PC Magazine® Linux® Solutions Joe Merlino PC Magazine® Linux® Solutions Joe Merlino PC Magazine® Linux® Solutions PC Magazine® Linux® Solutions Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada ISBN-13: 978-0-471-77769-4 ISBN-10: 0-471-77769-2 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1B/SY/QT/QW/IN No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. 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Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. PC Magazine and the PC Magazine logo are registered trademarks of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. To Brad, who might find it useful, and to Rounders everywhere. About the Authors Joe Merlino is a freelance author and consultant in Boston. He has been running Linux since 1997 and writing about it since 1999. His books include Mastering Unix, Introduction to Unix, Red Hat Linux 9 Visual QuickPro Guide, and others. William (Bill) von Hagen has been a Unix system administrator for over 20 years and a Linux fanatic since the early 1990s. He has worked as a systems programmer, system administrator, writer, application developer, programmer, drummer, and content manager. Bill has written books on such topics as Linux server hacks, Linux file systems, SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, GCC, SGML, Mac OS X, and hacking the TiVo. He has also written numerous articles on Linux, embedded computing, Unix, and open source topics. An avid computer collector specializing in workstations, he owns more than 200 computer systems. You can reach him at [email protected]. Jaldhar Vyas is a 34-year-old Hindu priest and consultant specializing in Perl and Linux who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey with his wife Jyoti, daughter Shailaja, and son Nilagriva. Jaldhar has used Linux for ten years and has been one of the volunteer maintainers of the Debian GNU/Linux distrib- ution for eight years. Eric Foster-Johnson is a veteran software developer and the author or coauthor of over 18 books on programming, operating systems, and open source software. Kenneth Hess has been using Linux and has been a member of the Linux Consultant’s List since 1995. He began the Linux Users Group in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1996. Ken has authored several arti- cles using Linux in unique ways and is currently working on two different books featuring cross- platform solutions that include Linux. His experience over the past 20 years has included every version of DOS since 2.0, every version of Windows, the major distributions of Linux, most versions of the Apple and Mac OS and just about every flavor of Unix used in the Data Center Linux (DCL). Ken also founded and ran his own computer consulting and support firm for eight years. He now devotes his time to his family, technical writing, his day job, and his art. Ken can be reached via his website at www.kenhess.com. Credits ACQUISITIONS EDITOR PROJECT COORDINATOR Katie Mohr Ryan Steffen DEVELOPMENT EDITOR GRAPHICS AND PRODUCTION SPECIALISTS Sara Shlaer Beth Brooks Carrie A. Foster TECHNICAL EDITORS Mary J. Gillot Dee-Ann LeBlanc Denny Hager Jason Luster Joyce Haughey Alicia B. South PRODUCTION EDITOR Kathryn Duggan QUALITY CONTROL TECHNICIANS John Greenough COPY EDITOR Jessica Kramer Maarten Reilingh Charles Spencer Brian H. Walls EDITORIAL MANAGER Mary Beth Wakefield PROOFREADING AND INDEXING Techbooks PRODUCTION MANAGER Tim Tate VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE GROUP PUBLISHER Richard Swadley VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Joseph B. Wikert Contents at a Glance Acknowledgments . xx Introduction . xxi Part I Before Installation Chapter 1 Why Use Linux?. 3 Chapter 2 Which Distribution Is Right for You?. 13 Chapter 3 Preparing for Installation . 23 Part II During Installation Chapter 4 Getting Linux and Starting to Install . 35 Chapter 5 Partitioning Your Hard Drive . 45 Chapter 6 Using Accounts . 57 Chapter 7 Setting Network Information . 75 Chapter 8 Dual-Boot Installation . 91 Part III Running Linux Chapter 9 Desktop Solutions . 113 Chapter 10 Customizing GNOME and KDE . 143 Chapter 11 Using the Terminal. 161 Chapter 12 Internet Solutions in Linux . 183 Part IV Basic Administration Chapter 13 User and File Management Solutions. 207 Chapter 14 Backing Up Data. 227 Chapter 15 Software Management Solutions . 249 Chapter 16 Installing and Removing Hardware . 267 Chapter 17 Automation and Timed Execution . 287 Chapter 18 File Sharing Solutions . 295 Chapter 19 Adjusting Your Internet Settings . 321 Chapter 20 Linux Security Solutions . 337 x Contents at a Glance Part V Server Solutions Chapter 21 Web Server Solutions. 365 Chapter 22 Mail Server Solutions. 379 Chapter 23 Proxy Server Solutions. 401 Index . 417 End-User License Agreement . 449 Contents Acknowledgments . xx Introduction . xxi Who This Book Is For. xxii How This Book Is Organized . xxii Part I: Before Installation . xxii Part II: During Installation . xxiii Part III: Running Linux . xxiii Part IV: Basic Administration . xxiii Part V: Server Solutions . xxiii What You Need to Use This Book . xxiv What’s on the Companion CD-ROM . xxiv Where to Go from Here . xxiv Part I Before Installation Chapter 1 Why Use Linux?. 3 The Evolution of Linux. 4 The C language . 4 Unix goes public . 5 The GNU project . 6 Enter Linus. 7 The distributors . 8 The situation today. 9 What Makes Linux Different? . 10 Summary . 12 Chapter 2 Which Distribution Is Right for You?. 13 Debian . 13 Fedora Core . 14 Knoppix . 15 Mandriva . 16 Puppy Linux. 16 Red Hat Enterprise Linux . 17 Slackware . 17 SUSE/Novell. 18 Ubuntu. 19 Xandros . 19 Yellow Dog . 20 Special-Purpose Distributions. 21 Standalone, Dual Boot, or Live CD? . 21 Summary . 22 xii Contents Chapter 3 Preparing for Installation . 23 Deciding on the Kind of Installation . 23 Choosing a server installation. 24 Choosing a personal desktop installation . 25 Choosing a workstation installation . 26 Choosing a custom installation. 26 Getting System Information . 27 What do you need to know?. 27 Sleuthing your system hardware from Windows. 29 Finding compatible hardware lists . 29 Backing Up Your Data . 30 Why back up your system? . 30 Gathering the installation and restore disks . 31 Making backups on Windows . ..