The LBook: An Introductory Guide to Linux Basics

Modifications by Anita Lewis, Diane Marks, Sam Morgan, Stefan Waidele and other contributors to the LinuxBasics.org community. The changes can be seen via the “History-button” in the menu of each section. Copyright © by the authors. Before contributing, the authors agreed to license their modifications by the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Published via the internet by LinuxBasics.org

To download a complete chapter for offline reading, visit Chapters in one file. Select the link to the chapter you want. You can then save the page to read later using the Save As feature in your browser.

The original work ”Introduction to Linux: A Hands on Guide” by Machtelt Garrels, Xalasys.com Version 1.25 20070919 Edition is Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Machtelt Garrels, licensed by the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

For pdf, text or other formats of the original work, visit http://linuxbasics.org/LDP/LDP/intro-linux/intro-linux.pdf

---

Introduction

1. Why this guide?
2. Who should read this book?
3. New versions and availability
4. Revision History
5. Contributions
6. Feedback
7. Copyright information
8. What do you need?
9. Conventions used in this document
10. Organization of this document

1. What is Linux?

• 1.1. History
• 1.2. The user interface
• 1.3. Does Linux have a future?
• 1.4. Properties of Linux
• 1.5. Linux Flavors
• 1.6. Summary
• 1.7. Exercises

2. Quickstart

• 2.1. Logging in, activating the user interface and logging out
• 2.2. Absolute basics
• 2.3. Getting help
• 2.4. Summary
• 2.5. Exercises

3. About files and the file system

• 3.1. General overview of the Linux file system
• 3.2. Orientation in the file system
• 3.3. Manipulating files
• 3.4. File security
• 3.5. Summary
• 3.6. Exercises

4. Processes

• 4.1. Processes inside out
• 4.2. Boot process, Init and shutdown
• 4.3. Managing processes
• 4.4. Scheduling processes
• 4.5. Summary
• 4.6. Exercises

5. I/O redirection

• 5.1. Simple redirections
• 5.2. Advanced redirection features
• 5.3. Filters
• 5.4. Summary
• 5.5. Exercises

6. Text editors

• 6.1. Text editors
• 6.2. Using the Vim editor
• 6.3. Linux in the office
• 6.4. Summary
• 6.5. Exercises

7. Home sweet /home

• 7.1. General good housekeeping
• 7.2. Your text environment
• 7.3. The graphical environment
• 7.4. Region specific settings
• 7.5. Installing new software
• 7.6. Summary
• 7.7. Exercises

8. Printers and printing

• 8.1. Printing files
• 8.2. The server side
• 8.3. Print problems
• 8.4. Summary
• 8.5. Exercises

9. Fundamental Backup Techniques

• 9.1. Introduction
• 9.2. Moving your data to a backup device
• 9.3. Using rsync
• 9.4. Encryption
• 9.5. Summary
• 9.6. Exercises

10. Networking

• 10.1. Networking Overview
• 10.2. Network configuration and information
• 10.3. Internet/Intranet applications
• 10.4. Remote execution of applications
• 10.5. Security
• 10.6. Summary
• 10.7. Exercises

11. Sound and Video

• 11.1. Audio Basics
• 11.2. Sound and video playing
• 11.3. Video playing, streams and television watching
• 11.4. Internet Telephony
• 11.5. Summary
• 11.6. Exercises

Appendix A. Where to go from here?

• A.1. Useful Books
• A.2. Useful sites

Appendix B. DOS versus Linux commands

Appendix C. Shell Features

• C.1. Common features
• C.2. Differing features

Appendix D. GNU Free Documentation License

• D.1. PREAMBLE
• D.2. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
• D.3. VERBATIM COPYING
• D.4. COPYING IN QUANTITY
• D.5. MODIFICATIONS
• D.6. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
• D.7. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
• D.8. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
• D.9. TRANSLATION
• D.10. TERMINATION
• D.11. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
• D.12. ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

Glossary

• 1. Typographic and usage conventions
• 2-1. Quickstart commands
• 2-2. Key combinations in Bash
• 3-1. File types in a long list
• 3-2. Subdirectories of the root directory
• 3-3. Most common configuration files
• 3-4. Common devices
• 3-5. Color-ls default color scheme
• 3-6. Default suffix scheme for ls
• 3-7. Access mode codes
• 3-8. User group codes
• 3-9. File protection with chmod
• 3-10. New commands
• 3-11. File permissions
• 4-1. Controlling processes
• 4-2. Common signals
• 4-3. Process handling commands
• 7-1. Common environment variables
• 8-1. Printing related commands
• 9-1. Backup commands
• 10-1. The simplified OSI Model
• B-1. Overview of DOS/Linux commands
• C-1. Common Shell Features
• C-2. Differing Shell Features

• 1-1. OpenOffice MS-compatible Spreadsheet
• 2-1. Terminal window
• 2-2. Konqueror as help browser
• 3-1. Linux file system layout
• 3-2. Hard and soft link mechanism
• 4-1. Fork-and-exec mechanism
• 4-2. Can't you go faster?
• 4-3. Gnome System Monitor
• 8-1. Printer Status through web interface
• 9-1. Floppy formatter
• 10-1. Evolution mail and news reader
• 10-2. X-Chat
• 10-3. SSH X11 forwarding
• 11-1. XMMS mp3 player

The Answer Key is a work in progress. We hope to build it as we go through the book and do the exercises. Please feel free to contribute.

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7

---

Next: Introduction

---

_##_This Page can be view at different 'locations' on this website. It should only be edited here._##_