Copyright (C) 2000 M K Saravanan http://www.mksarav.org Written on 15th June 2000. Last modified on Sat Nov 15 02:02:27 SGT 2003 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. You can download a copy of the license from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.txt ============================================================================== 1. You don't have to type the full file name in linux. It has the facility called TAB-Auto-Completion. For e.g. try: ls /usr/doc/HOWTO/DOS-[Press tab] You will find those filenames matching with DOS-. Then type fewmore letters till the first few characters of the filenames are distinct and then again press tab. Try TAB-Auto-completion facility with various filenames/directory names. 2. If you know wordstar there is a wonderful editor called "joe". joe test.txt My name is Saravanan. Press ^KS to save the file Press ^KX to exit from joe. 3. To learn more about linux check the following directories: /usr/doc/HOWTO (or) /usr/doc/howto/en /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini (or) /usr/doc/howto/en/mini It is always better to use "less" to view HOWTO files. Because sometimes these files contain some control characters to show heading in bold etc.., If you open it in plain "pico" these control char. will appear as ^H, etc.., Read the following HOWTO file: less /usr/doc/HOWTO/Unix-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO Note: If you don't have HOWTO directory, use suitable howto directory in your system like "/usr/doc/howto/en". 4. There is a good installation guide under: /usr/doc/LDP cd /usr/doc/LDP ls You will find the following files: install-guide //Installation Guide for Linux lpg //Linux Programmer Guide nag //Network Administrator Guide sag //System Administrator Guide LDP stands for Linux Documentation Project . You need a browser to view the files in these directories since most of the files contains "gif" files. So you need graphical browser like Netscape. But there is a text browser called "lynx" in linux. You can view the text portion. "lynx" is a fast browser. just try: lynx /usr/doc/LDP/install-guide/index.html Note down the last two lines while you are in "lynx". That tells you how to use lynx browser. Have a glance: lynx /usr/doc/LDP/lpg/lpg.html lynx /usr/doc/LDP/nag/nag.html lynx /usr/doc/LDP/sag/sag.html Wherever commands are discussed, graphics files are included to show the command & it output. So to fully utilise LDP files, you must view them using Graphical Browser. In case if HOWTOs and LDP are not installed in your system, you can always download them from the http://www.linuxdoc.org. Note: Old Redhat distributions such as 6.0 used to come with HOWTO documents. However in the later distributions it not there. When I wrote this exercise I was assuming the Redhat system. By the way don't think that HOWTOs were written by Redhat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [From LDP-FAQ] 1) What is the LDP? The LDP is a loosely knit team of volunteers who provide documentation for many aspects of Linux. There are several forms of documentation: Guides, HOWTOs, man pages and FAQs. 2) What is a HOWTO? HOWTO's are usually step by step guides which describe in detail how to perform a specific task. For example, the Linux Installation HOWTO helps you install Linux on the system but it does not cover how to set up a web server so that you can focus on a particular task. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can always download all the HOWTO documents from http://www.tldp.org. Earlier there used to be a separate directory on "tldp" site for mini HOWTOs. However when I checked the site in Oct 2003, all the mini HOWTOs were merged with the main HOWTOs. ===============================================================================