Linux System Administration and Configuration

Basic command line: Also see ntpstat, smbstatus, ifstat, prtstat, pidstat, lpstat, mailstat, sar, cifsiostat, ... GUI/Graphical: List of tools: tools for finding the status of your system Processes execute within their own process environment, they have their own memory, current working directory, priority, process ID, parent process ID and the file access privileges of the user ID under which they execute. The basic Linux monitoring commands such as pstree and ps -auxw and top will inform you of the processes running on your system. Identify the process: pstree -p OR ps -auxw OR top Kill the process: kill <process-id-number> killall <command-name> This will perform an orderly shutdown of the process. A signal may be given to the process. In the previous example, the HUP signal was sent to the process. Identify all known signals: fuser -l Process Monitoring and Management GUI Tools: xosview: Oldie but goodie. Also see the GUI tool QPS. Then install qps: rpm -ivh qps-1.9.7-5.i386.rpm

Boot with GRUB GRUB: it's neither larva, fast food nor the loveliest of acronyms in the GNU herd of free software. Rather, GRUB is the GNU GRand Unified Bootloader. And, it is truly the greatest loader for booting Linux and practically any other OS—open source or otherwise—you may have scattered on your platters. GRUB is independent of any particular operating system and may be thought of as a tiny, function-specific OS. GRUB is in its element with the multiboot, multidisk systems typical of Linux and open-source adventurers who may simultaneously test or track several Linux distributions, the BSDs, GNU/Hurd, BeOS and perhaps that vestigial partition for Mr. Installation of GRUB is a two-step process. The first step is the usual: download the source archive, untar it, configure and make install. tar -xzvf grub-0.5.96.1.tar.gz cd grub-0.5.96.1 . For the second step of installation, we will first build and work with a GRUB boot floppy. fdformat /dev/fd0 mkfs -t msdos /dev/fd0 And that's it!

Linux.com :: Ten tips for new Ubuntu users 1. Getting multimedia to work The default Ubuntu install contains free software only, which means that it doesn't support some popular multimedia formats straight out of the box. Fortunately, as a user, you don't need to worry about fees (though some of the packages may not be legal due to patent restrictions or restrictions on circumventing copy protection, depending on where you live). 2. Ubuntu comes with a number of defaults that may or may not be to your liking. The easy way to change this is to use the update-alternatives program, which maintains the symbolic links under /etc/alternatives that determine the default programs for FTP, system editor, rsh, Telnet, window manager, and so forth. To change the default editor, run sudo update-alternatives --config editor. There are 3 alternatives which provide `editor'. Selection Alternative ----------------------------------------------- 1 /usr/bin/vim\t 2 /bin/ed *+ 3 /bin/nano Press enter to keep the default[*], or type selection number: 3.

The Linux Documentation Project: Guides The Linux Documentation Project (LDP) is working on developing good, reliable documentation for the Linux operating system. The overall goal of the LDP is to collaborate in taking care of all of the issues of Linux documentation, ranging from online documentation (man pages, HTML, and so on) to printed manuals covering topics such as installing, using, and running Linux. Here is the Linux Documentation Project Manifesto and Copyright License for LDP works. Translations of LDP works (languages other than English) can be found on the "Non-English Linux Info" links page. Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide This document is both a tutorial and a reference on shell scripting with Bash. Below is a table of translated guides that are available from pub/Linux/docs/ldp-archived/. "An important part of any operating system is documentation, the technical manuals that describe the operation and use of programs.

10 things to do after installing Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid If you’re going to be installing a freshly minted copy of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS later today or this weekend then the following list of 10 reader submitted post-install must-do’s will help ensure that you’re off to a flying start with your new OS. 1. Run Update Manager Just because you’ve installed the latest version of Ubuntu doesn’t mean that there won’t already be a handful of bug fixes updates or patches waiting for you. Make sure you run the update manager (if it doesn’t update you first) so that you’re benefitting from the latest fixes and features. 2. If you want to use advanced desktop effects such as Compiz (3d Cube, wobbly windows) then you will need to enable the “official” drivers for your graphics card. Ubuntu should automatically detect and alert you that 3D drivers are available. If Ubuntu fails to detect any hardware (do be patient as this isn’t always instant) then you can manually run the hardware configuration tool yourself from the System > Preferences menu. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.