The Linux Gazette
Answer Gang Knowledge Base

NOTE: Remember that some of the information in the Knowledge Base loses its relevance as time goes on: syntax and usage becomes deprecated, tools get replaced by newer (and presumably better) tools, and writers look back at the code that they published years before and shrink in horror (this couldn't possibly be personal experience speaking, never!) Because of this effect, it is worth your while to read several articles on a given topic that you're researching, with preference generally given to the later ones in case of conflict.

Backup and Recovery

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Before You Install Linux

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Boot Loaders and Booting the OS

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C, C++ and Java Programming

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CD-ROM, Tape, Floppy and Other Storage Devices

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CPUs and Motherboards

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Compiling Programs, Using C Libraries

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Configuring Mail

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Databases

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GUI, X-Windows and Window Managers

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Games

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HTTP/FTP/SSH/etc.

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Hard Drives

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Installing Linux

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Installing and Using Applications

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Interoperability with other OSs

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Linux Distributions

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Linux Tech Support Questions

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Miscellaneous

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Modems and Dial-Up Networking

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Network Adapters (Ethernet, etc.)

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Network Configuration

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Off-Topic (non-Linux)

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Other Peripherals

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Partitions and Filesystems

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Perl Programming

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Printing

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Programming in Other Languages

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Python Programming

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Scientific Computing

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Security

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Shell Scripting

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Sound

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Switching from Other Operating Systems

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System Administration

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System Configuration

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System Startup: After the Boot up to the Login Prompt

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The Answer Guy's Most Memorable Rants

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The Kernel

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UNIX Commands

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Uninstalling Linux

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Video Cards

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1. How can I get help on Linux?

Check the FAQ. (Oh, you already are. ) Somewhat more seriously, there is a Linux FAQ located at http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/index.html which you might find to be helpful.

For people who are very new to Linux, especially if they are also new to computing in general, it may be handy to pick up one of these basic Linux books to get started:

• Bill Ball's Learning Linux in 24 Hours
• Mark Sobell's A Practical Guide to the Linux System
• Either Linux Installation and Getting Started or the O'Reilly book Running Linux. They're extremely similar so you should only need one of them.

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Of course, the original Answer Guy himself, Jim Dennis, was a coauthor on Linux System Administration, published by New Riders. It is not an introductory book, but it has a considerable amount of material about the kind of planning system administrators need to do, and the second half delves into deeper topics, so it may help bring a broader understanding.
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Mailing lists exist for almost every application of any note, as well as for the distributions. If you get curious about a subject, and don't mind a bit of extra mail, sign onto applicable mailing lists as a "lurker" -- that is, just to read, not particularly to post. At some point it will make enough sense that their FAQ will seem very readable, and then you'll be well versed enough to ask more specific questions coherently. Don't forget to keep the slice of mail that advises you how to leave the mailing list when you tire of it or learn what you needed to know.

You may be able to meet with a local Linux User Group, if your area has one. There seem to be more all the time -- if you think you may not have one nearby, check the local university or community college before giving up.

And of course, there's always good general resources, such as Linux Gazette Send all questions and answers to The Answer Gang <linux-questions-only@ssc.com>. Several volunteers will try to respond to them via e-mail. All questions and answers will be considered for publication in the next issue of Linux Gazette, and those chosen will be grouped into threads and put in the Answer Gang, 2-Cent Tips or Mailbag column. Generally, short answers and tips go into 2-Cent Tips, long answers or those with multiple respondents go into The Answer Gang, and a limited selection of the questions for which we have no adequate answer will go into the Mailbag along with suggestions for future articles. Questions and answers about the Gazette itself will be in the Gazette Matters section of the Mailbag.

The Answer Gang can answer short, specific questions that will be of interest to a significant portion of our readership. (All questions and answers are considered for publication, although you can be anonymous if you request.) However, for large, general question like "help me design my office network" or "write me an application which does this", we would steer you to the Linux documentation and to paid consultants.

We don't guarantee that your question sent to TAG will ever be answered ! If you don't see any reply, keep paying attention to the published version of LG because your answer may show up as the reply to someone else's question.

You might want to check the Answer Gang Index and see if your question got asked before. The older a question is, the greater the chance that the answer needs updating, but it's a start.

2. Can I run Windows applications under Linux?

An excellent summary of the current state of:

• WINE -- www.winehq.com
  designed to allow win32 binaries to be run directly
• DOSEMU -- www.dosemu.org
  this is really an environment to run a copy of DOS inside it
• and some other Windows/DOS emulators of the time

...was in issue #44, The Answer Guy, "Running Win '95 Apps under Linux".

There is also a program called VMware (www.VMWare.com) which lets you run several "virtual computers" concurrently as applications, each with its own Operating System. There is a review in Linux Journal about it.

You might consider Bochs (www.bochs.com), which also works on non-Intel hardware and the BSD family.

3. Do you answer Windows questions too?

Some of them.

Answers in either the Tips or Answer Guy columns which relate to troubleshooting hardware, might be equally valuable to Linux and Windows users. This is however Linux Gazette... so all the examples are likely to describe Linux methods and tools.

The Answer Guy has ranted about this many times before. He will gladly answer questions involving getting Linux and MS Windows systems to interact properly; this usually covers filesystems, use of Samba (shares) and other networking, and discussion of how to use drivers.

However, if your question only involves Windows, this is not the best place to ask. The Answer Guy hasn't used Windows in many years, and in fact typically avoids the graphical user interfaces available to Linux as well. That we've grown up into an Answer Gang isn't worth much for Windows only questions either -- only a few of us have any notable experience with Windows, and for those of us that do, a lot of it is quite out of date.

Maybe you should try the websites for the various Windows magazines -- many of them offer an open forum. You could even (gasp) use the tech support that was offered with your commercial product. Also, there are newsgroups for an amazing variety of topics, including MS Windows.

4. How do I find the help files in my Linux system?

The usual command to ask for a help page on the command line is the word man followed by the name of the command you need help with. You can get started with man man. It might help you to remember this, if you realize it's short for "manual."

A lot of plain text documents about packages can be found in /usr/doc/packages/<packagename>, /usr/doc/<packagename>, or /usr/share/doc/<packagename>in modern distributions. If you installed them, you can also usually find the FAQs and HOWTOs installed in the above directories as ../FAQ and ../HOWTO respectively.

Some applications have their own built-in access to help files (even those are usually text stored in another file, which can be reached in other ways). For example, pressing F1 in vim, ? in lynx, or ctrl-H followed by a key in Emacs, will get you into their help system. These may be confusing to novices, though.

Many programs provide minimal help about their command-line interface if given the command-line option --help, -h or -?. Even if these don't work, most give a usage message if they don't understand their command-line arguments. The GNU project has especially followed through with this idea. It's a good one; every programmer creating a small utility should have it self-documented at least this much.

Graphical interfaces such as tkman and tkinfo will help quite a bit because they know where to find these kinds of help files; you can use their menus to help you find what you need. The better ones may also have more complex search functions.

Some of the bigger distributions link their default web pages to HTML versions of the help files. They may also have a link to help directly from the menus in their default X Windowing setup. Therefore, it's wise to install the default window manager, even if you (or the friend helping you) have a preference for another one, and to explore its menus a bit.

There's a fellow who has a searchable website filled with manpages at http://linux.ctyme.com/.

5. So I'm having trouble with this internal modem...

It's probably a winmodem. Winmodems suck for multiple reasons:

1. Most of them lack drivers for Linux. Notice the term "most" and not "all" -- see http://linmodems.org for more about those few that do, and some general knowledge on the subject. Last time we looked (Issue 63, "State of the Art in Softmodems") only four models had any support, and only two had vendor help.
2. Since they aren't a complete modem without software, even if they were to work under Linux, they'd eat extra CPU that could be better spent on other things. So they'll never seem quite as fast as their speed rating would imply.
3. Internal modems (even those which bear complete chipsets) have their own problems; they overheat more easily, and have a greater danger of harming other parts in your system when they fail, merely because they're attached directly to the bus. The tiny portion of speed increase that might lend is not really worthwhile compared to the risk of losing other parts in the system.

So, yeah, there can be good internal modems, but it's more worthwhile to get an external one. It will often contain phone line surge suppression and that may lead to more stable connections as well.

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