This howto was designed with new users in mind, which is why there are so many references to Windows
Useful Resources
- Fedora Project
- Fedora Magazine
- Ask Fedora
- Read This First forum
- Fedora Forum Guidelines
- New DNF Wiki
- Paul Sheer's Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition A Great Linux starter's guide!
My open-source programs
Installing / Partitioning
How do I install Linux? Can I have Windows & Linux at once?
For sure! See Newb's guide to installing and resizing NTFS for how.
What's a partition?
A quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning:
So what's a filesystem then?Originally Posted by Wikipedia
A quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system:
How should I setup my partitions?Originally Posted by Wikipedia
My personal setup preference uses this layout:
- Use Custom Partitioning during the install
- Start off with a swap partition that's double the size of you're RAM. Swap doesn't need a mount point, so you should just be able to set the size and click "OK". Just a note, however, that having more than 1GB of swap is relatively pointless. 1GB is about the upper limit in terms of practicality. If you're wondering what the heck swap space is, it's like the Windows paging file - When you've run out of RAM, the memory required can overflow a little into the swap space.
- Make a ext4 partition with mount point /home with half of your hard drive's remaining free space
- Make a ext4 partition with mount point / the rest of remaining space - In other words, the other half of the free space from step 3
What are ISO images?
It's simply a file containing an exact replica of what goes onto a given storage medium. Therefore, when burning, you must burn it as an image, and not just put the file into a data CD, DVD or USB key as the ISO image file itself isn't very useful - But the files it contains inside are.
From the Fedora download site I see a bunch of things... i386, x86_64, PPC, SRPMS - what do they mean? Which is right for me?
These are all the different architecture builds of Fedora Linux. The processor (also known as the CPU) inside your computer is what does all the thinking. The style in which it does so is comparable to the architecture. Because each style is a little different, there must be builds for each architecture.
- i386 --> 32-bit, compatible with all Intel processors and AMD processors.
- x86_64 --> 64-bit, compatible with the newer Intel line of processors, all AMD Athlon 64, Phenom and X2 series processors. Intel-based Macintosh computers which have the Core 2 Duo processor (or better) are also x86_64 compatible.
- ppc --> 32-bit, compatible with the older non-Intel Macintosh computers and the PlayStation 3.
- ppc64 --> 64-bit, compatible with the later models in Apple's PPC-based Macintosh line.
- sparc --> Used mainly by Sun servers
- SRPMS --> Don't use these... These are provided for developers and are of no use to end users unless you are building your own distribution.
System Managment
Do I need to defragment my Linux system?
No - Linux uses the ext4 filesystem which ext4 handles file fragmentation far better than FAT(32) or NTFS, so in general you should never have the need to.
My disk is getting full. How can I clean up to get some extra space?
Please see this howto
Security
Do I need a virus scanner in Linux?
Not really - Linux has next to no viruses that affect it. If one takes the proper security measures such as a firewall and running as a non-privledged user If you want to be safe, however, one called ClamAV does exist:Installing a FirewallCode:su - yum install clamav clamav-libs clamav-update clamav-data
Run this in a terminal:
Configuring the firewallCode:su - chkconfig iptables on service iptables start
--> First, install the configuration tool if it's not already installed on your system:from now on, you can configure your firewall by runningCode:su - yum install system-config-firewallWhat's SELinux?Code:system-config-firewall
SELinux stands for Security Enhanced Linux. It's a security tool that monitors what goes on in your system and block applications from performing actions that are out of line. In other words, it basically severely restricts what havoc hackers can unleash in your system. The only negative thing about it is it's very intrusive - Sometimes applications that you want running will be blocked because it requires explicit permissions & configuration. I personally disable it as I find it too much of a hassle to configure and have had no hackers. The only thing I can say is if you do disable it, run a firewall. This is critical. Also, before reporting problems about servers (see below) not working, try disabling SELinux.
Servers
What's a server?
It is simply a piece of software that will listen to a network (one of which could be the Internet) and respond to requests. These "requests" can be for virtually any purpose - WWW pages (Web servers), remote administration (SSH, VNC, telnet servers), file sharing (SMB/NFS servers), the list goes on.Originally Posted by Wikipedia for "Server (computing)"
How can I install one?
See the Every Server Setup Imaginable thread that shows how to configure:
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor, used for making dynamic web pages and for (MySQL) database communication)
MySQL (Database, stores information that can be dynamically)
HTTPD (Web server, serves web pages)
SMB/Samba (Samba or SMB server, for file and printer sharing)
SSH (CLI remote administration)
VNC (Graphical remote administration)
VPN (Virtual Private Networking)
Software
What are these RPM packages everyone's talking about?
RPMs are installer .exe or .msi files of Linux. They are compressed packages of files that will install a certain program on your system, and make an entry in the RPM database. This allows for great package management. You can ask the system to tell you what packages owns a certain file easily install, remove or upgrade packages and much more.
How do I install a program?
See FedoraFAQ's Using Yum.
Are there games for Linux? I miss WoW.
Yes! For commercial support, you can use Cedega to run your Windows games in Linux, or for free you can use
- Wine to run Window binaries, including games. Run:to install Wine.Code:su - yum install wine
There are also some great
free games readily available for Linux!