Linux questions

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Billybob51106

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 28, 2002
Messages
436
Got fedora up and going.

I have my root account and mae a new one called user.

How do I give user all the rights like root has?

How do I install files, the rpm ones.

Thanks guys!!!!

-Bill
 
Well, why exactly do you need to give the 'user' account the same privileges as 'root'? Why not just use root instead, then? If you want to use certain command-line options or commands that are restricted to 'root', you can always just use the 'su' command in the terminal.

Don't know about the RPMs. I haven't used an RPM based distro.
 
I download a NIC driver and I believe it was ****.gz and i cant figure out how to use it

then I download Yahoo messenger and it was ****.rpm

I am new but trying to learn:)

-Bill
 
Ok, first: Only root should be root. Normal users are just that, normal users. You use normal users normally. You use root when you need it.

If you don't do this, you might as well be using windows.

Now, about the NIC driver: You're new, so I'll be brief. It ain't happening. The nic either works or it doesn't work. It's a bit more complex than that, of course, but we'll save that for when you are ready.

rpms. At the command line, rpm -ivh <package name> will install the package. Get ready for some fun. rpm is not really designed to be used by itself ( I know it was for years, but that's besides the point. It wasn't designed to be used stand alone ). Go get apt or use yum to install that package. If by some miracle it does install successfully, then great. Otherwise, take my advice and go get apt.
 
A .gz file is very similiar to a .zip file. I believe that most linux versions nowadays come with a .gz "unzipper". Search on yahoo for some information on command line options to unzip it.

.rpm files are like install programs for software, so that you don't have to configure and compile everything you want to install.

Disclaimer - I know very little about *nix. This is just stuff that I've gathered while playing with it.
 
If you want to learn Linux, you will have to read. Most programs provide information on how to install it either on the site you download it from, on a README file included in the archive you download, or on both. Taking a quick look at the Yahoo! Messenger page, I notice it gives brief instructions on how to install an RPM package.

If you're seriously new to linux and you don't know where exactly to type the "rpm -i <filename>" command, then I understand that. If you're in your Desktop Environment already, all you have to do is open a terminal window, then type "su", then the root password, and then type the command, either by including the path to the file in the filename, or by going to the directory first, and then typing the command.


Now, the other '*.gz' package is probably '*.tar.gz'. These you need to use the terminal for as well (i haven't used Fedora, I don't know if they provide an easier way). The file is basically a .zip which contains the source code for the program, which you then uncompress, configure and compile to create binaries (executables). To do this, the generic steps are to type "tar -xzf <filename>", then go to the folder it creates, then type "./configure && make", then "make install". Not all these programs include a configuring script, so it may differ depending on the program.

That's just very general information. I suggest you see if the programs you download contain a README. Most do.

EDIT: Bleh, 3 posts within the same minute. Not bad :p
 
.tar.gz and .tgz are compressed files sort of like .zips and .rars.

The easy thing to do is to open them with a program called ark, which should be included in your distro.

manually untarring would be something like-

tar xzvf /path/to/file.tgz

replace the z with a j if the format is .bz2



To install RPM's-
as root:

rpm -Uvh /path/to/filename.rpm
 
The people are right.... one of the diffrences between linux and windows is that you usually don't want to be loged on as root in linux unless you have to be. (just good practice).

If you want to find out how to modify file/directory rights... then at the terminal (bash) window, type in
Code: 
man chmod
and then hit return/enter. This should bring up the chmod manual which tells you how to change file/directory permissions.
Note: why would you want to do this though?

~Hope this helps
 
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