Red Hat Linux 7 Unleashed

By William Ball

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Lead Authors
  • About the Contributing Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • I. Red Hat Linux Installation and User Services
  • Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Linux
  • Chapter 2. Installation of Your Red Hat System
    • Preparing for Your Linux Installation
    • Choosing an Installation Method
    • GUI Versus Text-Based Installation
    • Partitioning
    • Creating Boot Disks
    • Starting a Network Install
    • Addressing PCMCIA and External Issues
    • Step-by-Step Installation
    • Post-Installation and Configuration
    • Logging In and Shutting Down
    • Summary
  • Chapter 3. LILO and Other Boot Managers
  • Chapter 4. Configuring the X Window System, Version 11
  • Chapter 5. Window Managers
  • Chapter 6. Connecting to the Internet
  • Chapter 7. IRC, ICQ, and Chat Clients
  • Chapter 8. Using Multimedia and Graphics Clients
  • II. Configuring Services
  • Chapter 9. System Startup and Shutdown
  • Chapter 10. SMTP and Protocols
  • Chapter 11. FTP
  • Chapter 12. Apache Server
  • Chapter 13. Internet News
  • Chapter 14. Domain Name Service and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  • Chapter 15. NIS: Network Information Service
  • Chapter 16. NFS: Network Filesystem
  • Chapter 17. Samba
  • III. System Administration and Management
  • Chapter 18. Linux Filesystems, Disks, and Other Devices
  • Chapter 19. Printing with Linux
  • Chapter 20. TCP/IP Network Management
  • Chapter 21. Linux System Administration
  • Chapter 22. Backup and Restore
  • Chapter 23. System Security
  • IV. Red Hat Development and Productivity
  • Chapter 24. Linux C/C++ Programming Tools
  • Chapter 25. Shell Scripting
  • Chapter 26. Automating Tasks
  • Chapter 27. Configuring and Building Kernels
  • Chapter 28. Emulators, Tools, and Window Clients
  • V. Appendixes
  • A. The Linux Documentation Project
  • B. Top Linux Commands and Utilities
  • C. The GNU General Public License
  • D. Red Hat Linux RPM Package Listings

Post-Installation and Configuration

Now that you have installed Linux and booted your system for the first time, here are a few useful things to know before using your system.

LILO lets you pass parameters to the Linux kernel, which overrides the default behavior. For example, you may have been experimenting with startup configuration files and done something to prevent the system from coming up properly. If so, you want to boot the system up to the point where it reads the configuration files and no further. The override for this is single. This boots the system in single user mode so you can take corrective action. This is also useful if your system doesn't boot all the way to the login: prompt for some reason.

The Red Hat Package Manager

If you want to add packages to your Linux system in the future or upgrade current packages, you can use the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM). RPM technology is a very easy way to manage package installs and uninstalls. It keeps track of what is installed and any dependencies that are not met and then notifies you of them. You can also access the graphical interface to RPM called gnorpm through the control panel while running X Window.

Installing and Removing Packages with RPM

The basic use of the rpm command to install a package is as follows:

rpm –i packagename.rpm

Use the following to uninstall a package:

rpm –e packagename.rpm

Many other options are available for RPM, but these two are the most common.

Packages for use with RPM are available at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/current/i386/RedHat/RPMS/ or any mirrors of this site.

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