Slackware Linux Basics

For Slackware Linux 10.2

Daniël de Kok

Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Daniël de Kok

License

Redistribution and use in textual and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  1. Redistributions of this book must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

  2. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this book must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes content written by Daniël de Kok.

  3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this book without specific prior written permission.

THIS BOOK IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS BOOK, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Slackware Linux is a registered trademark of Patrick Volkerding and Slackware Linux, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

Published Tue Jan 17 20:27:36 CET 2006

Table of Contents
Preface
I. Getting started
1. About this book
1.1. Availability
1.2. Conventions
2. An introduction to Slackware Linux
2.1. What is Linux?
2.2. What is GNU/Linux?
2.3. What is Slackware Linux?
2.4. The UNIX philosophy
2.5. Free and open source software
2.6. Slackware Linux 10.2 features
2.7. Getting Slackware Linux
3. Sources of help
3.1. On your system
3.2. On the Internet
4. General concepts
4.1. Multitasking
4.2. Filesystem hierarchy
4.3. Devices
5. Installing Slackware Linux
5.1. Booting the installation CD-ROM
5.2. Partitioning a hard disk
5.3. Installing Slackware Linux
6. Custom installation
6.1. Partitioning a hard disk
6.2. Initializing and mounting filesystems
6.3. Installing packages
6.4. Post-install configuration
6.5. Automated installation script
II. GNU/Linux Basics
7. The Bash shell
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Starting the shell
7.3. Shell basics
8. Files and directories
8.1. Introduction
8.2. The basics
8.3. Permissions
8.4. Archives
8.5. Extended attributes
8.6. Mounting filesystems
8.7. Encrypting and signing files
9. Text Utilities
9.1. Introduction
9.2. The basics
10. Process management
10.1. Introduction
10.2. Process basics
10.3. Advanced process management
III. Editing and typesetting
11. LaTeX
11.1. Introduction
11.2. Preparing basic LaTeX documents
IV. Electronic mail
12. Reading and writing e-mail with mutt
12.1. Introduction
12.2. Usage
12.3. Basic setup
12.4. Signing/encrypting e-mails
13. Sendmail
13.1. Introduction
13.2. Installation
13.3. Configuration
14. Spamassassin
14.1. Introduction
14.2. Installing spamassasin
14.3. Using spamassassin with procmail
V. System administration
15. User management
15.1. Introduction
15.2. Adding and removing users
15.3. Avoiding root usage with su
15.4. Disk quota
16. Printer configuration
16.1. Introduction
16.2. Preparations
16.3. Configuration
16.4. Access control
16.5. Ghostscript paper size
17. X11
17.1. X Configuration
17.2. Window manager
18. Package Management
18.1. Pkgtools
18.2. Slackpkg
18.3. Using rsync
18.4. Tagfiles
19. Building a kernel
19.1. Introduction
19.2. Configuration
19.3. Compilation
19.4. Installation
20. System initialization
20.1. The bootloader
20.2. init
20.3. Initialization scripts
20.4. Hotplugging
21. Security
21.1. Introduction
21.2. Closing services
22. Miscellaneous
22.1. Scheduling tasks with cron
22.2. Hard disk parameters
22.3. Monitoring memory usage
VI. Network administration
23. Networking configuration
23.1. Hardware
23.2. Configuration of interfaces
23.3. Configuration of interfaces (IPv6)
23.4. Wireless interfaces
23.5. Resolving
23.6. IPv4 Forwarding
24. IPsec
24.1. Theory
24.2. Kernel configuration
24.3. Installing IPsec-Tools
24.4. Setting up IPsec with manual keying
24.5. Setting up IPsec with automatic key exchanging
25. The Internet super server
25.1. Introduction
25.2. Configuration
25.3. TCP wrappers
26. Apache
26.1. Introduction
26.2. Installation
26.3. User directories
26.4. Virtual hosts
27. BIND
27.1. Introduction
27.2. Making a caching nameserver
List of Tables
5-1. Alternative kernels
7-1. Bash wildcards
8-1. Archive file extensions
9-1. Special tr character sequences
11-1. LaTeX document classes
11-2. LaTeX font styles
18-1. Tagfile fields
20-1. Hotplug device classes
23-1. Important IPv6 Prefixes
27-1. DNS records
List of Figures
4-1. Forking of a process
4-2. The filesystem structure
5-1. The cfdisk parition tool
5-2. The setup tool
5-3. Setting up the swap partition
5-4. Selecting a partition to initialize
5-5. Formatting the partition
5-6. Selecting a filesystem type
5-7. Selecting the source medium
5-8. Selecting the disk sets
5-9. Installing the kernel
5-10. Creating a bootdisk
5-11. Selecting the default modem
5-12. Enabling hotplugging
5-13. Selecting the kind of LILO installation
5-14. Choosing the framebuffer resolution
5-15. Adding kernel parameters
5-16. Choosing where LILO should be installed
5-17. Configuring a mouse
5-18. Choosing whether GPM should be started or not
5-19. Choosing whether you would like to configure network connectivity
5-20. Setting the host name
5-21. Setting the domain name
5-22. Manual or automatic IP address configuration
5-23. Setting the IP addres
5-24. Setting the netmask
5-25. Setting the gateway
5-26. Choosing whether you want to use a nameserver or not
5-27. Setting the nameserver(s)
5-28. Confirming the network settings
5-29. Enabling/disabling startup services
5-30. Choosing whether the clock is set to UTC
5-31. Setting the timezone
5-32. Choosing the default window manager
5-33. Setting the root password
5-34. Finished
7-1. Standard input and output
7-2. A pipeline
23-1. The anatomy of an IPv6 address
23-2. Router example
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