[NBLUG/talk] linux help

[Jeremy Turner]

On Sun, 2003-08-17 at 15:23, Nat W wrote:
>  Hi guys last thursday i installed Redhat 9 so i am
> slowly learning things from many places including your
> wonderful IRC channel.

Welcome to the group! I'm new to the group myself, but have been using
Linux for quite a while now.

> basic info: my computer has RH9 on /hdb hdb1 is /boot
> hdb2 is / and hdb3 is swap win xp is on hda
> 
> Q1. I use folding at home on windos so i downloaded it
> for
> linux. to run it i need to go up a directory
> /home/icco -> /home/icco/Downloads then run the
> command ./FAH3Console-LinuxB.exe and then the terminal
> shows the status of what it is doing. now my question:
> how do i make something that i can either double click
> or type in the command line and it will run right
> away?

Are you using KDE or Gnome?  I think RH9 defaults to Gnome, but I don't
totally remember.  I believe in either, you can right-click on the
desktop, and choose a menu item like "New Launcher" or "New Shortcut". 
For the command field, put in a path of
"/home/icco/Downloads/FAH3Console-LinuxB.exe".  There should be a
checkbox for "Run in terminal" or something like that.

> Q2. i want to have gaim run on startup how do i do
> that?

Try this:  When you are about ready to shutdown your computer (or log
off), leave Gaim running.  When Gnome/KDE asks if you want to save your
session, click yes.  I think this should restart it next time you login.

You might check out the ~/.xsession file and Gnome/KDE have similar
files which start programs automatically on startup, but I haven't
really used them.

> Q3. I'm the only linux box on my network how do i
> recognise the rest of the network?

I assume you mean windows file shares, like with the Network
Neighborhood tool in Windows.  Check out the Samba project at
http://samba.org.  It should be installed by default on your RH9 box,
but I don't know what you installed, or if it's part of the default. 
The /etc/smb.conf or /etc/samba/smb.conf file is the configuration file
for the server end of it (e.g., getting your Windows computers to 'see'
your Linux box).  Look for programs like Gnomba or other GUI programs
that are front-ends to the smb client.  Myself, I usually use the
'mount' program, where you can run:

`mount -t smbfs -o username=windows_name,password=windows_password
//windows_server/windows_share /path/to/some/dir`

and go from there.

> Q4. i've got a lot of MP3's on my windos harddrive can
> i run them on my linux box?

Sure!  With mount, you can mount your Windows partition and read from
(possibly even write to) it.  Your /etc/fstab file should have a line in
it like this:

/dev/hda1    /windows ntfs defaults,uid=icco,gid=icco 0 0

If you have fat32 filesystem and not NTFS, then change ntfs to vfat. 
And don't forget to mkdir /windows if you don't have it.  If your
primary username is not 'icco', change that to whatever as well.  The
uid/gid just lets you access the Windows drive as your user, not only as
root.

> Q5. i use yahoopops to get yahoo mail from the web to
> my mail program, only the source code is available on
> the web, how do i install it? (or any other source
> based program?)

Hmmm.. Make sure you have gcc and std libraries before compiling
software.  It should sound something like "Software Development" on the
install.

The 'standard' way to install files from source, you can usually do:

./configure
make
su -c "make install"

and have it work.  However, you should read the README and/or INSTALL
files before doing this.

> Q6. I've seen alot of sites that offer info for linux.
> besides the man pages is there another place i can
> learn more about commands?

The best place is the Linux Documentation Project, or http://tdlp.org. 
This has HOW-TOs on just about anything you want to do with your linux
machine.  Google is of course wonderful as well.

Local LUG mailing list couldn't hurt. :-)

Jeremy
-- 
Jeremy Turner <jeremy at linuxwebguy.com>
The LinuxWebGuy
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