edit conf file
 

Hi all,

unfortunately after about 30 people reading my last (first) post no one got back to me with any kind of answer, so I will try to get just some of the question answered with this post.

From Konsole, can someone tell me (when I have logged in as SU) how to edit any config file (as a windows user I would just have right-clicked on the file, selected edit and then saved it).

I want to add lines to the xorg.conf file located in /etc/X11

Cheers
Tre

Use an editor, there are many and it depends on what is installed on your box. I use an editor called nano, so I wouldthen make the changes I want and sace the file (all as root, of course). You can also use one of the GUI editors. Since you are using Konsole, I assume you have KDE. You could FYI, su stands for 'switch user' so you're not logged in as SU, you've switched to user 'root.' The root user is default with the su command, but you can specify another user. Symantics, but we must stay pure. ;)

After you log in as 'su' you will not be in the correct directory to edit xorg.conf. Some commands to help out. First, Where am I? Use the command 'pwd' ( without quote ). That will return the present working directory. If you open a knosole as your user, and then su, you will most likely be in /home/username.

A few things about the way linux presents your location. The base, or beginning poin of the file system is represented as a / so if you see a directory location such as /home, home is one folder from the /.

Now you can use the 'cd' ( change directory ) command to change your location. To go to the /, just type 'cd /' and enter. If you do a pwd now, it will show you at /. To get to /etc/X11, type 'cd /etc/X11' and enter. Linux us case senseative so the X11 part is not x11. Do a pwd to confirm your action. You don't have to check, that will help until you are more confident.

Now, the next question is; Is the file I want at this location? Do an 'ls' command to find out. If you add the file name you are looking for to the command it will list just the file you want. Type 'ls xorg.conf' and enter. If the file is there, the file will list. If it is not, the system will respond, 'No such file or directory'.

Lets assume we are in th right directory. To edit the file, you need an editor, and the file name. Linux has lots of editors to choose from. One of the easy ones for beginners is kate. It will be installed if you installed KDE desktop. So to open the file, when you are in the directory, type 'kate xorg.conf' and enter. Kate should open, and xorg.conf is displayed. Another way is to open kate first, and use the open function in kate to navigate to the directory, and open the file. Tye this after the first method. The commands are not that hard, you need the practice to help remember them, and to learn a little about your system.

One more thing, if a command is giving you trouble, try the man pages to help. My favorite way to view man pages is open Konqueror, and in the location bar, clear it, and type 'man:/ls' to display the man page for the ls command. I like this method because you can page forward and backward in the web browser to see the information, and it is formatted in a nice font to read.

Hope this helps, and post back your questions.

thanks guys
 

Excellent advice, managed to edit the conf file now, just need to suss out how to solve the initial problem now... How to disable the tapping option on my touchpad

Cheers

Tre

trecool,

If no one responded to your other post, it is because no one who read it had an answer. I have never used a laptop on Linux, so i do not know about the touch pad settings. There is a Mandriva package named synaptics and one named ksynaptics. Synaptics is a touchpad driver, and ksynaptics is a synaptics driver configuration utility for KDE. The package descriptions follow:

SynapticsKsynapticsThe synaptics package contains some socumentation which may be of help

HTH,