All Basic Linux Questions /Faq/Doubts whatever

[klinux]

all questions , big or small regarding linux in general .

- well whats the drivers structure in linux anyways ??? eg i got my modem drivers(pctel internal) . got accompaning .a , .h , .o (AHOO, nothing to do with kinetic) files .

from what i think i know , .o is the completed driver ? if so which directory is it supposed to be in . U install it with insmod and check with lsmod .

so if i have the .a, .h files and need to compile it , i need gcc and kernel version to be same or just gcc for .a/.h file and kernel version same for .o files . really confusing bit . Not into programming so dont know abt this stuff .

- xandros based on debian right ? modem works well with xan but not deb .

- same thing with sound cards .

- How do i change the refresh rate in linux ?? /etc/X11/<configfile> ? i only get choice for 85hz in mk 10.1 even after selecting proper monitor and with display at vesa.

- hardware clock changes my time in deb to almost a day ahead , where do i change the settings to stop loading hardware clock . i think i chose this while installing

all for now .

[GNUrag]

Originally Posted by klinux

- well whats the drivers structure in linux anyways ??? eg i got my modem drivers(pctel internal) . got accompaning .a , .h , .o (AHOO, nothing to do with kinetic) files .

All the libraries (mostly) have an extension of .so and have a lib somewhere in their name. .a .h .o are present in their source codes only i think.

Originally Posted by klinux

from what i think i know , .o is the completed driver ? if so which directory is it supposed to be in .

/usr/lib and its subdirectiries have everything that you're looking for. What is a completed driver anyways?

Originally Posted by klinux

U install it with insmod and check with lsmod .

insmod is inserting, read plugging (not installing) a loadable module on the already loaded Linux kernel.

Originally Posted by klinux

so if i have the .a, .h files and need to compile it , i need gcc and kernel version to be same or just gcc for .a/.h file and kernel version same for .o files . really confusing bit . Not into programming so dont know abt this stuff .

In 90% of the cases, the source code is portable across different distributions and kernel/gcc versions. You can pass additional configuration options to the configure script present in the source code repository.
Give $ ./configure --help to see in what ways you can configure that source code tarball.

Originally Posted by klinux

- xandros based on debian right ? modem works well with xan but not deb .

Modems do work with all distributions. You are talking about winmodems right? Xandros might be including some proprietary device drivers which cannot distributed by Debian directly due to a lot of IP/patenting etc... issues.

Originally Posted by klinux

- same thing with sound cards .

same thing as modems.

Originally Posted by klinux

- How do i change the refresh rate in linux ?? /etc/X11/<configfile> ? i only get choice for 85hz in mk 10.1 even after selecting proper monitor and with display at vesa.

What do you mean by only 85hz ? I am living happily with 75hz

Originally Posted by klinux

- hardware clock changes my time in deb to almost a day ahead , where do i change the settings to stop loading hardware clock . i think i chose this while installing

You might have to reconfigure your time zones. Why is your hardware clock misconfigured?

btw: what does the symlink called /etc/localtime point to? You might have to re-link it to /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Calcutta . But i am not sure this would work !!

[klinux]

- reading a bit abt debian from documentation provided in the dvd itself . Didnt know they gave so much . Changed the locale to en_us as en_in was giving some problem .

- Disabled the options stating computer time was UTC , so i guess that fixed the time problem .

- modem still irritating in debian , but works gr8 in xandros ,except for the first dial up . system just hung after the connection was made . Is the source for 2.4 kernel given in the debian pcq dvd ??? i think thats why it aint working properly .

- completed driver as in i get the pctel drivers in .a .h and have to run make , make install , configure to get a working module/driver .
Few other queries .

- Got via on board Sound . Speakers sound supposed to come from the middle port , but in debian , i get audio outta the mic port . i have to keep switching between ports . sndconfig , detects my sound card . But in multimedia apps , it shows no output module or whatever . I installed alsa but alsaconf doesnt detect my sound . Isnt alsa supposed to be like an emulator for sound for any sound card . like upper layer to get any sound card to get an output outta linux . Will have to research more .

- 3d games are damn slow . But love the LOooooooooooong list of games in debian . up to level 70 in frozen Bubble

- After clicking on an html file , mozilla is opened but the windows isnt highlighted and is still on the original explorer window(konqueror) , how do i change the focus to newly opened apps ?

- weird problem . Accidently i mounted cdrive(fat32) and ddrive(ntfs) to the same /mnt/cdrive in fstab . Was amazed to see half ntfs and half fat32 folders/files opening up in /mnt/cdrive . i thought one fs would have precidence over the other .

- anyways ,just started going through linux stuff . Wish they had more picture tutorials like komics , instead of loads of text in novels .

- whats the official theme , or startup for linux ?? anywhere i go i recognize windows theme . Nothing for linux ????

- planning on getting a good reference book , hard copy , just in . any good ideas on which covers top to down , including troubleshooting scenarios ???

you can get the correct resolutions and refresh rates for your monitor by adding the correct mode line value in the "monitor0" subsection the xfree86config file at /etc.get the correct modeline for your monitor from http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl.
also add the resolution@refresh rate you desire under the section "screen0" at the default colour depth.

remember..if you specify a resresh rate which is too high for you gpu,it will damage the monitor though the latter supports it.so use a r.rate > 75hz only if you r sure your gpu supports it.

"Linux System Administrators handbook" is a pretty comprehensive referance .if u'd like a lighter one,you can try "Running Linux".it was my first linux book

[nixcraft]

Debina has it's own book on cd in html format :

Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
Debian Installation Manual
Debian Release Notes
Debian Reference
APT HOWTO
User's Guide (from Progeny)
The Debian Linux User's Guide
Securing Debian Manual
The Linux Cookbook

All of them can be installed from CD just type synaptic at command prompt to install them

Also see http://www.debian.org/doc/books for commerical books

[ujjwal]

3d games are damn slow . But love the LOooooooooooong list of games in debian . up to level 70 in frozen Bubble

Most probably the games are using software acceleration. You will have to get 3d accelerated linux drivers for your card.

After clicking on an html file , mozilla is opened but the windows isnt highlighted and is still on the original explorer window(konqueror) , how do i change the focus to newly opened apps ?

Which window manager do you use? There would be some info in its documentation

weird problem . Accidently i mounted cdrive(fat32) and ddrive(ntfs) to the same /mnt/cdrive in fstab . Was amazed to see half ntfs and half fat32 folders/files opening up in /mnt/cdrive . i thought one fs would have precidence over the other .

I guess the fs mounted first would be mounted normally, and then the files from the second fs would also get mounted there, and be displayed in the same folder. Nothing much strange about that ... but always mount them on seperate mount points.

whats the official theme , or startup for linux ?? anywhere i go i recognize windows theme . Nothing for linux ????

Nopes, the only thing which represents linux is the penguin. How can there be a "theme" for linux, there are a wide variety of GUI's in linux, each has its seperate sets of features.

[naveenchandran]

How to uninstall th installed rpm files?

I have installed Yahoo! messenger, thro rpm how to uninstall it?

removing rpm packages..
#rpm -e [package name]

u can verify the name of the yahoo package with
#rpm -qa grep|yahoo