Depending on how much free time you have, hanging out on IRC can bring you up to speed with Linux very quickly. A good Linux book is another option. Ubuntu Linux for Non-Geeks is a decent one.
If you've never used IRC before, there's a bit of a tutorial here for XChat: http://www.xchat.org/docs/start/ Essentially: - pick a nickname and username (there's no password and the names are the same) - from the list of networks, choose Freenode - once you're logged in, join #fedora or #ubuntu depending on which you use Don't ask any questions until you've seen a few questions asked already. It's important to ask them the right way, otherwise nobody will help you. But, if you ask them the right way, you will usually get help very quickly. I haven't used IRC in over a year, but I just checked, and there are 1400 people logged in to the #ubuntu channel, and 400 in #fedora! That's a lot of people that can help! Even if you don't have questions, just reading the chat history for 10 to 30 minutes a day (and trying some of the things people are talking about) can bring you up to speed in a few months. I used to leave myself logged in 24/7 to a couple different channels on Freenode (##c, ##linux, ##electronics, and a few others,) and check it a couple times a day. I learned more that way than I did in post-secondary school! I can't stress the importance of properly constructed questions enough, however... people on IRC do not tolerate someone who can't ask a question "properly." To get you started, if you're interested: http://www.sabi.co.uk/Notes/linuxHelpAsk.html -Mark C. On 10/24/08, Darcy Dean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > Thanks to all who assisted me in understanding the mysteries of the > Linux system. You people are a great asset to the Linux community. > > Thanks again, > > Darcy > > > > On Thu, 2008-10-23 at 19:43 -0600, Mark Carlson wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:06 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > I have been learning on my own about file permissions in Fedora 8 > recently and I have a few > > > questions about what I saw on my computer. I was looking at my user > account in User Manager > > > under properties. I noticed that my password was five characters but not > six that I use > > > currently. My UID is 500 and login shell is /bin/bash. Another user > account called nobody with > > > UID 65534 is present with a home directory /var/lib/nfs with password of > five characters and this > > > user has it's local password is locked. Another nobody account at user > ID 99 with login > > > shell /sbin/nologin with home directory as /. > > > > > > I checked further into this and realized this has been like this for > several years. I may have experimented with a user > > > accounts in the past but I can not remember this. > > > > Don't Panic! > > > > >From the Debian GNU/Linux System Administrator's Manual: > > > http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/system-administrator/ch-sysadmin-users.html > > "UID 65534 is user "nobody", an account with no rights or permissions." > > > > Absolute FreeBSD has this to say about the "nobody" account: > > "For years, system administrators used the account "nobody" as a > > generic unprivileged user. They'd run web servers, proxy servers, and > > whatever else as nobody. This was better than running those programs > > as root, but not as good as having separate users for each daemon. If > > an intruder successfully penetrated one of these programs, he had > > access to them all." > > > > > Any suggestions or explanation how I use six character password but only > five is recorded in > > > the User manager preferences. What's the difference between /bin/bash > and /sbin/nologin? > > > > Linux doesn't know how many characters your password is until you type > > it in :-) It puts 5 stars there to show that it is a password field, > > and what you type in will not be shown. > > > > >From the man page for nologin(8) on my system: > > NAME > > nologin -- politely refuse a login > > ... > > DESCRIPTION > > The nologin utility displays a message that an account is not > available > > and exits non-zero. It is intended as a replacement shell field for > > accounts that have been disabled. > > ... > > > > To summarize, if a user's login shell is set to /bin/bash, they see > > /bin/bash when they log in the traditional way, or via SSH. If it is > > set to /sbin/nologin, then they can't log in either at the machine or > > remotely. This is useful for when you want a daemon such as sshd, > > httpd, or cups to run and not let it touch any files it doesn't need > > to. It's a bit of an abstract concept, but it is used frequently. My > > system has 25 users with /sbin/nologin as their shell, and I didn't > > add any of them. It's also useful in other ways, but I won't bore you > > further. > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Darcy > > > > -Mark C. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > clug-talk mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > > **Please remove these lines when replying > > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying > _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
