Where can I find answers to SUSE Linux questions?. I had questions when I first started using SUSE Linux, and I have been using Linux since 1991.. If the newsgroup search does not give y
Trang 1In this part
Here we go again — yet another Top Ten list No,
wait a whole slew of Top Ten lists! It’s the
signa-ture part of the For Dummies series Hey, I can’t argue with
success!
I begin with a selected set of frequently asked questions (or FAQs, as everyone calls them) about SUSE Linux Next comes the ten best things about SUSE Then I present ten good resources for finding out more about SUSE Finally,
I end with the ten most frequently used SUSE Linux commands
Trang 2Chapter 20
Ten Frequently Asked Questions about SUSE
In This Chapter
What does SUSE stand for?
Where can I find answers to SUSE Linux questions?
When is the next SUSE release?
Can I get ISO files for SUSE Linux from the Internet?
How do I do an FTP install of SUSE Linux?
How can I auto-login into KDE as another user?
How can I reboot after an apparent crash?
How do I schedule a command to run every 30 minutes?
How can I find all the huge files on my system?
Where can I find SUSE RPMs?
If you are new to SUSE Linux, you probably have lots of questions about
SUSE (even if you already know Linux) I had questions when I first started using SUSE Linux, and I have been using Linux since 1991 Frequently Asked Questions — FAQs — are the time-honored solution to providing answers to common questions about a specific subject In this chapter, I present ten such frequently asked questions about SUSE Linux These are the questions that, in my opinion, are likely to be asked by beginners and experienced Linux users alike I hope you find an answer or two that help you do your job with SUSE Linux
What Does SUSE Stand for and How Do You Pronounce It?
The acronym SUSE came from the German name Software und System
Entwicklung (Software and System Development) SUSE is pronounced soo-suh.
Trang 3The distribution was originally referred to by a mixed case name: SuSE Now, however, the distribution’s name is written in all uppercase: SUSE Eventually, SUSE’s origins as an acronym will probably be forgotten and it will be thought
of as a name that doesn’t stand for anything at all
How Can I Find Answers to
My SUSE Linux Questions?
You can find helpful information about SUSE Linux at many online resources Start with www.suse.com Choose Support➪knowledgebase from that Web page’s menu Then select SUSE as the product, type in one or more keywords, and click Search Now
If you don’t find the answer at www.suse.com, try searching newsgroups through the Advanced Groups Search on Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en
Type the search terms you prefer You can even set the date ranges for the articles to search
If the newsgroup search does not give you the answer, do a Linux search on Google by visiting the search page at
http://www.google.com/linux
Type the search words and press Enter or click Google Search For
SUSE-specific answers, type SUSE in addition to the search words.
If you also want to search the SUSE mailing lists, visit www.google.comand
type lists site:lists.suse.com followed by the search words For example, to
search for DVD movie playeryou would type lists site:lists.suse.com DVD
movie player into the search field.
One of these online searches should get you the answer to your question If not, you can post a question at one of the forums such as www.suseforums comthat are listed in Chapter 22
When Is the Next SUSE Linux Release?
Everyone wants to know the answer to this question, including myself! Of course, the correct answer is, “Whenever Novell decides to release it.” Based
Trang 4on past history, however, a new SUSE release seems to appear about every six months
Can I Get ISO Files for SUSE Linux from the Internet?
When Novell releases a new version of SUSE Linux, it’s initially available only
as a commercial product However, about eight weeks after the release date
of the latest version, Novell makes available for free the ISO image files for that version Novell also offers the necessary files on its FTP server from where you can perform an FTP install
How Do I Do an FTP Install of SUSE Linux?
Say that you have this book in hand, but a later version of SUSE Linux is now available for FTP install Instead of installing the version on the companion
CD or DVD, you can easily do an FTP install
To install SUSE Linux from one of many FTP servers that mirror the latest SUSE distribution, you have to perform the following major steps:
1 Download the SUSE boot image from the FTP server and burn a CD with that image
2 Make a note of the FTP server’s IP address and the directory where the SUSE distribution’s files are located
3 Boot the PC with the boot CD and then type a command at the boot prompt to begin an FTP install from the FTP server that you identify by its IP address
If you have a PC that runs Windows and has a high-speed Internet connec-tion, you can use that PC to download the boot image and burn the boot CD
You can also use the PC to look up the IP address of the FTP server
You also need to know the name of the network card installed in your PC because you have to manually load the driver before you can start the SUSE FTP install You can find the FTP server’s IP address when you download the SUSE installer’s boot image I explain the steps in this section
Trang 5Installing SUSE from an FTP server can take two hours or more over a typical broadband DSL or cable modem connection to the Internet Follow these steps to do an FTP install from an FTP server over the Internet:
1 Use a Web browser to open the list of FTP servers at www.suse.com/ us/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html and find an FTP server near you that’s marked complete (that means the server has the complete SUSE distribution and all updates).
The list of servers is organized by country and it includes both FTP and HTTP (Web) servers Go to the country nearest yours and pick the near-est server that’s marked complete
In a terminal window, type ping followed by the name of the FTP server (for example, mirror.mcs.anl.gov) You’ll then see the IP address of the
FTP server on the next line (for example, 140.221.9.138) Write down that
IP address for use later on If you are performing this step in Microsoft Windows, you also use the pingcommand, but type the command in a
Command Prompt window (choose Start➪Run and type cmd and press
Enter)
2 Click your FTP server link and find the directory that contains the
boot.iso file — that’s the SUSE installer’s boot image.
The directory depends on the version of SUSE For example, for version 9.2, the boot.isofile is in the FTP server’s pub/suse/i386/9.2/boot/
directory The file is several tens of megabytes in size
3 Download the boot.iso file and save it.
4 Burn the boot.iso image onto a CD.
Use your PC’s CD burner application to burn the ISO image named
boot.iso
5 Go to the PC on which you want to do the SUSE FTP install, insert the boot CD, and restart the PC.
If your PC isn’t set up to boot from the CD/DVD drive, you have to enter SETUP (by pressing a key such as F2 as the PC powers up) and change the order of the boot devices
The PC reboots and, after a few moments, a text screen displays a screen with a number of options Use the arrow keys to move between list items and the buttons on the screen
6 Use the arrow keys to select the Manual Installation option and press Enter.
The installer shows a list of languages
7 Select the language and press Enter.
The installer displays a list of keyboard maps — the language-dependent layouts for the keyboard
Trang 68 Select the keyboard language and press Enter.
The installer displays the Main menu
9 Use the arrow keys to select Kernel Modules (Hardware Drivers) and press Enter.
The installer displays a list of choices that includes options to load driver modules as well as view names of loaded modules
10 Use the arrow keys to select Load Network Card Modules and press Enter.
The installer displays a list of network driver modules, organized by the name of the network card
11 Use the arrow keys to select your network card and press Enter.
The installer prompts for any parameters for the driver Press Enter if there are no parameters If all goes well, the installer successfully loads the network driver module and displays a message Press Enter to continue
12 Press the right-arrow key to select Back and press Enter.
You will be back at the Main menu
13 Use arrow keys to select Start Installation/System and press Enter On the next screen, select Start Installation/Update and press Enter.
The installer displays a list of source mediums — this is where you indicate where the installer can find the files it needs to perform the installation
14 Select Network as the source medium and press Enter.
The installer prompts you for the network protocol
15 Select FTP as the network protocol and press Enter.
A dialog box prompts you to determine whether to configure the net-work automatically by using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) If your network uses DHCP as most do, select Yes and press Enter Otherwise, you have to enter the IP address and the name server’s IP address at this step The installer then prompts for the IP address of the FTP server
16 Enter the IP address of the FTP server that you found in Step 1 (for example, enter 140.221.9.138 for the FTP server mirror.mcs.anl.gov ).
The installer prompts you if you want to use a username and password to connect to the FTP server Because the FTP servers support anonymous FTP — which means anyone can log in with the username anonymous— select No and press Enter The installer also prompts if you want to use
an HTTP proxy Unless your PC is behind a proxy (which may be the case
at some organizations), select No and press Enter The installer then prompts for the name of the directory where the SUSE files are located
Trang 717 Enter the name of the directory on the FTP server where the SUSE Linux files are located and press Enter.
The directory name would be the parent directory of the location where you found the boot.isofile in Step 1 For example, if the boot.isofile
is in pub/suse/i386/9.2/boot/, you should type pub/suse/i386/9.2/
and press Enter
The installer displays a message informing you that it is loading data into ramdisk (which refers to an area of memory that acts as a hard drive) When the installer finishes downloading data, the YaST (that’s what the SUSE installer is called) installer starts and displays its initial GUI screen
From this point on, the installation steps are the same as the ones for a CD/DVD install, which I explain in Chapter 2 You should jump to the point where the YaST installer displays its initial GUI screen
How Can I Auto-Login into the KDE Desktop as Another User?
If yours is the only user account on your SUSE Linux system and you use the KDE desktop, you are probably accustomed to the convenience of auto-login Basically, you just power up SUSE Linux and you are automatically logged into the KDE desktop
You might face the question of changing the auto-login to another user if you have defined additional user accounts on your SUSE Linux system (for exam-ple, for your spouse or kids) If you want the auto-login to use another user account, it’s easy to make that change from the KDE desktop by following these steps:
1 Choose Main Menu➪Control Center.
The KDE Control Center starts
2 Click System Administration in the left pane.
Icons for several system administration categories appear in the left pane
3 Click Login Manager in the left pane.
Login Manager options appear in tabs in the right pane
Trang 84 Click Administrator Mode.
A dialog box prompts you for the root password
5 Type the root password and click OK.
Login Manager options reappear with everything enabled (because you have entered administrator mode)
6 Click the Convenience tab.
The Convenience tab’s options appear, as shown in Figure 20-1 The Enable Auto-Login box is checked and you can see the username for which the auto-login is enabled
7 Click the User drop-down menu and select the user account that you want to use for auto-login.
If the Enable Auto-Login box is not checked, click on it until it shows a check mark
Although auto-login is convenient, it’s definitely not good for security You should enable auto-login only if you are using the SUSE Linux system in a safe environment such as your home Turn auto-login off from the Convenience tab mentioned in Step 6
Figure 20-1:
From KDE Center’s Login Manager you can enable auto-login for a user
Trang 9If My System Crashes, Can I Press the Reset Button to Reboot?
Even though your mouse or keyboard seems to be dead, this does not neces-sarily mean that everything in your system has crashed Therefore, you should not immediately reach for the reset button
In case it’s the GUI desktop that’s hung, press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to kill the X server and restart it If this works, you should see a graphical login screen from which you can log in again
If restarting X does not help, press Ctrl+Alt+F2 and see if you can get a text
console with a login prompt If you see the login prompt, login with your
username and password Then type su - and type the rootpassword to become root After that, type reboot to safely reboot the PC.
If you don’t get a text console by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2, try to log into the
system from another machine on the network (type ssh followed by your
SUSE Linux system’s IP address) You can become rootby typing su - and then type reboot to reboot the PC Of course, this last option works only if
you have multiple PCs in a local area network
If nothing works, just wait some time, make sure that there is no hard drive activity (many PCs have a light that blinks when the hard drive is active; the hard drive also makes noise that you may be able to hear), and then press the reset button
How Can I Schedule a Command
to Run Every 30 Minutes?
You can run a command or a script (which is a file containing other com-mands) every so often by using crontab You schedule recurring jobs by placing job information in a file with a specific format and submitting this file with the crontabcommand A program called crondchecks the job informa-tion every minute and executes the recurring jobs at the specified times Because the crondruns recurring jobs, such jobs are also referred to as
cron jobs.
To submit a cronjob, follow these steps:
Trang 101 Prepare a shell script (or an executable program in any programming language) that can perform the recurring task you want to perform.
You can skip this step if you want to execute an existing program periodically
2 Prepare a text file with information about the times when you want the shell script or program (from Step 1) to execute, and then submit this file by using crontab
You can submit several recurring jobs with a single file Each line with timing information about a job has a standard format with six fields — the first five specify when the job runs, and the sixth and subsequent fields constitute the actual command that runs For example, here is a line that executes the myjobshell script in a user’s home directory every 30 minutes:
0,30 * * * * $HOME/myjob
3 Suppose the text file jobinfo (in the current directory) contains the job information Submit this information to crontab with the follow-ing command:
crontab jobinfo
That’s it! You are set with the cronjob From now on, the cronjob runs at regular intervals (as specified in the job information file), and you receive mail messages with the output from the job
To verify that the job is indeed scheduled, type the following command:
crontab -l
The output of the crontab -lcommand shows the cronjobs currently installed in your name To remove your cronjobs, type crontab -r.
How Can I Find All the Huge Files
on My SUSE Linux System?
You can type a one-line incantation to do this job for you Here are the steps:
1 If you are at a graphical desktop such as KDE or GNOME, open a terminal window.
2 Type su - and then enter the root password to become root