[clug] Linux challenges

[Adam Thomas]

2009/7/16 Lana Brindley <lanabrindley at gmail.com>:
> 2009/7/15 Wesley Bruce <wesleybruce at iinet.net.au>
>
>> I'm a microsoft refugee interested in FOSS but not a programmer.
>> I'm new to linux and am finding that it ain't as easy as Microsoft.
>> Generally I'm running into problems with software that assumes a lot
>> about the users level of information linux/Unix. The Jargon's atrocious
>> and unintelligible and not in the glossaries or the help pages. They
>> always start and step B or C Assuming you know where to put code. That's
>> got to be A. For those of us that are used to microsoft's automatic
>> installation it unbelievably frustrating.
>>
>> Where do you get a basic out line of what "Make" means and most
>> importantly where you type these puzzling little bits of code that are
>> listen in and around the make or build code functions in FOSS? Its
>> particularly a problem with dependant software. The writers of the main
>> software forgets to instruct you what dependant software is needed and
>> how to make it and if you need to make it. The writers of the dependant
>> software like Atlas-c++ assume their always dealing with people who have
>> done computing courses. The last computing course I did was back when
>> Bill Gates still owned money to people.
>>
>> Does any one do house calls?
>>
>> PS Hi Chris.
>>
>>
> Again, it seems we've failed to go back to basics quite far enough. From
> Wesley's question: "Where to type these puzzling little bits of code?":
>
> The place you need to put the bits of code is in the "terminal" or "shell"
> (they call it the "command prompt" in Windows). It depends on your distro,
> but you can probably get to it by looking under "system tools", or
> "accessories", or possibly by right-clicking on the desktop. If none of
> those work, let us know what distro you have (Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse, etc) and
> we'll be able to be more specific.
>
> When you open the terminal, you should get a prompt that looks something
> like this:
> [Lana at localhost ~]$
>
> Except of course, yours won't say "Lana", it will probably say "Wesley", or
> whatever you've chosen as your user name. The main thing to worry about on
> this prompt is the $ sign. That $ sign tells you that you're running as an
> unprivileged user. You should now be able to run most commands that you'll
> need.
>
> If you find you can't do the things you need to do (if, for example, the
> commands you put in aren't giving you a response, or are giving you an
> error), then you will need to change to become the "root" user. (This is the
> same as the "Administrator" in Windows). You can do that by typing "su -"
> ("su" stands for "switch user", and the hyphen tells it what directory to go
> into) after the $ sign and pressing enter, like this:

The hyphen actually does a few things and the directory change is only a
side effect of the other things it does. Basically, it runs the login
scripts for
the user being switched to and drops them into the default directory for that
account (probably their home directory).

>
> [Lana at localhost ~]$ su -
> Password:
>
> Now it's asking you for a password. If you installed Linux yourself, you
> would have set the root password up when you did that. Otherwise, you might
> need to ask the person who did the installation for you. Enter the password
> (you won't see anything as you do this, but rest assured it's recording it)
> and then press enter. Your prompt should change to this:
>
> [Lana at localhost ~]$ su -
> Password:
> [root at localhost ~]#

This will only work for distributions which set a password on the root account.
This is the norm for most distributions but Ubuntu is different here. Ubuntu
recommends against setting a root password (for reasons I wont get into)
but using the sudo command to run commands as the root user. sudo is very
similar to su in that it tells the computer to Switch User and DO something.

sudo is generally used to run single commands as the root user, you do this
by prefixing the command that needs root privileges with the sudo command
and entering the appropriate password when prompted. Some configurations
of sudo allow you to run an interactive shell (like the shell that runs when you
open the terminal emulator as Lana explained), to do this run 'sudo -i' and
enter the correct password. This will allow you to run several commands as
the user that is switched to. To get back to the shell of the regular user run
the 'exit' command.

Let us know which distro you are running and we can give you more info on
how to invoke commands as the root user and probably many examples of
when you should and shouldn't be running commands as root.

>
> See how the user name has changed to "root" and the $ sign has changed into
> a # sign now? The # means you're running as root. Now of course, be careful
> running as root, you have control over the entire system, so make sure you
> *really* want to do things before you run them.
>
> I hope that helps.
>
> L
>
> --
> Cheers! Lana
>
> The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to
> be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time
> to read reviews.
>  - William Faulkner
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> http://lanabrindley.blogspot.com
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