add faq answers

[Master of Reality]

this thread is for FAQ ansers/manuals.

[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Master of Reality / Bob ]

[Master of Reality]

How to install an RPM (Redhat Package Manager) file.
This will tell you how to do the basic install of .RPM files, to get more information on RPMs read the manual page for 'rpm'.

An RPM is a file in most cases containing all the files needed for the program it wants to install. It will choose where the program goes and usually makes all the necessary links for it. Some programs rely on others, these are called dependencies. Some programs have dependencies while others don't, usually simple programs don't and more complicated programs may have many dependencies.

Most of the time what you will do is just a straight-forward install by typing the folloying into the command-line as root (or su in as root):

# rpm -Uvh /home/mojo/program.rpm

The above will:
     - Install or if there is an older version of the program it will upgrade. You may switch 'U' with 'i' to just perform and install and not check to see if it can upgrade.
     - 'v' is to produce a verbose output. This means it will tell you any errors that occur.
     - 'h' will show hash marks as a progress meter.
     - It will isntall the program name program.rpm that is in the directory /home/mojo/

You can just do the following to install a program but the above is considered good practice:

# rpm -i /home/mojo/program.rpm

[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Master of Reality / Bob ]

[choasforages]

hmmmm, maybe we should do a totorial of the plumbing commands(cat, dd, >, >>, <, echo) and friends, cuase with those commands, i can do almost anything/*well, cdrecord might come in handy*/

[voidmain]

Well, considering that most of the documentation has already been done, and people more or less just need a pointer or jump start in the right direction, our FAQ could primarily be comprised of common questions and the answer might contain nothing more than a link to the answer.  For instance, RPM questions could be answered simply by pointing the user to http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/RPM-HOWTO/ or to a specific portion of that already existing document for a specific RPM question.  

Now in the case where no good documentation exists (doubtful) then we could give detailed answers.  Just a suggestion/idea...  "Remember, Google is your friend" could be the slogan of the FAQ.

[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Calum]

do you think so? i like that idea since it will mean i no longer have to actually write anything however much of the online docs are not geared towards the *complete* newbie, and a lot of the questions asked on these forums are from *complete* newbies.

Also, do you think people (particularly newbies) will think we're not worth the effort if all we do is link offsite?

example - Last night i was looking through the 46 page LiLo manual and i reckon there's a need for an ultra simple guide for newbies. This was the first thing i had to configure once i installed red hat 7.0 (well except getting a mate to sort out X for me on my buggy video card!). If i were just to link somewhere then people would think i did not give a shit about the subject.

Plus it looks like a big part of our FAQs will be translation, so if we just link to sites with one language only, we lose some of the people we are aiming at.

just my thoughts...

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by choasforages:
hmmmm, maybe we should do a totorial of the plumbing commands(cat, dd, >, >>, <, echo) and friends, cuase with those commands, i can do almost anything/*well, cdrecord might come in handy*/

i concur completely. plumbing commands need a quick run through. the only tutorial i have seen that really goes into this sort of thing (and it's a big one) is this one, and yes i found it on google!  

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
do you think so? i like that idea since it will mean i no longer have to actually write anything however much of the online docs are not geared towards the *complete* newbie, and a lot of the questions asked on these forums are from *complete* newbies.

You bring up some good points. And one advantage for those writing the FAQ entries is that the writers themselves will learn more about the subject they are writing (hopefully because of much research).  I the FAQ answers could be trimmed for the ultimate newbie and then at the end pointer links could be placed for further in depth reading...

[Calum]

i agree. most particularly i agree about doing the research. i would never have thought to drag out the 46 page .ps document that describes the full workings of lilo if not for committing myself to a faq about it...

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
i concur completely. plumbing commands need a quick run through. the only tutorial i have seen that really goes into this sort of thing (and it's a big one) is this one, and yes i found it on google!        

Actually what you guys are referring to as "plumbing commands" are actually "piping and redirection".  For specific information on those you would want to search for "piping and redirection" on google.  You know you will have the right pages if you find one that explains these redirections which I use quite often:

2>&1

or

> prog_stdout.txt 2> prog_stderr.txt

A lot of good basic information could also come from books like "UNIX in a nutshell" or "Linux in a nutshell". If I recall they do a good job at covering all of this basic stuff, and basic commands and examples of how to tie them together. Of course with good searches all of that same information (and more) can be found by searching google. But if you are new to UNIX/Linux it is harder to tell if the web pages you are looking at actually has quality information.

And another great source of information are the man pages of course and should probably be looked at first.  For instance, do a "man bash" and search for "redirection".

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Calum]

good idea, i always felt a bit at a loss to search for that stuff since it was my understanding that to read the man pages, you must know the name of something, and of course, if you don't (or even know it exists) then you won't find it.

Re: plumbing, well, pipes, makes sense, doesn't it?    

[voidmain]

That's why I gave you the name of the man page where you can find the information.