The Linux FAQ David C. Merrill david −AT− lupercalia.net 2003−09−19 Revision History Revision 1.20 2001−12−04 Revised by: rk Revision 2.0 2002−04−25 Revised by: dcm Some reorganization and markup changes. Revision 2.1 2003−05−19 Revised by: dcm Fairly complete reorganization and conversion to WikiText. Revision 2.1.1 2003−09−19 Revised by: dcm Minor corrections. Revision 2.1.2 2004−02−28 Revised by: dcm Minor corrections. This is the list of Frequently Asked Questions for Linux, the Free/Open Source UNIX−like operating system kernel that runs on many modern computer systems. The Linux FAQ Table of Contents 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................1 1.1. About the FAQ..................................................................................................................................1 1.2. Asking Questions and Sending Comments.......................................................................................1 1.3. Authorship and Acknowledgments...................................................................................................1 1.4. Copyright and License......................................................................................................................2 1.5. Disclaimer.........................................................................................................................................2 2. General Information.......................................................................................................................................3 3. The Linux Kernel............................................................................................................................................6 4. Disk Drives.....................................................................................................................................................12 5. Partitions And Filesystems...........................................................................................................................14 6. System Libraries...........................................................................................................................................19 7. Linux Distributions.......................................................................................................................................21 8. Booting the OS...............................................................................................................................................27 9. Application Software Management.............................................................................................................31 10. Directory And File Management...............................................................................................................35 11. Connecting To A Network..........................................................................................................................36 12. Troubleshooting..........................................................................................................................................40 13. Software Development................................................................................................................................49 14. Solutions to Common Problems................................................................................................................55 15. Tips And Tricks...........................................................................................................................................57 16. The X Window System...............................................................................................................................62 17. Frequently Encountered Error Messages.................................................................................................65 18. Online Resources.........................................................................................................................................73 19. How To Get Further Assistance................................................................................................................81 19.1. If this Document Still Hasn't Answered Your Question...............................................................81 19.2. What to Put in a Request for Help................................................................................................82 19.3. How To Email Someone about Your Problem.............................................................................83 i The Linux FAQ Table of Contents A. GNU Free Documentation License.............................................................................................................84 A.1. 0. PREAMBLE..........................................................................................................................................85 A.2. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS............................................................................................86 A.3. 2. VERBATIM COPYING.......................................................................................................................87 A.4. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY..................................................................................................................88 A.5. 4. MODIFICATIONS...............................................................................................................................89 A.6. 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS.............................................................................................................91 A.7. 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS..................................................................................................92 A.8. 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS.......................................................................93 A.9. 8. TRANSLATION...................................................................................................................................94 A.10. 9. TERMINATION.................................................................................................................................95 A.11. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE..................................................................................96 A.12. Addendum................................................................................................................................................97 ii 1. Introduction 1.1. About the FAQ This document contains a collection of the answers to the most common questions people ask about Linux. It is available as WikiText source, DocBook XML, an ASCII text file, an HTML World Wide Web page, Postscript, PDF, Plucker, and as a USENET news posting. DocBook XML is generated from WikiText source using wt2db. HTML is generated from the XML using the LDP's XSL customization layer on top of Norm Walsh's standard DocBook XSL stylesheets. Text is generated from the HTML using lynx. Most of these programs are found in most Linux distributions. The Usenet version is posted regularly to news:news.answers, news:comp.answers, and news:comp.os.linux.misc. It is archived at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet−by−hierarchy/comp/os/linux/misc. The latest versions are available from the Linux Documentation Project. 1.2. Asking Questions and Sending Comments If you have any comments, or if you have a question about Linux that was not answered here, feel free to send it to the maintainer: david −AT− lupercalia.net. Place the letters FAQ in the subject of your message. I won't guarantee to answer all questions, but I'll answer as many as I can. Questions that I receive repeatedly will be added to the FAQ. If you wish to refer to a question in the FAQ, please include the title of the question in your email. If you have an addition to the FAQ, by all means send it. Contributions may be in any format, but I prefer comments in English to patch files. Context diff is not my first language. 1.3. Authorship and Acknowledgments This FAQ is currently compiled and maintained by David Merrill, with assistance and comments from Linux users all over the world. Over the years it has passed through several hands, and I'd like to recognize all the folks who have worked on it. In addition to those of us who have been official maintainers, the FAQ is full of individual contributions. The name of the contributor is listed along with the contribution. The FAQ was maintained by Robert Kiesling until January, 2002 Freddy Contreras, [email protected], designed and GPL'd the Linux Frequently Asked Questions logos. Special thanks are due to Matt Welsh, who moderated news:comp.os.linux.announce and news:comp.os.linux.answers, coordinated the HOWTO's and wrote substantial portions of many of them, Greg Hankins the former Linux Documentation Project HOWTO maintainer, Lars Wirzenius and Mikko Rauhala, the former and current moderators of news:comp.os.linux.announce, Marc−Michel Corsini, who 1. Introduction 1 The Linux FAQ wrote the original Linux FAQ, and Ian Jackson, the previous FAQ maintainer. Thanks also to Roman Maurer for his many updates and additions, especially with European Web sites, translations, and general miscellany. Other contributors include: • Doug Jensen [email protected] Last but not least, thanks to Linus Torvalds and the other contributors to Linux for giving us something to talk about! 1.4. Copyright and License Copyright (c) 2001 Robert Kiesling. Copyright