> Debian makes me want to dive in and learn all > it's internal > workings. Keep up the good work!! > > mike
Here are some tips I've harvested from this group straight from Will Trillich's Tips. Hope they come in handy: DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #1 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Looking to use your Debian machine as a FIREWALL? No problem! Try "apt-get install ipmasq"... After you've got your /etc/network/interfaces file set up properly, ipmasq will save you lots of work, setting up firewall and routing tables automatically. -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #5 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : What's a "MANPAGE"? It's the documentation you get when you enter "man <something>" such as "man sources.list" or "man interfaces" or "man bash". -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #6 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : How do you keep text from SCROLLING BY TOO DAMN FAST? :) Before pressing the ENTER key of a command that you know will generate a lot of output, "pipe" it through your pager: ls -lR | pager locate tgz | pager grep -r pattern /home | pager You can also try <SHIFT>-<PAGE-UP> to scroll back. This works both at the console and in rxvt/xterm windows. -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #7 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Wondering what COMMANDS you have at your disposal? Try pressing the TAB key at the command line. For example, "apt<TAB>" will show you all the commands that start with "apt". (This is called "completion" if you want to look it up in your shell's manpage.) (Different implementions have the <TAB> completion set up differently -- you may need to press <TAB> twice.) -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #8 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Search for Debian PACKAGES online with this shortcut: http://packages.debian.org/[packagename] If you can't find it right off, just hop to the "search packages" link that's offered there. -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #9 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> :SLINK was the code name for Debian release 2.1; POTATO is Debian 2.2 (currently a synonym for "stable") and WOODY is the upcoming release (currently a synonym for "testing"). And SID is "unstable". The names are all characters from the movie "Toy Story". -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #12 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Where is the DOCUMENTATION? It's all over the place... and there's lots of it. Much was written for non-debian distributions, and much was written long, long ago. But try these anyhow: on your own system, try "man" and "info" and "apropos", and also look under /usr/share/doc/<package>* ... Online, there's linuxdoc.org, debianhelp.org, and debian.org/doc/ of course. Also try http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/general/index-deb-help-sys.html -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #13 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : How can you generate RANDOM EMAIL SIGNATURES? Many email client shave this feature -- for mutt, simply declare in your ~/.muttrc file something like send-hook debian- "set signature='~/.signature-debian |'" (note the quoted value ends with a 'pipe|' symbol) Then whenever you send email to any debian-* address, it'll append the output from your script, instead of appending a static file. -- DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #14 from Will Trillich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : What's a RUNLEVEL? It's simply a big-time setting group; runlevel 2 might have a full-blown web server plus X running, and runlevel 3 might be ssh-only, for secure logins. Check /etc/inittab (and /etc/rc[RUNLEVEL].d/*) for details on how yours are set up. And try man runlevel. Also see http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/ ... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
