Red Hat Linux

The Official Red Hat Linux Users Guide

The Red Hat Development Team:

Donald Barnes

Kit Cosper

Marc Ewing

Michael Johnson

Jim Knoble

Erik Troan

Red Hat Software, Inc.
3203 Yorktown Ave. Suite 123
Durham, NC 27713

  Copyright ©1995, 1996 Red Hat Software, Inc.

Portions Copyright ©Metro Link Incorporated 1990-1996

Red Hat, the Red Hat logo, RPM, and Glint are trademarks of Red Hat Software, Inc.

Metro-X is a trademark of Metro Link, Inc.

UNIX is a trademark of X/Open, Inc.

Motif is a trademark of the Open Software Foundation

All trademarks and copyrights referred are the property of their respective owners

ISBN: 1-888172-65-7

Revision 4.0, August 1996.

Red Hat Software, Inc.
3203 Yorktown Ave. Suite 123
Durham, NC 27713
(919) 572-6500
redhat@redhat.com

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in Canada.

 
• Contents
• 1 Quick Start
  • 1.1 Get Red Hat Linux
  • 1.2 Make Floppies
  • 1.3 Installation
  • 1.4 Running Directly off the CD-ROM
• 2 Installation in Detail
  • 2.1 Before You Begin
  • 2.2 Installation Methods
  • 2.3 Starting the Installation
    • 2.3.1 Creating the Boot and Supplemental Disks
      • Making Floppies Under DOS
      • Making Floppies Under Linux
    • 2.3.2 Booting the Installation System
    • 2.3.3 Information available during installation
    • 2.3.4 Using the Dialog Boxes
    • 2.3.5 Installation Type
    • 2.3.6 NFS Installation
    • 2.3.7 Installation Path
    • 2.3.8 SCSI Adapter Support
    • 2.3.9 FTP Installation
    • 2.3.10 Disk Partitions
    • 2.3.11 Filesystem Configuration
    • 2.3.12 Package Selection and Installation
      • Series Selection
      • Package Selection
    • 2.3.13 Mouse Configuration
    • 2.3.14 X Windows Configuration
    • 8.4 Network Configuration
    • 2.3.16 Clock Configuration
    • 2.3.17 Select Keymap
    • 2.3.18 Root Password
    • 2.3.19 LILO Installation
• 3 Red Hat Alpha Installation
  • F.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Supported Hardware
  • 3.3 Installing the Miniloader MILO
  • 3.4 Installing Red Hat Linux Alpha
    • 3.4.1 Making a Boot disk
    • 3.4.2 Beginning the Install
    • 3.4.3 Finishing up
  • 3.5 Booting your Red Hat Linux Alpha system
• 4 Red Hat SPARC Installation
  • 4.1 Hardware
  • 4.2 Booting from Floppy
  • 4.3 Booting from a Network
  • 4.4 Network Installation
  • 4.5 SILO Configuration
  • 4.6 Partitioning
  • 4.7 X Windows
• 5 Post Installation Configuration
  • 5.1 Package Installation (or Uninstallation)
  • 5.2 Building a Custom Kernel
    • 5.2.1 Building a modularized kernel
    • 5.2.2 Making an initrd image
    • 5.2.3 Building a monolithic kernel
  • 5.3 X Window Configuration with XFree86
    • 5.3.1 The X Server
    • 5.3.2 Xconfigurator
      • Selecting your Server
      • Finishing Up
  • 5.4 X Window Configuration with Metro-X
    • 5.4.1 System Requirements
    • 5.4.2 configX.curses
      • Graphics Card
      • Mouse
      • Exiting
    • 5.4.3 configX
      • Start-up
      • Special Keys
      • 5.5 Mouse configuration
      • Keyboard configuration
      • Monitor configuration
      • Screen Saver
      • Graphics Card Configuration
      • Colors
      • Virtual Resolution
      • Physical Resolution
      • Multiple-Screen Configuration
      • Adding a Screen
      • Deleting a Screen
      • Screen Layout
      • Font Path
      • Save and Exit
      • Quit Without Saving
  • Mouse configuration
  • 5.6 Sendmail
  • 5.7 Controlling Access to Services
  • 5.8 Anonymous FTP
  • 5.9 World Wide Web Server
  • 5.10 NFS Configuration
    • 5.10.1 Mounting NFS Filesystems
    • 5.10.2 Exporting NFS Filesystems
  • 5.11 Running Programs at Boot Time
  • 5.12 Color ls Setup
  • 5.13 NIS/NYS Setup
• 6 Finding Documentation
  • 6.1 On Line Help
    • 6.1.1 Man Pages
    • 6.1.2 Package Documentation
    • 6.1.3 HOWTOs and FAQs
    • 6.1.4 The ``locate'' Command
    • 6.1.5 ``info'' Pages
  • 6.2 Help from the Internet Community
    • 6.2.1 Red Hat Mailing Lists
    • 6.2.2 USENET Newsgroups
• 7 Package Management with RPM
  • 7.1 RPM Design Goals
  • 7.2 Using RPM
    • 7.2.1 Installing
      • Package Already Installed
      • Conflicting Files
      • Unresolved Dependency
    • 7.2.2 Uninstalling
    • 7.2.3 Upgrading
    • 7.2.4 Querying
    • 7.2.5 Verifying
  • 7.3 Impressing Your Friends with RPM
  • 7.4 Other RPM Resources
• 8 Control Panel
  • 8.1 User and Group Configuration
    • 8.1.1 Adding a User
    • 8.1.2 Removing a User
      • Deactivating a User
    • 8.1.3 Creating a New Group
  • 8.2 File System Configuration
    • 8.2.1 Adding NFS Mounts
  • 8.3 Printer Configuration
  • Network Configuration
    • 8.4.1 Managing Names
    • 8.4.2 Managing Hosts
    • 8.4.3 Adding a Networking Interface
      • PPP Interface
      • SLIP Interface
      • PLIP Interface
      • Ethernet, Arcnet, Token Ring and Pocket Adaptor Interfaces
    • 8.4.4 Managing Routes
  • 8.5 Time and Date
  • 8.6 Kernel Daemon Configuration
    • 8.6.1 Changing Module Options
    • 8.6.2 Changing Modules
    • 8.6.3 Adding Modules
    • 8.6.4 Restarting Kerneld
• 9 Glint
  • 9.1 Starting glint
  • 9.2 The Package Display
    • 9.2.1 Context Sensitive Menus
    • 9.2.2 Selecting Packages
    • 9.2.3 Viewing Available Packages
  • 9.3 Configuration
  • 9.4 Package Manipulation
    • 9.4.1 Querying Packages
    • 9.4.2 Verifying Packages
    • 9.4.3 Installing New Packages
      • Upgrading Packages
    • 9.4.4 Uninstalling Packages
• 10 System Administration
  • 10.1 Filesystem Structure
    • 10.1.1 Overview of the FSSTND
      • The /etc Directory
      • The /lib Directory
      • The /sbin Directory
      • The /usr Directory
      • The /usr/local Directory
      • The /var directory
    • 10.1.2 /usr/local in Red Hat Linux
  • 10.2 Special Red Hat File Locations
  • 10.3 Users, Groups and User-Private Groups
    • 10.3.1 Standard Users
    • 10.3.2 Standard Groups
    • 10.3.3 User Private Groups
      • User Private Group Rationale
  • 10.4 The Boot Process, Init, and Shutdown
    • 10.4.1 System V Init
    • 10.4.2 Init Runlevels
    • 10.4.3 Shutting Down
• A Hardware Requirements
• B Module parameters
  • B.1 CD-ROM parameters
  • B.2 SCSI parameters
  • B.3 Ethernet parameters
• C Metro X
  • C.1 Special Features
    • C.1.1 Hot-Key Exit
    • C.1.2 Hot-Key Resolution Switching
    • C.1.3 Hardware Panning
    • C.1.4 Multiple Screens
      • Supported Cards
    • C.1.5 International Keyboards
  • C.2 Metro X Configuration File
    • C.2.1 Warning
    • C.2.2 Xconfig
    • C.2.3 Keywords
      • Options Set In Configuration Utility
      • Options Not Set in Configuration Utility
    • C.2.4 Modes
      • Adjusting the Image Position
      • Extensions
      • Special Notes
• D Intro to Alpha Systems and Processors
  • D.1 What is Alpha
  • D.2 What is Digital Semiconductor
  • D.3 Alpha CPUs
  • D.4 21064 performance vs 21066 performance
  • D.5 A Few Notes On Clocking
  • D.6 The chip-sets
  • D.7 The Systems
  • D.8 Bytes and all that stuff
  • D.9 PALcode and all that stuff
  • D.10 Porting
  • D.11 More Information
  • D.12 References
• E Alpha Miniloader Howto
  • Introduction
    • E.1.1 Copyright
    • E.1.2 New Versions of this Document
  • E.2 What is Milo?
  • E.3 Pre-Built Standard Milo Images
  • E.4 How To Build Milo
  • E.5 How To Load Milo
    • E.5.1 Loading Milo from the Windows NT ARC firmware
    • E.5.2 Loading Milo from the Evaluation Board Debug Monitor
    • E.5.3 Loading Milo from a Failsafe Boot Block Floppy
    • E.5.4 Loading Milo from Flash
    • E.5.5 Loading Milo from the SRM Console
    • E.5.6 System Specific Information
      • AxpPCI33 (Noname)
      • AlphaPC64 (Cabriolet)
      • EB66+
      • EB64+/Aspen Alpine
      • Universal Desktop Box (Multia)
      • EB164
      • XL266
      • Platform2000
  • E.6 Milo's User Interface
    • E.6.1 The ''help'' Command
    • E.6.2 Booting Linux
    • E.6.3 Rebooting Linux
    • E.7.5 The ``bootopt'' command
  • E.7 Running the Flash Management Utility
    • E.7.1 The ''help'' command
    • E.7.2 The ``list'' command
    • E.7.3 The ``program'' command
    • E.7.4 The ``environment'' command
    • The ``bootopt'' command
    • E.7.6 The ``quit'' command
  • E.8 Restrictions
  • E.9 Problem Solving
  • E.10 Acknowledgements
• F Red Hat Linux Frequently Asked Questions
  • Introduction
  • F.2 General Questions
    • F.2.1 Where can I get information on Red Hat Linux?
    • F.2.2 What Media is Red Hat Linux Available on?
    • F.2.3 The Red Hat FTP site is slow. Are there mirrors?
    • F.2.4 How do I order from the Red Hat Software?
    • F.2.5 How do I contact Red Hat Software?
    • F.2.6 How do I get new updates to Red Hat as they happen?
    • F.2.7 How do I get support if I bought the Caldera, PHT, etc CD-ROM?
    • F.2.8 What is the relationship between Red Hat and Caldera, PHT, etc?
    • F.2.9 What do I do if I have media (manual or CD-ROM) problems?
    • F.2.10 What's the quickest and best way to get support for Red Hat Linux?
    • F.2.11 How do I report a problem?
    • F.2.12 What versions of Red Hat Linux are there?
    • F.2.13 What hardware does Red Hat Linux support?
    • F.2.14 Why won't my Adaptec (274x, 284x) work?
    • F.2.15 What applications are there for Red Hat Linux?
    • F.2.16 Does Red Hat Linux include source code?
    • F.2.17 What version of X Windows is included with Red Hat?
    • F.2.18 Does Red Hat support UMSDOS installs?
  • F.3 Installation Questions
    • F.3.1 Do I need swap space?
    • F.3.2 How do I get my IDE CD-ROM on my SB16 to work?
    • F.3.3 How do I do a network install of Red Hat 4.0?
    • F.3.4 How do I run the install program again?
    • F.3.5 Why am I missing some programs?
    • F.3.6 How do I mount my CD-ROM?
    • F.3.7 Why does my Trident 9400 show up as an 8900?
    • F.3.8 Why does Linux only see part of my RAM?
    • F.3.9 How do I install to my DOS partition?
    • F.3.10 How do I use the NYS/NIS system that comes with RedHat?
    • F.3.11 Why can't I get to Unixware now that I've installed Linux?
    • F.3.12 Why does my Diamond do odd things under X Windows?
    • F.3.13 Where do I go to find an ``errata'' sheet?
    • F.3.14 I installed Metro-X, now how do I use it?
  • F.4 Using Red Hat Linux
    • F.4.1 Why does Red Hat `adduser' put each user in his/her own group?
    • F.4.2 Why doesn't the xmh shipped with Red Hat work properly?
    • F.4.3 I rebuilt my kernel, but I got vmlinux instead of vmlinuz. Why?
    • F.4.4 How do I make my own packages (RPMs)?
    • F.4.5 I compiled a program, but I can't run it. What gives?
    • F.4.6 Why doesn't xtexsh work?
  • F.5 Copyright Notice
• G Getting Technical Support
  • G.1 Registration
    • G.1.1 Registering via the Web
    • G.1.2 Registering via Email
    • G.1.3 Registering via Fax or Snail Mail
  • G.2 Support Questions
    • G.2.1 How to Send Them
    • G.2.2 Where to Send Them
  • G.3 Support FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
• H Red Hat and Freely Distributable Software.
  • H.0.1 Red Hat History
  • H.1 The Free Software Model
  • H.2 The Evolution of ``Free Software''
  • H.3 The GNU Public License
  • H.4 Will Linux Replace Commercial OSes?
  • H.5 Red Hat Software, Inc.'s Role in Linux Development
  • H.6 Further Reading
• I Licenses
  • I.1 The BSD Copyright
  • I.2 X Copyright
  • I.3 Gnu Public License
    • I.3.1 Preamble
    • I.3.2 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
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    • I.3.3 Appendix
• Index
• About this document ...