.1. The Mandrakelinux Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.2. Choosing your Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.3. License Terms of the Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.4. Installation Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.5. Configuring the Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3.6. Partitioning Your Disk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3.7. Multiple CD-ROM Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.8. Root Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.9. Adding a User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3.10. Installing a Bootloader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.11. Checking Miscellaneous Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.12. Installing Updates from the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3.13. It's Over! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.14. How to Uninstall Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 II. Discover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4. Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4.1. Where's my...? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 4.2. A Brave New World! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 5. Linux for Beginners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 5.2. The Boot-Loader Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 5.3. Getting Ready for your Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 5.4. Beginning your Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 v 5.5. Using your Graphical Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 5.6. Logging Out of your Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 6. Where to Get Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 6.1. Mandrakelinux-Specific Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 6.2. GNU/Linux Useful Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 III. Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 7. Using KDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 7.1. Discovering the K Desktop Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 7.2. Personalizing your Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 7.3. KDE Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 8. Konqueror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 8.1. Managing your Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 8.2. Browsing the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 9. Writing E-mails with KMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 9.1. Configuring KMail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 9.2. KMail's Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 9.3. Composing a Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 10. Office Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 10.1. Word Processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 10.2. Spreadsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 vi List of Tables 8-1. Konqueror Sidebar Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 8-2. Konqueror's Web Browser Tool Bar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 9-1. KMail's Toolbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 9-2. Message-Compose Toolbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 10-1. Suggested Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 List of Figures 2-1. The Rawwrite Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3-1. Very First Installation Welcome Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3-2. Available Installation Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3-3. Choosing the Default Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5-1. The Mandrakefirsttime Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 5-2. The Login Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 5-3. The KDE Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 5-4. KDE File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 5-5. KDE's Virtual Desktop Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 7-1. The KDE Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 7-2. The KDE Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 7-3. Changing KDE's Color Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 7-4. Changing KDE's Background Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 7-5. Available Screen Resolutions List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 7-6. Accept New Resolution Settings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 8-1. Konqueror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 8-2. Konqueror as a Web Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 8-3. Konqueror's Bookmarks Manager Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 8-4. Konqueror's Browser Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 8-5. Plugins Settings under Konqueror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 9-1. Setting General User Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 9-2. Setting the Outgoing Mail Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 9-3. Configuring a POP3 Mail Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 9-4. Mail Client Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 9-5. The Message-Compose Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 10-1. OpenOffice.org Writer's Main Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 10-2. Rows, Columns and Cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 10-3. Simplifying Data Entry Using Auto-Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 10-4. Using a Function in a Formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 10-5. Choosing the Chart Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 10-6. A 3D Chart Inside the Spreadsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 vii viii Preface 1. About Mandrakelinux Mandrakelinux is a GNU/Linux distribution supported by Mandrakesoft S.A. which was born on the Internet in 1998. Its main goal was and still is to provide an easy-to-use and friendly GNU/Linux system. Mandrakesoft's two pillars are open source and collaborative work. 1.1. Contacting the Mandrakelinux Community The following are various Internet links pointing you to various Mandrakelinuxrelated sources. If you wish to know more about the Mandrakesoft company, connect to our web site (http://www.mandrakesoft.com/). You can also check out the Mandrakelinux distribution web site (http://www.mandrakelinux. com/) and all its derivatives. Mandrakeexpert (http://www.mandrakeexpert.com/) is Mandrakesoft's support platform. It offers a new experience based on trust and the pleasure of rewarding others for their contributions. We also invite you to subscribe to the various mailing lists (http://www. mandrakelinux.com/en/flists.php3), where the Mandrakelinux community demonstrates its vivacity and keenness. Please also remember to connect to Mandrakesecure (http://www.mandrakesoft. com/security). It gathers all security-related material about Mandrakelinux distributions. You will find security and bug advisories, as well as security and privacy-related articles. A must for any server administrator or user concerned about security. 1.2. Join the Club Mandrakesoft offers a wide range of advantages through its Mandrakeclub (http://www.mandrakeclub.com): · download commercial software normally only available in retail packs, such as special hardware drivers, commercial applications, freeware, and demo versions; 1 Preface · vote for and propose new software through a volunteer-run RPM voting system; access more than 50,000 RPM packages for all Mandrakelinux distributions; obtain discounts for products and services on Mandrakestore (http:// store.mandrakesoft.com); access a better mirror list, exclusive to Club members; read multilingual forums and articles. · · · · By financing Mandrakesoft through the Mandrakeclub you will directly enhance the Mandrakelinux distribution and help us provide the best possible GNU/Linux desktop to our users. 1.3. Subscribe to Mandrakeonline Mandrakesoft offers a very convenient way to keep your system up to date automatically, keeping away bugs and security holes. Visit the Mandrakeonline Web site (https://www.mandrakeonline.net/) to learn more about this service. 1.4. Purchasing Mandrakesoft Products Mandrakelinux users may purchase products on-line through the Mandrakestore (http://store.mandrakesoft.com/). You will not only find Mandrakelinux software, operating systems and "live" boot CDs (such as Move), but also special subscription offers, support, third-party software and licenses, documentation, GNU/Linux-related books, as well as other Mandrakesoft goodies. 1.5. Contribute to Mandrakelinux The skills of the many talented folks who use Mandrakelinux can be very useful in the making of the Mandrakelinux system: · Packaging. A GNU/Linux system is mainly made of programs picked up on the Internet. They have to be packaged in order to work together. Programming. There are many, many projects directly supported by Mandrakesoft: find the one which most appeals to you and offer your help to the main developer(s). · 2 Preface · Internationalization. You can help us in the translation of web pages, programs and their respective documentation. Documentation. Last but not least, the manual you are currently reading requires a lot of work to stay up-to-date with regard to the rapid evolution of the system. · Consult the development projects (http://www.mandrakesoft.com/labs/) page to learn more about how you can contribute to the evolution of Mandrakelinux. 2. About this Quick-Startup Guide Welcome, and thank you for choosing Mandrakelinux! This Quick-Startup Guide will help you understand the installation basics of a GNU/Linux distribution, give you pointers as to what you need to do before actually installing the Mandrakelinux operating system (OS), as well as initiate you to the GNU/Linux environment. We will first tell you about technical procedures you should follow ("Installation Warning", page 5). This is not mandatory, but let us just say we highly recommend that you follow these instructions! We will talk about data backup, scandisk, defrag, and the like. We cover topics such as BIOS configuration, boot disks and supported hardware in "Before Installation", page 7. Then comes the chapter you have been waiting for: "Installation with DrakX", page 13. This utility is designed to guide you during the installation process. After that we discuss the Linux paradigm by comparing it to Windows® and Mac OS® in "Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X ", page 37. The next chapter ("Linux for Beginners", page 43) was written especially to help out new users. In it we describe the first steps a new user must master and we explain concepts such as "logging in/out", the boot-loader menu, and more. We then guide you through a fairly exhaustive list of documentation sources which you can consult in order to attain a better Linux knowledge ("Where to Get Documentation", page 53). A Mandrakelinux-specific section points to numerous in-house resources which you can find on the Net. 3 Preface In the last chapter (Browsing the Web, page 69) we explain how to browse the Internet with the Konqueror application. The last part (Use) gives you a short description of the following daily applications: · · the KDE graphical environment in "Using KDE", page 57; the Konqueror file manager and web browser (see Managing your Files, page 65, and Browsing the Web, page 69); the KMail mail client ("Writing E-mails with KMail", page 77); as well as two of OpenOffice.org's components (see Word Processor, page 85, and Spreadsheet, page 89). · · Enjoy your reading! 4 Chapter 1. Installation Warning This installation guide only covers the most common steps of the installation process. If you plan on using Windows® as well as GNU/Linux by dualboot (meaning being able to access either OS on the same computer), please note that it is easier to install Windows® before GNU/Linux. If Windows® is already set up on your system, and you've never installed GNU/Linux before, DrakX ­­ Mandrakelinux's installation program ­­ will have to resize your Windows® partition. This operation can be harmful to your data. Therefore, you must perform the following steps before proceeding: · you must run scandisk on your Windows® computer. The resizing program can detect some obvious errors, but scandisk is better suited for this task; Before using scandisk (or defrag) make sure your screen saver and any other program that might write to the hard disk is turned off. To obtain even better results, you should run scandisk or defrag from Windows®'s "Safe Mode" . · For maximum data security, you should also run defrag on your partition. This further reduces the risk of data loss. This isn't mandatory, but it's highly recommended. Doing so will make the resizing process much faster and easier. The ultimate insurance against problems is to always back up your data! Of course, you should back up your data on another computer, upload your back-ups on the web, on a friend's computer, etc. Do not back it up onto the computer on which you want to install GNU/Linux. · If neither scandisk nor defrag are installed within Windows®, please refer to the Windows® documentation for instructions on installing them. 5 Chapter 1. Installation Warning NTFS Partitions. Windows® 2000, NT and XP users should remain careful: even though DiskDrake (through the ntfsresize application) is able to resize NTFS partitions, it's highly recommended that you back up your data before starting the installation. Please see the Linux-NTFS site (http:// linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html##2.6) as well as the NTFS Resize FAQ (http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ ezaz/ntfsresize.html) for more information on the subject. Windows® users can also use Partition MagicTM (http://www. symantec.com/partitionmagic/) to resize their NTFS partitions under Windows®. 6 Chapter 2. Before Installation This chapter covers issues which should be addressed before you start your new Mandrakelinux installation. Make sure you read it completely since it will save you a lot of time. Also back up your data (on a different disk to the one you will install the system into) and plug in and turn on all your external devices (keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, etc.). 2.1. Configuring your BIOS The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is used to find the device on which the operating system is located and starts it up. It's also used for the initial hardware configuration and hardware low-level access. The appearance of plug'n'play devices and their widespread use means that all modern BIOSes can initialize these devices. In order for Linux to recognize plug'n'play devices, your BIOS must be configured to initialize them. Changing your BIOS' settings is usually performed by holding down the Del key (some BIOSes use the F1, F2, F10 or Esc keys instead) right after the computer is switched on. Unfortunately, there are many types of BIOSes. Therefore you will have to look for the appropriate option yourself. It's often called PNP OS installed (or Plug'n'Play OS installed). Set this option to No and the BIOS will then initialize any plug'n'play devices, which helps Linux to recognize them. All recent systems can boot from a CD-ROM. Look for Boot sequence or First boot device in the BIOS' features setup, and set the CD-ROM as the first one. If your system can't boot from a CD-ROM you will need to use a floppy boot disk. If you want to use a parallel printer connected locally to your machine, make sure the parallel port mode is set to ECP+EPP (or at least to one of ECP or EPP) and not to SPP, unless you have a really old printer. If the parallel port is not set this way you might still be able to print, but your printer will not be detected automatically and you will have to configure it by hand. Also make sure the printer is properly connected to your machine and powered on beforehand. 7 Chapter 2. Before Installation 2.2. Creating a Floppy Boot Disk If your system cannot boot from the CD-ROM you will need to create a floppy boot disk. The CD-ROM contains all of the image files and utility programs needed to do so. The floppy boot disk images are in the CD-ROM's install/images/ directory. The following is a list of different images and their respective installation methods: cdrom.img To install from a local IDE or SCSI CD-ROM drive. network.img and network_drivers.img To install from an NFS, FTP, HTTP repository on your local LAN or via a PPPoE (DSL line) network connection. The network configuration of the machine on which you wish to install may be manual or automatic. Please make sure that you make both floppies. pcmcia.img Use this image if the installation medium is reached through a PCMCIA card (network, CD-ROM, etc.). Some PCMCIA devices now use common network drivers. If the PCMCIA device does not work, try again with network.img and network_drivers.img. hd_grub.img Use this image if you want to perform the installation from a hard disk. You need to copy the contents of the CD onto the hard drive (either on a FAT, ext2FS, ext3FS or ReiserFS partition). At the hd_grub customization site (http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/hd_grub.cgi) there is a little tool which may prove helpful for customizing your boot floppy. The images/alternatives/* directory provides more or less the same boot images, but with a different (older) kernel. Actually it provides a 2.4 kernel (Mandrakelinux 10.1 onwards uses kernel 2.6) which might help you to get started on older systems. 8 Chapter 2. Before Installation 2.2.1. Creating a Boot Disk With Windows In order to do so, you need to use the rawwrite program. You will find it in the CD-ROM's dosutils/ directory. You may have noticed that there is a DOS version of the same program called rawrite. In fact, this is the original version of the program. rawwrite is a graphical front-end to it. Start the program, as shown in figure 2-1. Figure 2-1. The Rawwrite Program Select the boot image to be copied and the target device. In almost every case, the target device is the A: drive (that is, the first floppy disk drive). Then if you have not already done so, insert an empty disk into your chosen floppy drive and click on the Write button. When completed click on the Exit button: now you have a floppy boot disk to install your Mandrakelinux distribution. 9 Chapter 2. Before Installation 2.2.2. Creating a Floppy Boot Disk From GNU/Linux If you already have GNU/Linux installed (another version, or on another machine, etc.), then carry out the following steps: 1. Mount the CD-ROM, if needed. Let us suppose that the mount point is /mnt/cdrom. 2. Log in as root (to do so, open a terminal window, run the su command and enter root's password). 3. Insert an empty diskette into the floppy drive and type: $ dd if=/mnt/cdrom/images/cdrom.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 When this operation is completed, your floppy boot disk will be ready for use. Replace /dev/fd0 with /dev/fd1 if you are using the second floppy drive and, of course, the name of the image with the one you want. 2.3. Supported Hardware Mandrakelinux can handle a large number of hardware devices, and the list is far too long to be quoted in its entirety. Nevertheless some of the steps we describe will help you to find out if your hardware is compatible. It will also guide you in configuring some problematic devices. You may also consult an up-to-date list of supported hardware on the Mandrakelinux Hardware Database (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ hardware.php3) web site. USB devices: support for USB 1.x and USB 2.0 is now extensive. Most peripherals are fully supported. You can obtain the list of supported hardware on the Linux-USB device overview (http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/) site. 10 Chapter 2. Before Installation Legal Disclaimer: The Mandrakelinux Hardware Database contains information about hardware devices which have been tested and/or have been reported to function properly with Mandrakelinux. Due to the wide variety of system configurations, Mandrakesoft cannot guarantee that a specific device will work properly on your system. 2.3.1. Notes About Winmodems winmodems are also called controller-less modems or software modems. Support for these peripherals is improving. Drivers do exist, but most of them are in binary form and available only for newer kernel versions. If you have a PCI modem, look at the output of cat /proc/pci run as the root user. This will tell you the I/O port and the IRQ of the device. Then use the setserial command (for our example, the I/O address is 0xb400, the IRQ is 10 and the modem will be the 4th serial device) as follows: setserial /dev/ttyS3 port 0xb400 irq 10 UART 16550A Then try to query your modem using minicom or kppp. If it does not work, you may have a software modem. If it does work, create the /etc/rc.d/rc. setserial file and place the appropriate setserial command line in it. If you happen to have a software modem in your machine, and you have a Mandrakeclub account, you might find an RPM package that supports your modem. You can also take a look at the linmodems (http://linmodems. org/) web site. 11 Chapter 2. Before Installation 12 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.1. The Mandrakelinux Installer With the Mandrakelinux DrakX installation program, it doesn't matter whether you're a newbie or a GNU/Linux guru. DrakX's job is to provide you with a smooth installation and an easy transition to Mandrakelinux's latest version. DrakX will work best if all of your hardware is connected to your computer and powered on during the installation. Printers, modems, scanners and joysticks are just a few examples of peripherals which DrakX can automatically detect and configure as Mandrakelinux is being installed. Figure 3-1. Very First Installation Welcome Screen 13 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX The first screen you see displays information and installation options (figure 3-1). Allowing the installation to continue will simply begin the installation in normal or "linux" mode. Next we'll go over some options and parameters which you can pass to the installation program if you run into problems. Pressing F1 will open a help screen (figure 3-2). Here are some useful options to choose from: Figure 3-2. Available Installation Options · vgalo: if you have tried a default installation and didn't see the graphical interface (figure 3-3) you can try to run the installation in low resolution mode. This happens with certain types of video cards. With Mandrakelinux we give you a number of options to work around problems related to older hardware. To try the installation in low resolution mode, type vgalo at the prompt. text: if your video card is very old and the graphical installation doesn't work at all, you can always choose to install in text mode. Since all video cards can display text, this is the "last resort" kind of installation. However don't worry: it's unlikely that you'll need this option. noauto: in some rare cases, your PC may appear to freeze or lock up during the hardware detection phase. If that happens, adding the word noauto as a parameter will tell the installation program to bypass hardware detection. With that option DrakX won't scan for hardware. Therefore you · · 14 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX will need to manually specify hardware parameters later in the installation process. The noauto parameter can be added to the previous modes, so depending on your hardware you may have to specify: boot: vgalo noauto to perform a low resolution graphical installation without DrakX performing a hardware scan. · kernel options: most machines don't require specific kernel options. Due to bugs in the design or in the BIOS, there have been a few cases of motherboards incorrectly reporting the amount of memory installed. If you need to manually specify the amount of DRAM (which stands for Dynamic Random Access Memory) installed in your PC, use the mem= xxxM parameter. For example, to start the installation in normal mode with a computer containing 256 MB of memory, your command line would look like this: boot: linux mem=256M Now let's move on to the actual installation process. When the installer starts, you will see a nice graphical interface (figure 3-3). On the left will be the various installation steps. The installation will occur in two phases: installation, then configuration. The list on the left displays all the steps. The current step is marked by a highlighted bullet. Each step may present various screens. Surfing between those screens is made possible through the Next and Previous buttons. Additionally an Advanced button may be available to show more advanced configuration options. Note that most of the latter should only be handled by expert users. But there's no harm in looking at them! The Help button will show explanations concerning the current installation step. 3.2. Choosing your Language The first step is to choose your preferred language. 15 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX Figure 3-3. Choosing the Default Language Your choice of preferred language will affect the installer, the documentation, and the system in general. First select the region you're located in, then the language you speak. Clicking on the Advanced button will allow you to select other languages to be installed on your workstation, thereby installing the language-specific files for system documentation and applications. For example, if Spanish users are to use your machine, select English as the default language in the tree view and Espa~ol in the Advanced section. n 16 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX About UTF-8 (unicode) support: Unicode is a character encoding intended to cover all existing languages. However full support for it in GNU/Linux is still under development. For that reason, Mandrakelinux's use of UTF-8 will depend on the user's choices: 1. If you choose a language with a strong legacy encoding (latin1 languages, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Tha¨ Greek, Turkish, and most iso-8859-2 languages), i, the legacy encoding will be used by default. 2. Other languages will use Unicode by default. 3. If two or more languages are to be installed, and those languages are not using the same encoding, then Unicode will be used for the whole system. 4. Finally, Unicode can also be forced for use throughout the system at a user's request by selecting the Use Unicode by default option independently of which languages have been chosen. Note that you're not limited to choosing a single additional language. You may choose several, or even install them all by selecting the All languages box. Selecting support for a language means translations, fonts, spell checkers, etc. will also be installed for that language. Make sure you select all languages that are likely to be useful on the machine now, it may be difficult to configure support for languages not chosen at install time at a later time. To switch between the various languages installed on your system, you can launch the localedrake command as root to change the language used by the entire system. Running the command as a regular user will only change the language settings for that particular user. 17 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.3. License Terms of the Distribution Before continuing, you should carefully read the terms of the license. It covers the entire Mandrakelinux distribution. If you agree with all the terms it contains, select Accept and click on Next. If not, clicking on Quit will reboot your computer. If you are curious about any technical changes which have occurred in the distribution since the last release, you can click on the Release Notes button to display them. 3.4. Installation Class This step is activated only if an existing GNU/Linux partition has been found on your machine. 18 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX DrakX now needs to know if you want to perform a new installation or to upgrade your existing Mandrakelinux system: · Install. For the most part, this completely wipes out the old system. However, depending on your partitioning scheme, you can prevent some of your existing data (particularly /home directories) from being overwritten. If you wish to change how your hard drives are partitioned, or to change the file system, you should use this option. Upgrade.This installation class allows you to update the packages currently installed on your Mandrakelinux system. Your current partitioning scheme and user data won't be altered. Most of the other configuration steps remain available and are similar to a standard installation. · Using the"Upgrade"option should work fine on Mandrakelinux systems running version 9.2 or later. Performing an upgrade on versions prior to Mandrakelinux version 9.2 is not recommended. 19 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.5. Configuring the Keyboard This step only shows if your language settings do not match one single keyboard. Otherwise, your keyboard map is automatically selected. Depending on the language you chose (Choosing your Language, page 15), DrakX will automatically select a particular type of keyboard configuration. Check that the selection suits you or choose another keyboard layout. Also, you may not have a keyboard which corresponds exactly to your language: for example, if you are an English-speaking Swiss native, you may have a Swiss keyboard. Or if you speak English and are located in Québec, you may find yourself in the same situation where your native language and country-set keyboard don't match. In either case, this installation step will allow you to select an appropriate keyboard from a list. Click on the More button to be shown a list of supported keyboards. If you choose a keyboard layout based on a non-Latin alphabet, the next dialog will allow you to choose the key binding which will switch the keyboard between the Latin and non-Latin layouts. 20 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.6. Partitioning Your Disk You now need to decide where you want to install Mandrakelinux on your hard drive. If your hard drive is empty or if an existing operating system is using all the available space you will have to re-partition the drive. Basically, partitioning a hard drive means to logically divide it up in order to create the space required for your new Mandrakelinux system. Because the process of partitioning a hard drive is usually irreversible and can lead to data loss, partitioning can be intimidating and stressful for the inexperienced user. Fortunately, DrakX includes a wizard which simplifies this process. Before continuing with this step, read through the rest of this section and above all, take your time. Depending on the configuration of your hard drive, several options are available: · Use free space. This option will perform an automatic partitioning of your blank drive(s). If you use this option there will be no further prompts. Use existing partition. The wizard has detected one or more existing Linux partitions on your hard drive. If you want to use them, choose this option. You will then be asked to choose the mount points associated with each of 21 · Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX the partitions. The legacy mount points are selected by default, and for the most part it's a good idea to keep them. You will also be asked to choose the partitions to be formatted or preserved. · Use the free space on the Windows partition. If Microsoft Windows® is installed on your hard drive, you might have to create free space for GNU/Linux. To do so, you can delete your Microsoft Windows® partition and data (see the "Erase entire disk" solution below) or resize your Microsoft Windows® FAT or NTFS partition. Resizing can be performed without the loss of any data, provided you've previously defragmented the Windows® partition. Backing up your data is strongly recommended. Using this option is recommended if you want to use both Mandrakelinux and Microsoft Windows® on the same computer. Before choosing this option, please understand that after this procedure, the size of your Microsoft Windows® partition will be smaller then when you started. You'll have less free space under Microsoft Windows® to store your data or to install new software. Erase entire disk. If you want to delete all data and all partitions present on your hard drive and replace them with Mandrakelinux, choose this option. Be careful because you won't be able to undo this operation after you confirm. · If you choose this option, all data on your disk will be deleted. · Remove Windows(TM). This option appears when the hard drive is entirely taken by Microsoft Windows®. Choosing this option will simply erase everything on the drive and begin fresh, partitioning everything from scratch. If you choose this option, all data on your disk will be lost. 22 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX · Custom disk partitioning. Choose this option if you want to manually partition your hard drive. Be careful: it is a powerful but dangerous choice and you can very easily lose all your data. That's why this option is only recommended if you have performed custom disk partitioning before, and have enough GNU/Linux experience. For more instructions on how to use the DiskDrake utility, refer to the Managing Your Partitions section in the Starter Guidethe Managing Your Partitions section in the Starter Guide. 3.7. Multiple CD-ROM Installation The Mandrakelinux installation is distributed on several CD-ROMs. If a selected package is located on another CD, DrakX will eject the current CD and ask you to insert the required one. If you do not have the requested CDROM at hand, just click on Cancel, and the corresponding packages will not be installed. 3.8. Root Password 23 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX This is the most crucial decision point for the security of your GNU/Linux system: you must enter the root password. Root is the system administrator and is the only user authorized to make updates, add users, change the overall system configuration, and so on. In short, root can do everything! That's why you must choose a password which is difficult to guess: DrakX will tell you if the password you chose is too simple. You're not forced to enter a password, but we strongly encourage you to do so. GNU/Linux is just as prone to operator error as any other operating system. Since root can overcome all limitations and unintentionally erase all data on partitions by carelessly accessing the partitions themselves, it is important that it be difficult to become root. The password should be a mixture of alphanumeric characters and at least 8 characters long. Never write down root's password -- it makes it far too easy to compromise your system. One caveat: don't make the password too long or too complicated because you must be able to remember it! The password won't be displayed on screen as you type it. To reduce the chance of a blind typing error you will need to enter the password twice. If you do happen to make the same typing error twice, you will have to use this "incorrect" password when you try to connect as root, at least for the first time. If you want an authentication server to control access to your computer, click on the Advanced button. If your network uses either LDAP, NIS, PDC Windows Domain, or Active Directory authentication services, select the appropriate one for authentication. If you don't know which one to use, you should ask your network administrator. If you happen to have problems with remembering passwords, or if your computer will never be connected to the Internet and you absolutely trust everybody who uses your computer, you can choose to have No password. 24 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.9. Adding a User GNU/Linux is a multi-user system which means each user can have his or her own preferences, own files and so on. But unlike root, who is the system administrator, the users you add at this point won't be authorized to change anything except their own files and their own configurations, so protecting the system from unintentional or malicious changes which could have a serious impact on it. You will have to create at least one regular user for yourself -- this is the account which you should use for routine, day-to-day usage. Although it's very easy to log in as root to do anything and everything, it may also be very dangerous! A very simple mistake could mean that your system won't work any more. If you make a serious mistake as a regular user, the worst that can happen is that you'll lose some information, but you won't affect the entire system. The first field asks you for a real name. Of course, this is not mandatory -- any name will do. DrakX will use the first word you type in this field and copy it, all in lowercase, to the Login name field, which is the name this user will enter to log onto the system. If you like, you may override the default and change the user name. The next step is to enter a password. From a 25 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX security point of view, a non-privileged (regular) user's password is not as crucial as the root password, but that's no reason to neglect it by making it blank or too simple: after all, your files could be the ones at risk. Once you click on Accept user, you can add other users. Add a user for each one of your friends, your father, your sister, etc. Click Next when you're finished adding users. Clicking the Advanced button allows you to change the default shell for that user (bash by default). When you're finished adding users, you'll be proposed to choose a user who will be automatically logged into the system when the computer boots up. If you're interested in that feature (and don't care much about local security), choose the desired user (if more than one regular user is defined) and select a window manager, then click on Next. If you're not interested in this feature, uncheck the Do you want to use this feature? box. 26 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.10. Installing a Bootloader A bootloader is a small program which is started by the computer at boot time. It's responsible for starting up the whole system. Normally, the bootloader installation is totally automated. DrakX will analyze the disk boot sector and act according to what it finds there: · if a Windows® boot sector is found, it will replace it with a GRUB/LILO boot sector. This way you will be able to load either GNU/Linux or any other OS installed on your machine. if a GRUB or LILO boot sector is found, it will replace it with a new one. · If DrakX can't determine where to place the boot sector, it will ask you where it should place it. Generally, the First sector of drive (MBR) is the safest place. Choosing Skip won't install a bootloader. Use this option only if you know what you're doing. 27 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.11. Checking Miscellaneous Parameters 3.11.1. Summary As a review, DrakX will present a summary of information it has gathered about your system. Depending on the hardware installed on your machine, you may have some or all of the following entries. Each entry is made up of the hardware item to be configured, followed by a quick summary of the current configuration. Click on the corresponding Configure button to make any changes. · Keyboard: check the current keyboard map configuration and change it if necessary. Country / Region: check the current country selection. If you're not in the country selected by DrakX, click on the Configure button and choose another. If your country isn't in the list shown, click on the More button to get a complete country list. Timezone: by default, DrakX deduces your time zone based on the country you have chosen. You can click on the Configure button here if this is not · · 28 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX correct. · Mouse: verify the current mouse configuration and click on the button to change it if necessary. Printer: clicking on the Configure button will open the printer configuration wizard. Consult the corresponding chapter of the Starter Guide for more information on how to set up a new printer. The interface presented in our manual is similar to the one used during installation. Sound card: if a sound card is detected on your system, it will be displayed here. If you notice the sound card isn't the one actually present on your system, you can click on the button and choose a different driver. TV card: if you have a TV card, this is where information about its configuration will be displayed. If you have a TV card and it isn't detected, click on Configure to try to configure it manually. Graphical Interface: by default, DrakX configures your graphical interface in 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution. If that doesn't suit you, click on Configure to reconfigure your graphical interface. You can click on Help from within the configuration wizard to benefit from full in-line help. Network: if you wish to configure your Internet or local network access, you can do so from here. Refer to the printed documentation or use the Mandrakelinux Control Center after the installation has finished to benefit from full in-line help. Proxies: allows to configure HTTP and FTP proxy addresses if the machine you're installing on is to be located behind a proxy server. Security Level: this entry allows you to redefine the security level. Firewall: if you plan to connect your machine to the Internet, it's a good idea to protect yourself from intrusions by setting up a firewall. Consult the corresponding section of the Starter Guide for details about firewall settings. Bootloader: if you wish to change your bootloader configuration, click this button. This should be reserved to advanced users. Refer to the printed documentation or the in-line help about bootloader configuration in the Mandrakelinux Control Center. Services: through this entry you can fine tune which services will be run on your machine. If you plan to use this machine as a server it's a good idea to review this setup. · · · · · · · · · · 29 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.11.2. Time Zone Options This dialog appears after selecting a new time zone in the time zones list. After you've chosen the location nearest to your time zone, two more options are shown. GNU/Linux manages time in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and translates it to local time according to the time zone you selected. If the clock on your motherboard is set to local time, you may deactivate this by deselecting Hardware clock set to GMT, which will let GNU/Linux know that the system clock and the hardware clock are in the same time zone. This is useful when the machine also hosts another operating system. The Automatic time synchronization option will automatically regulate the system clock by connecting to a remote time server on the Internet. For this feature to work, you must have a working Internet connection. We recommend that you choose a time server located near you or the generic World Wide entry which will select the best server for you. This option actually installs a time server which can be used by other machines on your local network as well. 30 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.11.3. Configuring X, the Graphical Server X (for X Window System) is the heart of the GNU/Linux graphical interface on which all the graphical environments (KDE, GNOME, AfterStep, WindowMaker, etc.) bundled with Mandrakelinux rely on. You will see a list of different parameters which you can change in order to optimize your graphical display. Graphic Card If everything works fine, the installer should detect and configure the graphic card installed on your machine. If the detection or configuration is incorrect, you can choose the card installed on your system from a list. In the situation where different servers are available for your card, with or without 3D acceleration, you're asked to choose the server which best suits your needs. 31 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX Monitor If the installer fails to detect or configure your monitor properly, you can choose from this list the monitor which is connected to your computer. Resolution Here you can choose the resolutions and color depths available for your graphics hardware. Choose the one which best suits your needs (you will be able to make changes after the installation). A sample of the chosen configuration will be shown in the monitor picture. Test Depending on your hardware, this entry might not appear. The system will try to open a graphical screen at the desired resolution. If you see the test message during the test and answer Yes, then DrakX will proceed to the next step. If you don't see it, it means that some part of the auto-detected configuration was incorrect and the test will automatically end after 12 seconds and return you to the menu. Change settings until you get a correct graphical display. Options This step allows you to choose whether you want your machine to automatically switch to a graphical interface at boot. Obviously, you may want to check No if your machine is to act as a server, or if you were not successful in getting the display configured. 32 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.11.4. Selecting Available Services at Boot Time This dialog is used to select which services you wish to start at boot time. DrakX will list all services available on the current installation. Review each one of them carefully and uncheck those which aren't needed at boot time. A short explanatory text will be displayed about a service when it is selected. However, if you're not sure whether a service is useful or not, it is safer to leave the default behavior. At this stage, be very careful if you intend to use your machine as a server: you probably don't want to start any services which you don't need. Please remember that some services can be dangerous if they're enabled on a server. In general, select only those services you really need. 33 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.12. Installing Updates from the Internet By the time you install Mandrakelinux, it's likely that some packages will have been updated since the initial release. Bugs may have been fixed, security issues resolved, etc... To allow you to benefit from these updates, you're now able to download them from the Internet. Select Yes if you have a working Internet connection and you want to install any updated packages now, or No if you prefer to install updated packages later. Choosing Yes will display a list of web locations from which updates can be retrieved. You should choose one near to you. A package-selection tree will appear: review the selection, and press Install to retrieve and install the selected package(s), or Cancel to abort. 34 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX 3.13. It's Over! There you are. The installation is now complete and your GNU/Linux system is ready to be used. Just click on Reboot to restart the system. Don't forget to remove the installation media (CD-ROM or floppy). The first thing you should see after your computer has finished doing its hardware tests is the boot-loader menu, which gives you the choice between the OSes your system can boot. 3.13.1. Advanced Options The Advanced button shows two more buttons to: 1. Generate auto-install floppy: enables you to create an installation floppy disk which will automatically perform a whole installation, similar to the one just finished, without the help of an operator. Note that two different options are available after clicking on that button: · Replay. This is a partially automated installation. The partitioning step is the only interactive procedure. 35 Chapter 3. Installation with DrakX · Automated. Fully automated installation: the hard disk is completely rewritten, all data is lost. This feature is very handy when installing on a number of similar machines. See the Auto install (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/ drakx/auto_inst.html) section on our web site for more information. 2. Save packages selection1: saves a list of the packages selected in this installation. To use this selection with another installation, insert the floppy and start the installation. At the prompt, press the F1 key, type linux defcfg="floppy" and press the Enter key. 3.14. How to Uninstall Linux If for any reason you want to uninstall Mandrakelinux, you can do so. The process of uninstalling Mandrakelinux is done in two steps: Removing partitions on your hard drive will inevitably result in the loss of all data stored on those partitions. Please make sure you've backed up all of the data you want to keep before proceeding. 1. Delete all partitions related to Mandrakelinux on your hard drive (usually partitions hosting ext3 file systems and the Swap partition) and -- optionally -- replace them with a single partition using DiskDrake. 2. Remove the bootloader, LILO in this example, from the Master Boot Record (MBR). To do so, execute lilo -U in a console, as root. Doing this will not only uninstall LILO but will also restore the previous master boot record, if any. If you have a different boot loader, please refer to its documentation to determine how to regenerate the master boot record. 1. You need a FAT-formatted floppy. To create one under GNU/Linux, type mformat a: or, as root, fdformat /dev/fd0 followed by mkfs.vfat /dev/fd0. 36 Chapter 4. Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X This chapter is aimed at users migrating from Windows® or Mac OS® X. Instead of presenting the various applications in depth, it tries to answer the most common questions and/or issues former Windows® or Mac OS® X users might ask. 4.1. Where's my...? Experienced Windows® and Mac OS® X users are normally accustomed to certain functions and/or concepts which are often treated differently in GNU/Linux. 4.1.1. Start Menu In Windows®, most applications and system tools are accessed through the so-called Start Menu; this concept remains more or less the same, except it's now called the Main Menu: in KDE you open it by clicking on the yellow star at the bottom left of your screen. For users coming from Mac OS® X, Mandrakelinux's Main Menu can be considered as a replacement for functions from both the Apple Menu, located at the far left of the menu bar, and the Applications folder available in the Finder. 4.1.2. Applications The wide variety of applications is a large differentiator between GNU/Linux and Windows®. Mandrakelinux installs many more applications onto your system, and clicking on the main menu will give you a wide range of choices depending on what you would like to do. There are many fully-fledged applications available to accomplish many common tasks such as office work (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations), e-mail handling, web browsing, etc. Mac OS® X users may find similarities between Mac OS® X and GNU/Linux applications, because Mac OS® X is based on BSD®, a UNIX®-like system on which GNU/Linux is also based. Moreover, other applications designed for the desktop have been ported to, or are available under, the X11 implementation available for Mac OS® X. 37 Chapter 4. Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X You may also install a large number of applications through the RpmDrake utility 4.1.3. Control Panel/System Preferences The Control Panel in Windows® and the System Preferences utility in Mac OS® X are replaced by the Mandrakelinux Control Center under Mandrakelinux. It can be accessed by choosing Administer your systemConfigure your computer in the main menu. Through this interface, you have the ability to modify most of your system's settings with graphical tools. 4.1.4. DOS Shell GNU/Linux is still very fond of shell environments. Unlike Windows® the popularity of the shell is not fading away as is evident by the availability of the shell in Mac OS® X. By default, Mandrakelinux installs bash, a truly powerful shell environment. You can access it by opening the main menu and choosing Administer your systemUse a terminal emulator. Almost none of your DOS commands or functions will work in a Linux shell. Take a look at the Introduction to the Command Line chapter in the Reference Manual to discover their equivalents and much, much more. Have fun, you now have a real shell to hand! 4.1.5. Network Neighborhood GNU/Linux uses TCP/IP by default, not SMB (the Windows® network protocol), so there's nothing like a network neighborhood icon to give you a view of the network you're in. However, you may use the LinNeighborhood application to give you similar functionality. Konqueror can also accomplish the same tasks. Just type smb:/ in the location bar, and all of the shared Windows® resources on the network will appear. Please remember that for this to work, the samba-client package must be installed. 38 Chapter 4. Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X 4.1.6. C: Drive The "lettered drive" is a concept exclusive to Windows®. On UNIX® systems, the drive notion (C:, D:, ..., Z:) is replaced by "mount points". From a user perspective, you're always accessing directories. Your system will use configuration files to instruct the file system how to "load" all relevant disks, disk partitions and remote systems, and then assign them to a specified directory, generally under the /mnt directory. While this concept is similar to that found in Mac OS® X, it is slightly different. What is mounted under /mnt with GNU/Linux is mounted under /Volumes in Mac OS® X but is made available as a "root file system" in the Finder. 4.1.7. CD-ROM Drives The same concept as for C: applies here. CD-ROMs are mounted in /mnt/ cdrom. To access the CD-ROM, just click on the desktop icon and the CDROM's contents will appear in a new window. Things are a bit different for audio and data CDs: upon inserting an audio CD in the drive, the CD player is automatically loaded and starts playing. Please see the Audio, Movie and Video Applications chapter of the Starter Guide. 4.1.8. Floppy Disk Drives Like CD-ROMs and disk partitions, floppy disks are mounted and will appear on /mnt/floppy. This feature directly supports reading Windows® diskettes. Icons are displayed on your desktop to access all your removable media devices: floppy, CD-ROM, ZIP, USB keys, and others. 39 Chapter 4. Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X 4.1.9. My Documents Under Mandrakelinux every user has a directory called Documents/ located in their home directory. For example, user Peter should store its documents in /home/peter/Documents/ The home directory concept is equivalent to the C:\Winnt\Profiles\user_ name\ or C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\ directories in Windows NT®, Windows® 2000 and Windows® XP and is explained in "Using KDE", page 57. Under Mac OS® X this is very similar. The home directory's equivalent is /Users/user_name and it also contains a directory called Documents. 4.1.10. The Applications Needed to Open Some Kinds of Document GNU/Linux can open most standard file formats: PNG pictures, Rich Text Format texts, PostScript printouts, etc. These file formats should always be preferred as they facilitate exchange of data between applications, and they ensure your freedom to change to another application and do not lock you into a given operating system. You may also have many files in proprietary formats such as Microsoft® Excel or Microsoft® Word documents. OpenOffice.org is just one application which can handle many popular formats for office applications (see Word Processor, page 85 and Spreadsheet, page 89). We are specifically mentioning office documents because they are important. Due to space constraints we cannot cover every single Windows® application and its GNU/Linux equivalent. However, there is a high probability that you will find GNU/Linux equivalents for all the programs you used under Windows® or Mac OS® X. To get an idea of GNU/Linux equivalents of Windows® applications, you can consult this table of equivalents (http://linuxshop.ru/ linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml). 40 Chapter 4. Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X 4.2. A Brave New World! Now that you have found your way around GNU/Linux, here is a brief presentation of the features which make excellent reasons to migrate to GNU/Linux. 4.2.1. A Multi-User Environment GNU/Linux, like Mac OS® X, is based on UNIX®. This basically implies a shift in the structure of your environment, from a single workstation to a multi-user architecture and implies very thorough user management. Each file, service and application is exclusively allocated to a user or a group of users, according to its nature. For example, every user has his or her own personal directory, containing personal data and personal configuration files, which can be made inaccessible (even invisible) to other users. 4.2.2. Multiple Tasking GNU/Linux has always been a very strong operating system for multi-tasking (running many applications concurrently). Although other operating systems have made great progress, GNU/Linux remains a leader in this domain. 4.2.3. Multiple Desktops With GNU/Linux, KDE and GNOME give you as many desktops as necessary to work with, instead of just a single desktop. Users who like to have numerous applications running at the same time will greatly appreciate this feature since it makes for a much cleaner working environment. 4.2.4. Full Desktop Customization Regarding aesthetics, GNU/Linux truly rocks! Not only can you choose between KDE or GNOME and many other window managers, but you can also highly customize their appearance with themes. Themes go beyond just the initial look and feel: actually, everything you see can be modified, from the background image to the behavior of applications when they are closed, which is truly unique. 41 Chapter 4. Migrating to Linux from Windows® and Mac OS® X See the themes page on Freshmeat (http://themes.freshmeat.net/) for available designs. 4.2.5. Thousands of Free Applications By far, the GNU/Linux community is the most generous one. Given a specific problem, you will most likely find a script or an application to answer your needs, for free! Also, Mandrakelinux includes hundreds of applications not documented in this book, so do not be shy, try them out. You'll most probably be surprised by the extent of the possibilities GNU/Linux offers. GNU/Linux also offers advanced server functionality, such as the ability to host mail or web page servers "out of the box". 4.2.6. No More Reboots! Windows® and Mac OS® (although this has largely been addressed in Mac OS® X) users know the level of frustration generated by crashing systems. Even though GNU/Linux is not perfect, its stability is one of its strongest points. Sometimes, applications crash, but rarely do they take the operating system down with them. We hope this rapid tour will help you truly appreciate GNU/Linux's strengths. Do not be afraid to explore further! 42