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Old 07-20-2006, 10:47 PM   #1
FallenEmpire
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Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 9

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General Questions


Hello folks, just have some general linux oriented questions.

1. I made seperate partitions and called them /home /boot and /. What I'm wondering is if they automatically are used or if I have to assign their use. Particularily in the case of swap, does the system see it has a swap partition and use it or am I supposed to take advantage of it manually some how?

2. What is the command to access the menu (i think it is display) that lets you choose dual head. For some reason when I click on display in System->Administration->Display it asks for my root password and then I type it correctly and it doesn't open. The next time I click on it nothing happens, as if it is running but unseen.

3. I have a ton of music files in a parent directory with dozens and dozens of sub-directories. Is there a command line syntax that can be used to copy all the music files (say .mp3's) and move them to a different directory say one called 'music'? I'm thinking something like
Code:
mv -r /parent/*.mp3 /home/music // r as in recursive?
A good command would allow me to specify other music types at the same time, like .mp3 .mpu .wav

4. What is the config file I can edit to run commands I want to run when I first log in? (I read something that said to start the program then log out and save settings, but that doesnt work... I have no save settings button.)

5. What's the best way to uninstall a rpm installed with yum. (I have a lot of media players and I just want to stick with one, I'm thinking mplayer.)

6. Bash is an interpreter right? Does that mean it interprets scripting languages and programming lanuages? If so, which ones?


Thanks for all the help.
 
Old 07-20-2006, 11:14 PM   #2
FallenEmpire
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Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 9

Original Poster
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Sorry, a bit of an update. I think the display button runs this command and here is the error:

system-config-display

Code:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/system-config-display/xconf.py", line 311, in ?
    hardware_state = XF86HardwareState(xconfig)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rhpxl/xhwstate.py", line 243, in __init__
    self.init_from_xconfig(xconfig)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rhpxl/xhwstate.py", line 405, in init_from_xconfig
    for l in xconfig.modules.load:
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'load'
 
Old 07-21-2006, 12:09 AM   #3
zetabill
Member
 
Registered: Oct 2005
Location: Rhode Island, USA
Distribution: Slackware, Xubuntu
Posts: 348

Rep: Reputation: 32
Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
1. I made seperate partitions and called them /home /boot and /. What I'm wondering is if they automatically are used or if I have to assign their use. Particularily in the case of swap, does the system see it has a swap partition and use it or am I supposed to take advantage of it manually some how?
As long as the swap file is defined in /etc/fstab... which I'm sure it is... you don't have to worry about it. It's the same thing as the swap file in Windows, except that it's a partition. Every distro "turns on" the swap partition... and is used as seamlessly as you're used to. That goes the same for /boot and /home. As long as it's in /etc/fstab with 'defaults' on the line with it, you should be fine. Just as an example, if /dev/hda1 is /boot, /dev/hda2 is swap, /dev/hda3 is root, and /dev/hda4 is /home:
Code:
/dev/hda2        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/hda1        /boot            ext2        defaults         #   #
/dev/hda3        /                reiserfs    defaults         1   1
/dev/hda4        /home            reiserfs    defaults         #   #
That's a loose example, but I hope it helps you out.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
2. What is the command to access the menu (i think it is display) that lets you choose dual head. For some reason when I click on display in System->Administration->Display it asks for my root password and then I type it correctly and it doesn't open. The next time I click on it nothing happens, as if it is running but unseen.
What distro do you use? You will most likely need to have the video drivers for the card (linux version) as well. Try to update your distro. Else search through the forum for that distro... you'll probably find it. This might need extra work.
EDIT: It will need extra work. Using dual-head is second to getting those config interfaces working. Having your linux drivers for your video card will probably be necessary, so make sure you have those once you get your config interfaces working. Then I don't think it'll be very hard from there.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
3. I have a ton of music files in a parent directory with dozens and dozens of sub-directories. Is there a command line syntax that can be used to copy all the music files (say .mp3's) and move them to a different directory say one called 'music'? I'm thinking something like
Code:
mv -r /parent/*.mp3 /home/music // r as in recursive?
A good command would allow me to specify other music types at the same time, like .mp3 .mpu .wav
That could end up being a tough one. As far as I know there isn't a '-r' flag to the mv command.
Code:
mv /parent/*.mp3 /home/music
does exactly that... but it will not go into all the subdirectories and do the same. You'll need to look into the "find" command. I'm sure someone out there will know exactly what to do to accomplish this... but it's waaaaay out of my league. Good luck with that. Unless you're doing it in a script it's probably easier doing that in Konqueror or Nautilus.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
4. What is the config file I can edit to run commands I want to run when I first log in? (I read something that said to start the program then log out and save settings, but that doesnt work... I have no save settings button.)
It depends what you mean. There are two ways you can accomplish this. I'm sure there is a similar structure for GNOME, but I use KDE so I'll use that as an example. What that person was talking about was your login session. If you save your login session when you exit your GUI, then it will come up just as you left it. You can go into your Session Manager (in KDE, it's in the control center under KDE components) and set it up to "Restore from previous session" on login. There's also an option to start with a "Manually configured session"

The other thing you can do is find the /home/user/.kde/Autostart folder. There should be something similar to this in GNOME but it's been so long since I used it. Anything you put in the ~/.kde/Autostart folder will be executed when you begin your session, no exceptions. It's basically like the "Startup" menu in Windows. Search around if you have some problems with it... surely if anything goes wrong the problem is amazingly simple to solve.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
5. What's the best way to uninstall a rpm installed with yum. (I have a lot of media players and I just want to stick with one, I'm thinking mplayer.)
Using something like the "Yum Extender" will make using yum easier to use as a whole. It's a GUI front-end to yum and you can do everything with yum through it. When I used to use Yum, I used Yumex for almost everything... but it should be
Code:
yum uninstall program
To get a full usage explanation for yum:
Code:
man yum
gives you the documentation. The 'man' command should work for every available command, too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
6. Bash is an interpreter right? Does that mean it interprets scripting languages and programming lanuages? If so, which ones?
There are minds greater than mine that can give you better answers but yes. Bash is its own scripting language and is by far the most common. Googling bash should give you a full reference. Look into the 5 primary linux shells: bash, tcsh, csh, ash, ksh, zsh. Each have their own advantages. Csh, for example, uses the C programming language for scripting.

I hope I got everything I wanted to say! I'll post back if I have more to add.

Good luck

Last edited by zetabill; 07-21-2006 at 12:22 AM.
 
Old 07-21-2006, 12:16 AM   #4
zetabill
Member
 
Registered: Oct 2005
Location: Rhode Island, USA
Distribution: Slackware, Xubuntu
Posts: 348

Rep: Reputation: 32
Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
Sorry, a bit of an update. I think the display button runs this command and here is the error:

system-config-display

Code:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/system-config-display/xconf.py", line 311, in ?
    hardware_state = XF86HardwareState(xconfig)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rhpxl/xhwstate.py", line 243, in __init__
    self.init_from_xconfig(xconfig)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/rhpxl/xhwstate.py", line 405, in init_from_xconfig
    for l in xconfig.modules.load:
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'load'
Try upgrading or completely reinstalling your Python packages.

The "Yum Extender" will make this much easier.
Code:
yum -y install yumex
The only reason I say this is because Python has more than one package unless something has changed since Fedora Core 4... but I doubt it. With yumex you'll be able to filter out those packages by searching for python.... without learning some incredible yum command.

Hopefully that should get you going.

EDIT: I just noticed that your signature says you're running Fedora. I kept "wondering" which one you used... My bad.

Last edited by zetabill; 07-21-2006 at 12:36 AM.
 
Old 07-21-2006, 12:45 AM   #5
IBall
Senior Member
 
Registered: Nov 2003
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Distribution: Ubuntu, Debian, Various using VMWare
Posts: 2,088

Rep: Reputation: 62
What distro are you using? If you put this in your profile, it helps us to help you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by FallenEmpire
Hello folks, just have some general linux oriented questions.

1. I made seperate partitions and called them /home /boot and /. What I'm wondering is if they automatically are used or if I have to assign their use. Particularily in the case of swap, does the system see it has a swap partition and use it or am I supposed to take advantage of it manually some how?
I assume that you did this when you installed your distro. In that case, swap will be automatically added to /etc/fstab, and Linux will be able to use it.


Quote:
3. I have a ton of music files in a parent directory with dozens and dozens of sub-directories. Is there a command line syntax that can be used to copy all the music files (say .mp3's) and move them to a different directory say one called 'music'? I'm thinking something like
Code:
mv -r /parent/*.mp3 /home/music // r as in recursive?
A good command would allow me to specify other music types at the same time, like .mp3 .mpu .wav
As zetabill said, you need the find command. Something like:
Code:
find /parent -name *.mp3 -exec mv {} /home/music/ \;
It might be an idea to use cp first, and then mv - if the command is wrong, then you won't lose anything...

Quote:
4. What is the config file I can edit to run commands I want to run when I first log in? (I read something that said to start the program then log out and save settings, but that doesnt work... I have no save settings button.)
Do you want to run said commands when you login at a terminal, when you start x, when the system boots?? Zetabill is correct for KDE. For Gnome, go to System - Preferences - Session, and click the startup tab. Add whatever programs you want to start when Gnome starts here.

For logging in to a terminal, ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile (for user specific) and /etc/profile (for system wide).

For system boot, it depends on your distro, and what you want to achieve.

Quote:
6. Bash is an interpreter right? Does that mean it interprets scripting languages and programming lanuages? If so, which ones?
Bash is a command interpretter. You can write shell scripts, that use bash commands. Other interpreted languages use their own interpretter: For example Perl and Python and the other *nix shells like csh, zsh, ksh ...

I hope this helps
--Ian
 
Old 07-21-2006, 12:57 AM   #6
FallenEmpire
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 9

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Hey thanks for the replies.

Code:
Try upgrading or completely reinstalling your Python packages.
I thought this was such a good idea i decided to run: yum remove python so I could reinstall it HAHA.

I'm not blaming anyone, this was my mistake. Now most things don't work lol including yum. Looks like I'll be starting completely over again, fresh install here I come. (P.S. I wonder how many fresh installs it will take before I can lock down a working system - I will put my money on 3 within the next month.)
 
Old 07-21-2006, 04:44 PM   #7
zetabill
Member
 
Registered: Oct 2005
Location: Rhode Island, USA
Distribution: Slackware, Xubuntu
Posts: 348

Rep: Reputation: 32
Ahhhh.. I made a similar mistake in my newbie days...

Well... I'll know never to do anything like that on my system!! Always learning... learning is fun. If you want to challenge yourself you can actually work with the rpm files without yum... and then you'd know a little bit about the rpm command.

When I used Fedora I (re)installed it 4 times because I did something stupid like removing whole directories and making certain things completely unusable by mistake. Otherwise I was pushing my limits and made that one mistake while learning too much too fast. I did that once with my Slackware installation, too... but I was able to recover. When the new version comes out I'm going to make a nice setup on the computer and then use a virtual machine to run a copy that I can break and destroy all day long without losing my ability to use a computer.

Don't forget to have fun. See if there are packages for virtual machines (like KQEMU/QEMU). They're hard to get up and running without an amount of effort... but you'll never need to break your main distro just because you're learning.

Good luck!
 
  


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