Hello.

I just installed Suse 9.1 personal edition and have many, many questions about learning linux. I seriously know NOTHING about using linux. I'm just using Suse right now to learn this stuff and when I get better I will try other distros. So here it goes:

BOOT LOADER:

1. Which boot loader is better GRUB or LILO? or is there a better one?

2. I'm using win XP and Suse on a dual boot and selected GRUB as the boot loader. Also I set win XP to load as default first. I have my boot sequence setup loading the cd drive, then my win XP hard drive, followed by the linux hard drive. When I start my comp it automatically loads stratight to win XP and I can't select linux. I can only access linux by booting through the installation cd. How do I fix this?

PROGRAM INSTALLATIONS:

1. Where should I install programs? Anywhere? Where do you suggest?

2. Do I or should I have root access when installing programs?

3. I downloaded a copy of firefox but now I'm not sure what to do next can anyone write up a quick walk-through of this installation?

MISC QUESTIONS:

1. For those of you using Suse, what is Yast?

2. Everyone says that linux uses command lines, or something similar to dos. So far it seems like windows to me. Am I missing a console or something? Where do I type in commands?


Well that's all for now. There's still a million more questions to come. I will post here when I can. Post any answers to any questions and I will read it. Thanks for all your help.

I hate to give you a worthless answer, but you really should do some reading first. Either buy some books, go to the library, or search the net and pick one of the millions of pages available. I think that is how we all get started. You can't user Linux without reading something.

http://www.hk8.org/old_web/linux/run/index.htm
http://linuxbasics.org/

These are a start. Now, Yast is explained here:
http://www.suse.com/us/private/produ...prof/yast.html

Your command line is the icon on your task bar that looks like a monitor with a sea shell on it. Play around with it and try out the stuff you see online and in the books. I hope you can get rolling in the right direction now. Dont rush it and expect it all to be easy or you will get frustrated. Just keep learning and reading.


Jason Z.

It's just a matter of personal preference. They're both good.

2. I'm using win XP and Suse on a dual boot and selected GRUB as the boot loader. Also I set win XP to load as default first. I have my boot sequence setup loading the cd drive, then my win XP hard drive, followed by the linux hard drive. When I start my comp it automatically loads stratight to win XP and I can't select linux. I can only access linux by booting through the installation cd. How do I fix this?
It is important which disk GRUB was installed to. Any program must be started to run. Bootloader occupies a part of first 512 bytes of a disk. That's the place BIOS searches for a boot program when your computer starts. If GRUB is installed in the disk that's not searched, it won't run.
You can make an experiment - change the boot sequence for a moment and make the Linux disk first. GRUB should probably start. If that's right, it has wrong configuration and it should be changed. You can do it probably using SuSE graphical tools. The right place GRUB should be installed to is /dev/hda.

PROGRAM INSTALLATIONS:

1. Where should I install programs? Anywhere? Where do you suggest?
You can install them anywhere, but certain places are more common than others. Usually programs that come with your distribution are installed to /bin or /usr/bin (their binaries, other files go to other directories). It's a good idea to separate the programs you install. The most common location is /usr/local.

2. Do I or should I have root access when installing programs?
It depends. You need to have write access to the directory you're installing a program to. Root has write access everywhere. But if you change permissions to allow your user write for example to /usr/local, you'll be able to install programs as a normal user.

3. I downloaded a copy of firefox but now I'm not sure what to do next can anyone write up a quick walk-through of this installation?
You probably need to unpack it. Try to double-click on the archive, then unpack it somewhere. Inside there should be an installer, filename is something like 'firefox-installer'.

MISC QUESTIONS:

1. For those of you using Suse, what is Yast?
Configuration tool, AFAIK.

2. Everyone says that linux uses command lines, or something similar to dos. So far it seems like windows to me. Am I missing a console or something? Where do I type in commands?
You type your commands into a 'terminal' program. You have probably more than one installed. Search for 'konsole' or 'xterm'. If you can't find them in the menus (should be there) press alt+f2 (in KDE, don't know how it is in GNOME) and type 'konsole' inside.

Thanks for the replies.

superztnt: thanks for the links. I am reading them right now. I am reading several sources about linux, but sometimes the best way for me to learn is the hands on approach so as I am reading and I am also learning through experimenting with Suse.

I fixed my bios to load the linux hard drive with the loader installed on it and now can select which os to load. Thanks. I have a couple more questions that came into mind.

LOGIN:

I'm logged in as a normal user.
1. How do I login as the root user by default instead of logging in as the normal user?

2. How do I give the normal user root priveleges? (same as admin powers on Windows?)

MISC:

AFAIK?

ZiggyAJ, Congradulations on starting your move to Linux...and personally I beleive that SuSE is an excelent choice to get started, I've been using SuSE ever since SuSE let you play Tetris while it installed (does anyone else remember this?) Anyway let me answer a couple of questions for you...

First lets get you back in to Linux if you haven't been able to do this yet. Install the CD and when it pops up with a choice to like Install, recover, or a couple of other options, select boot loaded system. It should find the SuSE partition and give you the option to enter it. Its been a while since I've done it this way, so it might ask what partition you want to load, on my systems Linux is always /dev/hda3, I Though I only have one Windows Partition (/dev/hda1) and my Linux Partitions (boot: /dev/hda2, root: /dev/hda3, and swap: /dev/hda5).

Next once you are in SuSE log in to the windows manager that you want to use (KDE by default). then go into YAST (or to answer your question YAST is Yet Another Installation Tool, or YAST is to SuSE Linux as Control Panel is to Windows). Then go to the Systems Menu down on the Left group. Then click on "Boot Loader Configuration." This will bring up a new window with a text frame in the middle. Click on the line that says "Boot Loader Location" to highlight it and then click on the Edit button on the bottom. Once again this will bring up a new window. You want the boot loader installed on "Master boot record of /dev/hda" (This is a common setting to my knowledge for ATA drives, if you are using SCSI drives it might be different!, but you do want it on the MBR, but make sure that you have a rescue disk for Windows, and one for Linux...Always!). Then look through the other options and make sure that you have the values that you want.

As of for working with FireFox, I'll write that up later, I got it set up, but I forgot how I did that easily, and now that I'm working on it again, I can't really get it to work right...

As of for Jason Z's response, I don't fully agree with him. Yea, when you have a problem, try to do a search for it, espically here. but the best way to learn is to jump right it, and try to work on it.

If you have any problems to what I have told you please respond to this post, I'll continue to check back here. I'm still learning a lot myself and and I am by no means a Linux Master...but the best way to become a master is to help those with less skills then yourself...You tend to learn the little things that you overlooked the first time!

Enjoy you SuSE system Ziggy,

TheDrew

Some of my favorite books the I have read are the ones with lots of examples so I can try it out myself. On book that I started with was a Sams Unix in 24 hours, and it was cool because everytime he would show some new he would tell you to try it yourself. I agree with thedrew on just jumping in and doing it. I didnt mean that you had to read before you used you system. I did a lot of "lets see what happens when I do this" stuff and I broke a lot of things, but I usually learned something. Once you start to discover new things and figure stuff out and you get that "ah ha now I get it feeling" you can get addicted to Linux. I did.


Jason Z.

Woudlnt reccomend either of these. 1) when u need root, go toa terminal and type su
after your wqork is done, type exit
this will minimize the chance of your really screwing your system up
2) you definitely do NOT want to do this: refer to http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=204182

When you go to the command line to switch to a superuser I would suggest that you use the

su -
or
su -l

command. Almost the same as just su by itself but it give you the whole search path for root instead of only part of it.

Jason Z.