Hey guys, I've been asking a lot of questions lately so sorry but I'm just trying to get my head around linux and start using it as my main OS. Any help is definitely appreciated. Also I should state I am using Mandrake 10.0

1) How do I make commands "universal" in other words how do I make it so I can type "firefox" into the command line and get it to load instead of having to go into firefox's folder and type ./firefox?

2) Is there a way to remove the need for ./ when quoting commands?

3) In mandrake I have to press the key twice to get symbols like ', ", `, ~.... is there any way to fix this?

4) When trying to use wine how do I get the files that are necessary onto the system or does it read them from the windows partition?

5) Where do you keep your "program" files that you don't use except you keep on your system, I would prefer not to have java installs, firefox and all that in my home fold and get it all cluttered, but I'm scared that I will break something, so where is the "proper" location.

6) I just downloaded and installed macromedia flash player 7 for firefox so it can read flash files on websites but now it seems to overlay flash files on the website so I can´t actually access it, any ideas? I´ve included a screenshot to try and help illustrate.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~djcatterall/snapshot1.jpg

7)I´m following this guide, http://www.houseofcraig.net/acx100_howto.php and I have finally got my wireless working but unfortunately when I start up I still have to go into root, then run the start_net script to get it up and running.

The part I´m having problem with is ¨One more step is required to get your newly created "local" file into the startup system, type: update-rc.d local defaults 99.¨

When I try and type in that command it comes up with command not found, any ideas or any other way to do it?

These should keep me going for a while, thanks for your help guys.

edit: added questions 6 - 7

1) create a symbolic link in the /bin folder and give everyone access. Like
cd /bin
ln -s firefox /usr/bin/firefox
chmod 777 ./firefox

2) If the command is within the user's path, it can be executed without the ./ , so it should work with the symbolic link above.

3) Not sure, maybe someone else can help

4)Not sure, maybe someone else can help

5) Generally, programs are installed somewhere under /usr, but you could put them anywhere.

Peleus -

don't apologize for asking questions - did you notice the name of the site - we'd look pretty dumb hanging out here if nobody asked questions.

1) universal, I guess you mean is the executable in the user's path - if the system had to search every dir in the filesystem to look for an executable it would take forever - therefore you define a set of dir's where it will look unless told otherwise - that's the path, defined by the PATH variable. you can set that in many ways, like in .bashrc - run a search on setting PATH.

2) "./" just means "in the present dir" - instead you could type the full pathname, or put the dir in PATH.

3)

4) you can mount the win partition and copy them over, samba, floppy, CD, etc.

5) depends - you'll probably find a lot of conflicting opinion on that. check out the linux filesystem hierarchy for the "official" structure. this may help:
http://www.linuxnovice.org/main_focu...=VIEW&t_id=126

someone will correct me if i'm wrong, but i dont think it's a good idea to move things after you install them. in general i think you can install things where you like, but if you move the directories around after installation my guess is you'd end up with a lot of errors and a headache. you said you're using mandrake though right? are you installing from source or from rpms? not sure if that makes a difference...

3:
You have probably set your keyboard to US-International style. You need to get into your control panel´s keyboard language settings and change it to US English. In Fedora Core it´s under Applications Drop Down Menu -> System Settings -> Keyboard.

Thanks for your input so far guys, I will try the keyboard one I suspect thats what it is and check out some other options. I also added questions 6 and 7 on there because they are bothering me too, I should change the title to "Help the newbie peleus survive linux" but just know you guys help out the survival of linux so much with your answers, it keeps as all with a little bit of hope

> 5) Where do you keep your "program" files that you don't use
> except you keep on your system, I would prefer not to have java
> installs, firefox and all that in my home fold and get it all cluttered,
> but I'm scared that I will break something, so where is the
> "proper" location.

/usr.local

See infos on file strutures.

http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/commands/
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HighQuality-Apps-HOWTO/fhs.html
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/...ilesystem.html
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Filesys...avigation.html
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Filesys...d_Devices.html

Sheng-Chieh

6) yep, seems to be a bug on some pages.

7) don't use wireless... But it's certainly a problem area.

I think 1-5 are well covered.

6)

7) iirc, "update-rc.d" is a debian-specific thing. the basic idea is to put the "local" script into your init script dirs. mandrake must have some gui utility for this, or you can copy it in manually or use something like ksysv. take a look here for a good description:

http://www.linuxnetmag.com/en/issue6/m6inits1.html

i vaguely remember something in mandrake about sessions...that might be a place to start. i'm pretty sure there was a session manager or something.

Hmmm problem with trying to make firefox 'universal'

[root@localhost firefox]# ln -s firefox /usr/bin/firefox
[root@localhost firefox]# chmod 777 ./firefox
[root@localhost firefox]# firefox
-bash: firefox: command not found

what did I do wrong?

what directory were you in?
What directory did you install firefox to?

Firefox installed to /usr/progs/firefox

I typed command from that directory and also tried typing from /bin

Two things went wrong, first I reversed the order used by the link command, and second, since you installed it to another directory the command should be

cd /bin
ln -s /usr/progs/firefox/firefox  firefox
chmod 777 ./firefox

This time, verify before you execute it that the the firefox executable is within the directory /usr/progs/firefox/

Ok I tried that and it worked, thank you so much, here's an update of where I am at.

1) Solved
2) Unsure, at the university I was at when programming they did something so instead of having to type in ./program to run our compiles we could just type in program and it would run, I got no idea what they did though (didn't matter what you called you program)
3) Solved
4) Kinda solved - I just have to learn how to mount things and mount windows partitions
5) Solved
6) Still screwed
7) Solved I had the path wrong for my system.

Thanks for everyone thats helped you've been great!!