From Windows to MEPIS
Contents
1. which is a compressed file like a zip file usually ending in tar gz tar bz2 or tgz e Miscellaneous Many software developers package software in their own custom ways usually 23 See tarball in glossary distributed as tarballs or zip files They may contain setup scripts ready to run binaries or binary installer programs similar to Windows setup exe programs these are often suffixed with bin or run in Linux Upgrades As I mentioned above Synaptic can also be used to upgrade your system This works similarly to the Windows Update system you used in Windows except that it not only updates your OS but all the software on your system at least all the software you installed through Synaptic To upgrade open Synaptic click Reload to get the latest package information from the server then click Mark all upgrades You can also click the sections button at the bottom of the window and check out the software in the Installed upgradeable section Sometimes Synaptic will not automatically mark an upgrade if the upgrade requires additional operations which you might not want it to do such as installing or removing other packages You can manually mark these for upgrade to see what additional changes are required Because the repositories which MEPIS uses by default receive only security updates and minor bug fixes upgrades are pretty safe and shouldn t cause pr2. network address of your computer Windows stores that data in the registry The Windows registry is a database that holds almost every bit of configuration data on your Windows operating system It is Location Edit Mem Bookmarks Tools Settings Heb S amp S HM BK sems i Meme D BPAppewswice amp Themes Folder CE desktop Folder o ED ntomot amp Notmork Felder Fae Type amp pwn Browser Felder Configure ganaric network p 2 Connaction Preterences mot Q P Desitop sharing EN Configure Desktop Sharing a file Sharing Enable or disable Mile sharing A Local Network Browsing Jf MERS Natmork Assistant Sprotmork Monitor oF Notmork Settings Song lisa raslisa and the io Simple network configuration Monitor notwork interfaces Configure Notmark Settings Proxy Configure the proxy servers FE sunve S Zerocent Sarvica Discovery A module to configure share Configure service discovery P KDE Components Felder d __7 Name KDE Components P Typo Folder R Show tips on startup ese BEVO D Vr Jabur SH MEPIS sports a complete graphical environment no Previous Moot command line required made up of binary files that can only be read from or written to by special software such as your control panel applets or regedit exe Linux does not have a registry Instead nearly all the configuration information on your system is a Koro COn KAN TILE File Edit View Bookma
3. the system Additional hard drive partitions such as your Windows partitions if you are dual booting show up under mnt by default Finally the etc folder is where all the global configuration files are stored You can think of it as the Linux equivalent of the Windows registry If a program has global or default settings that can be adjusted you will find the appropriate text configuration file for it under etc Also system settings such as your network configuration startup scripts and file system configuration are stored in this directory Users and security Accounts and permissions Linux much like Windows NT 2000 XP and Vista is an account based operating system This means that every program that runs on the system does so under the credentials of a specific user account If a user Bob logs in and launches a web browser the web browser is running on Bob s account If user Mary logs in and launches the same program it is instead running with Mary s credentials No program can run without an account to run under and no program running under a given account can do more to the system than what that account has been allowed If Mary s user account does not have permission to save data to one of Bob s folders no program Mary runs will be able to do so either To simplify the management of multiple user accounts account based systems also implement groups A group is simply a collection of permissions and rest
4. Advanced Packaging Tool Of course not every software title you might like to run is in an online APT repository or you might want a newer version than the one available through Synaptic There are several other methods of installing software on MEPIS which vary in difficulty I ll highlight them here briefly but in the interest of keeping things short we won t go in to them in any detail e Deb packages The software packages installed through APT are in a format called deb short for Debian the Linux distribution that came up with APT You can manually install deb packages using the command line tool dpkg or the graphical tool Kpackage Keep in mind that installing deb packages this way does not automatically take care of dependencies like APT does You may need to manually install the dependencies of the package if it has any e RPM packages Some distributions of Linux use the RPM packaging system short for RedHat Package Manager developed by RedHat Linux of course RPM packages are similar to deb packages in many ways and there is a command line program available on MEPIS to convert RPM packages to debs called alien e Source code Any open source program can be compiled from source if there is no other option This isn t as hard as it sounds most of the time but sometimes you can run into errors that require a little more skill to sort through Source is usually distributed as a tarball
5. Parallels commercial The biggest drawback to this approach is performance Not only are you splitting your hardware resources between two operating systems but the guest system does not have access to your physical hardware it runs on emulated hardware Thus if you need Windows for resource intensive applications such as 3D gaming or multimedia authoring dual booting may be a better option Jat care Lem Reenter rm ee RRP ESOwery eo borers Windows XP running in vmware Think of it as Windows in a window Installing software When you install software from the Internet on Windows you typically go to some download website download the software unzip it run some kind of installer program go through a wizard click a bunch of next or yes buttons then your software is installed Not so bad especially if you only have one or two programs downloaded from the web But on Linux the vast majority of your software is downloaded from the web even things like your desktop environment and OS kernel So in order to keep track of it all MEPIS uses a system called 20 MEPIS 7 includes the VirtualBox repository by default but you need to activate it After that VirtualBox is installable via Synaptic 21 See desktop environment in glossary 22 See kernel in glossary Advanced Package Tool APT With the APT system you don t have to go to websites or download packages by hand y
6. installation process could potentially destroy your Windows installation Getting help Built in documentation Nearly every command program or configuration file in MEPIS has some form of built in documentation Just as in Windows most graphical programs have a help menu with a link to the program s user manual this can also be called up by hitting the F1 key just as in Windows There are a few other methods of getting help however e KDE handbooks The help files for KDE es yen ae Set p programs are referred to as handbooks they are Sa At e E usually available from the help menu in the l Welcome to KDE aa programs but can also be accessed directly through a the KDE help center the help option on the K a menu Chapter 1 Welcome to KDE Revision 3 00 00 2002 01 18 e man pages man short for manual pages are the Secs a cied neti most venerable form of help documentation dating Waitome tothe K Desktop Environment back to the early days of Unix They are generally information about xoe used for documenting command line programs ee aa AE ear Rap ah eee configuration files and the command line options of ee ea graphical programs Man pages can be read at the command line using the command man programName or in Konqueror by entering the address man programName EBI KDE help center e info pages info is very si
7. with open standards Interoperability and cooperation between developers is a goal of open source software and open standards provide a way for developers around the world to create compatible software without having to work in tight collaboration For you as a user this means having options when systems are based on open standards your files will open up in your choice of programs your network services will work with your choice of client software and your hardware will just work on any platform without having to install special driver software This scenario is contrary to the goals of many proprietary developers however who would rather snare you into using only their software or hardware Trust While you may not be scouring the source code of your open source applications looking for malicious content rest assured that many others are It would be very difficult for a malicious software author to sneak some spyware or adware into a piece of open source software and it would not go undiscovered for long Of course the proprietary freeware world is chock full of malicious software of all types Games media players utilities and screensavers have all served as vehicles for malware Which kitchen would you rather eat food from one kept behind locked doors and tinted glass or one that was out in the open with nothing to hide 31 See free as in speech in glossary 32 See fork in glossary e Security While it may se
8. Despite your experience though you ve only ever used a hammer and nails to fasten boards together You re extremely skilled with a hammer and nails so that it only takes you one or two hammer blows to drive a nail perfectly Now suppose that someone tells you about wood screws and how much better they are for holding boards together So you decide to try them out You get some wood screws and a power screwdriver You set the wood screw against the board and start whacking its head with the screwdriver in an attempt to nail it into the board You end up breaking the screwdriver while failing to drive the screw more than a few millimeters into the board Naturally you conclude that wood screws aren t as great as you were told Screws and nails are used to accomplish the same basic task attaching two pieces of wood together However they differ greatly in design and therefore in method of operation If you try to operate a screw like a nail or a screwdriver like a hammer the results will be unsatisfactory and unfruitful The same could be said of Linux and Windows both are designed to accomplish similar tasks but because they are designed differently they each require a different method of operation When you try out Linux you cannot expect to work with it the same way that you worked with Windows and get good results Some of your skills with Windows will transfer to Linux but many will not If you try to operate a Linux system exactly like you
9. From Windows to MEPIS A Windows user s guide to MEPIS Alan D Moore http www alandmoore com Introduction Welcome to the land of MEPIS and Linux Like many new Linux users you probably have a good bit of experience using Microsoft Windows and you re not sure what to expect from this new operating system In years past the learning curve for Linux was steep with a user culture populated mostly by hobbyists programmers and self styled hackers as a result it gained a certain reputation as being only good for servers or requiring advanced computer knowledge just to do simple things Times have changed however and these days desktop oriented Linux distributions such as MEPIS provide a friendly environment that smooths out the transition and provides a desktop that even the most average user can work with In the words of MEPIS creator Warren Woodford MEPIS was designed to be easy to try easy to install and easy to use Even so without some grounding in the fundamentals of Linux especially in the areas which it differs from Windows many newcomers quickly become frustrated and give up on Linux before they really get a chance to use it With that in mind I have written this orientation to help Windows users migrate smoothly to MEPIS by highlighting the major differences you will encounter The Right Frame of Mind A different tool requires a different approach Suppose you are an experienced carpenter
10. as they rely on software to do a lot of the work for them Unfortunately the software involved is in some cases proprietary and only works on Windows MEPIS actually has pretty good support for a number of these winmodems but they can still be finicky and not all features are supported If you have trouble with your on board modem you might get counseled to get a real modem which usually means a stand alone serial modem All standalone serial modems communicate using a standardized command set that works with any OS platform if you must use dial up they are highly recommended e Laptop power management Due to lack of standardization in laptop hardware MEPIS may require some additional tweaking to get the hibernate a k a suspend to disk and suspend a k a suspend to RAM features working correctly on your laptop You can usually find help for your particular laptop model at http www linux on laptops com e Video If you have an Intel or newer S3 graphics card MEPIS usually provides 3d acceleration out of the box If you have an Nvidia or ATI graphics card MEPIS includes a special tool to install the proprietary drivers for these cards If you have some other type of card you should be able to get good video for basic operations but 3d acceleration is probably not going to happen Keep in mind Linux hardware support is in a rapid state of improvement If you are not running the latest version of MEPIS an
11. ctical Considerations Problems to expect By far the hardest and most problematic part of switching to Linux is getting it installed and set up granted MEPIS has probably the easiest and friendliest installation process in the history of operating systems but there are still some pitfalls to watch out for If you have a computer made up of 100 Linux compatible parts and you plan to devote 100 of the hard drive to Linux you should have no problems But most Linux installations are complicated by two factors 1 installing on hardware that is not completely Linux compatible and 2 wanting to dual boot with Windows Hardware issues The four big hardware trouble spots are wireless networking dialup modems laptop power management and 3d acceleration for video e Wi fi Support for wireless network cards has improved dramatically in recent years but because the technology itself is in a rapid state of development Linux developers have not always been able to keep up or get the information they need to write drivers Fortunately if your card doesn t have a Linux driver MEPIS has a utility called ndiswrapper which can translate the Windows drivers for use in Linux In addition to driver issues support for some forms of wireless authentication such as certain types of WPA or EAP is experimental and unstable e Modems Many cheap on board or PCI modems are of a variety known as winmodems these are not true hardware modems
12. d having hardware troubles it is highly recommended that you try a newer version 27 Some Intel chipset versions notably the 845 and 965 have known issues with the version of the GUI engine xorg included in MEPIS Check with the community for workarounds if you have one of these Dual booting issues Generally speaking installing an operating system on a computer is simply not an easy task setting up two operating systems on your computer is even less so It involves knowing a bit about hard drives file system types master boot records and other technical concepts Setting up your Windows computer to dual boot with Linux typically involves doing some things to Windows that Windows was not designed to sustain For instance you will probably have to resize your Windows disk partition since in most cases it fills the entire hard drive or you might have to overwrite the master boot record MBR which is the part of your hard drive that tells the computer where to find the operating system Fortunately Linux developers have put a lot of work into simplifying and stabilizing the process MEPIS boasts one of the most user friendly installation wizards around What s more you can find some excellent guides to help you install Linux in a variety of scenarios at the MEPIS guides website http www mepisguides com Whatever you do you re strongly recommended to backup all your important data and programs before installing MEPIS as the
13. em counter intuitive to some open source development methods generally produce more secure applications Source code obscurity is often a crutch to make up for inherent weaknesses in the software s design After all if you are assuming that no one will ever look at your source you may find it tempting to leave a few things less than secure On the other hand if you know that your source code will be visible to the world a watertight design is absolutely necessary A second reason why OSS tends to be more secure is that many programmers can look at the code for flaws and offer fixes With a closed source program only programmers who are working on the code have the ability to make fixes or find flaws in the programming Suppose there are two teams of architects working on plans for a new building One team only allows the team members access to the plans The other team posts its plans on publicly and request comment from their peers Who is likely to have a sturdier safer building in the end People who say it better than me If you would like to read more about the benefits or ethical considerations of free open source software take a look at these links Richard Stallman The Free Software Foundation Why Software should be free http www gnu org philosophy shouldbefree html Eric S Raymond The Cathedral and the Bazaar http www catb org esr writings cathedral bazaar cathedral bazaar The Magic Cauldron
14. ems from the MEPIS store at http www mepis org store Doing so keeps MEPIS development going and helps this great distribution to improve Have fun Tinker experiment and explore MEPIS is loaded with great software and features just waiting to be used See what you can discover Thanks for reading and welcome to MEPIS Appendix A Why open source matters to non geeks No introduction to Linux would be complete without a discussion of open source software and why open source free as in speech software is so important Many new users discount the open nature of Linux and the programs that run on it maintaining that there is no practical difference between proprietary freeware and open source software In other words the fact that it costs nothing is all that matters There are several differences however that affect ordinary users in major ways Granted most of us even those with some programming skills aren t likely to crack open the source code of our office suite or desktop environment and start hacking around But consider these advantages that are unique to open source Longevity An open source application will live on as long as anyone takes interest in it Even if the company or programmer that started it stops developing it for some reason anyone else can pick up the project and keep it going Software meets the needs of all users As applications develop over time they sometimes go through major evolutionary chan
15. for MEPIS The MEPIS documentation wiki http www mepis org docs is a large online manual created by volunteers from the MEPIS community it has an excellent Getting Started section to help newcomers get things up and running When searching for help on the Internet keep in mind that MEPIS 6 x is based on Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6 06 while MEPIS 7 x is based on Debian 4 0 Etch and many times what is true for Dapper or Etch respectively is true for MEPIS as well This can be helpful if you re looking for information about hardware or software compatibility for example In a broader sense Ubuntu itself is derived from Debian so often more general advice about Debian can apply to any version of MEPIS Be warned though given the rapid pace of development in Linux and MEPIS and some major changes that took place in MEPIS between the 3 x 6 x and 7 x releases much of the information on the Internet is outdated or misleading especially to newcomers When in doubt ask on the forums where you can get the latest information When it comes to asking for help on the forums you should remember a few important guidelines about community help e Search first Mepislovers has a good search engine chances are if you have a common problem someone has already posted an answer In addition the search feature at Mepis org searches the documentation wiki so a great deal of MEPIS information is readily available this should be your fi
16. ges Sometimes these changes don t rest well with all users who prefer the old versions When this happens to an open source program the source code can be forked thus the old version continues to be developed along a more conservative vector while the new version can press on more progressively Software works on more platforms The source code of an application can be compiled to run on a variety of operating system platforms An open source application can be ported to any platform that users desire and an open source operating system can be ported to run on different hardware platforms the Linux kernel for instance can be run not only on PC and Apple hardware but on everything from handheld devices to giant mainframes This means that you never have to worry about your operating system not working with the software you like to use You don t have to buy a new office suite because you upgraded your OS and you can run your new OS on your old computer The software will always be free A piece of proprietary freeware can go commercial any time the copyright holder wants it to If the rights to the software get bought by a company or if the author just decides to start charging there is nothing to stop it Now there s nothing wrong with someone charging you for their work but it s nice to know that your free software will always be free and nobody can change that Flexibility and modularity Open source tends to go hand in hand
17. has two possible meanings without cost and without restrictions In the open source software community the usual analogy used to explain the difference is free as in beer vs free as in speech The word freeware is used to refer to software that is simply without cost whereas the phrase free software typically refers to software which is open source and licensed with some type of open license such as the GPL GPL The GNU General Public License This is the license under which Linux and many open source applications are released In a nutshell it specifies that you may view modify and redistribute the source code of applications released under it within certain limits The complete GPL can be found at http www gnu org copyleft gpl html GUI Graphical User Interface This refers to a program or operating system interface that uses pictures icons windows etc as opposed to text mode command line interfaces kernel The layer of software in an operating system that deals directly with the hardware live CD A bootable compact disc from which one can run a full operating system usually with a complete desktop environment applications and essential hardware functionality open source Software whose source code has been made available to the public It also implies some kind of unrestricted licensing script An executable text file containing commands in an interpreted language Usually refer
18. http www catb org esr writings cathedral bazaar magic cauldron Bruce Perens The emerging economics of open source http perens com Articles Economic html The open source definition http www oreilly com catalog opensources book perens html Appendix B Distributions Throughout this article you may have noticed the phrase distribution of Linux This can be a confusing term and concept for those who are not familiar with open source software particularly as Linux is often compared directly with products like OSX and Microsoft Windows Technically speaking the only part of the Linux operating system that is truly Linux is the kernel The kernel is the engine of the operating system it s a small layer of software that works directly with your hardware to perform all the basic operations of your system such as reading or writing to the hard drive moving data to and from RAM or shutting down all your software when you turn off the computer Of course a kernel isn t much use by itself any more than a car engine is useful without wheels transmission or chassis So to create a usable system the kernel must be bundled together with other software packages such as a command line shell graphical interface hardware detection system networking subsystem etc to create a complete operating system Any such bundle is referred to as a distribution or just distro for short MEPIS is one such distribu
19. icenses by sa 3 O legalcode An official summary of the license can be found at http creativecommons org licenses by sa 3 0 Exception The author of this work in accordance with the provisions of the license grants permission for inclusion of this work in whole in part or in modified form in the MEPIS community wiki and MEPIS documentation without the required attribution Attribution should be given as Alan D Moore and include the URL http www alandmoore com Acknowledgements Thanks to Warren Woodford for a great Linux distribution Thanks to the Mepislovers community for constructive criticisms and editing help Thanks to Jerry Bond for coming up with a better title than my original one Thanks to Linus and open source developers everywhere for all they do
20. inux there are virtually none to concern yourself about There are a handful of known Linux viruses but the majority of them are no more than proof of concept programs that never left the lab The remainder largely 17 The GNOME desktop environment has a similar program gksu which can also be used under KDE 18 The menu or desktop shortcuts for programs that typically require root privileges to use are already configured to run with sudo kdesu or gksu as appropriate in MEPIS Thus as a new user you probably won t have to worry about these commands much depend on exploits limited to certain programs or distributions most of which have now been patched And as for malware spyware adware etc it is unheard of to date Commercial software companies have made a fortune selling security as a product but there is an old adage that every security professional knows security is not a product it s a process In other words keeping your computer secure is not a question of what anti virus or anti malware products you buy or even whether you use Linux or Windows it s a question of using your computer securely Where Linux excels over Windows is in providing us with tools and environments more conducive to good security practices tools that can be scaled to the knowledge and experience of the user What are these practices As mentioned above user security is vital making limited use of the root account and password goes a l
21. ion If you want to learn more about the types of Linux distributions available and what sort of features they offer a good place to start is http www distrowatch com Appendix C Glossary binary file A file that is computer readable usually referring to software that has been compiled or to files that cannot be viewed in a text editor This is often contrasted to text files such as ASCII or Unicode files that are readable in any standard text editor 39 66 command line interface also known as console terminal command prompt shell or BASH This is the DOS style text interface A root console is one where administrative privileges have been acquired either by su or by logging in as root desktop environment The software which provides the graphical environment windows icons desktop taskbar etc for an operating system MEPIS uses KDE by default file system also filesystem In this case it refers to the way that files and folders are logically arranged on a computer s storage devices It can also refer to the type of formatting on a storage device such as NTFS FAT32 or EXT3 We are using it in the first sense in this article fork This is when two different developers or development teams decide to take a piece of software in different directions resulting in two different programs from the same original source code free as in speech The English word free
22. m and its root is labeled simply When a storage device is added to the system it is attached to a directory or subdirectory of the file system this is called mounting a drive or device just as you might mount a trophy or picture to your wall When you mount a disk to a directory on the system the contents of the disk appear under that directory and files or directories you create under that directory will be on the new disk By default new devices are usually mounted under the mnt or media directories for instance a floppy drive might be mounted to media floppy but in reality they can be mounted anywhere in the file system a Linux File System media floppy The advantages of doing things this way may not be immediately apparent but think about this situation you have a relatively small hard drive in your system and you find that it is filling up with pictures and other files You go out to the store and buy a second hard drive and install it in your system In Windows the disk might show up as D or E whatever the next free letter is usually and you re going to have to copy your files over to it and remember to put new files on the new drive from now on In Linux you would install the disk copy your home directory to it then mount the disk as your home folder After that you would carry on just as before without having to think about the fact that a second hard drive is involved It s just tha
23. milar to man but is slightly newer and has more features than man Even so it is not as commonly used and generally if a command has an info page the same text will be copied into a man page You can view info pages at the command line with info programName or in Konqueror by entering the address info programName 28 As this statement might alarm some people it s worth noting that the only truly dangerous parts of the install are in resizing the Windows partition and installing the bootloader GRUB This danger can be eliminated by adding a second hard drive and doing some special configuration of the Windows bootloader if you are truly worried about destroying Windows 29 Occasionally due to space reasons programs in MEPIS get installed without their documentation If you find that a program does not have a handbook or help file try searching in Synaptic for the program and look for a package of the same name but with doc appended This package usually contains the help documentation for the package of the same name 30 See Unix in glossary On the Internet As with most free Linux distributions the main source of technical support for MEPIS is community based and found on the web The official MEPIS website can be found at http www mepis org MepisLovers http www mepislovers org is the community support forum and LinuxQuestions http www linuxquestions org has a forum specifically
24. nfigured The following chart shows some common Windows software and the closest preinstalled MEPIS equivalents For a more extensive list of equivalents check the MEPIS documentation wiki http www mepis org docs or http www osalt com Windows Application function MEPIS equivalent s Internet Explorer Web Browsing Firefox Konqueror Windows Explorer File Browsing Konqueror Outlook Express Email client Thunderbird Kmail Windows Media Player Audio Video player Kaffeine Amarok KMplayer Microsoft Office Office Suite OpenOffice org MSN messenger YIM AIM Instant messaging Pidgin Kopete Dreamweaver Front Page Web page design Quanta Plus Kompozer Outlook Personal Information Management Kontact Bittorrent Torrent client Ktorrent Azureus Notepad Raw text editor Kwrite Kate Keep in mind that these programs are not drop in replacements for their Windows counterparts they are equivalent alternatives so expect to do a little relearning and readjusting of your work flow remember that wood screw analogy Windows Applications in MEPIS Despite the wide array of available free software for Linux many new and experienced users find that there are Windows programs they simply can t replace with Linux compatible alternatives There are a few different approaches to dealing with this situation e Dual Boot You can
25. oblems on your system However as a general rule you should be cautious of upgrades that involve the following Kernel or driver upgrades packages like linux image 2 6 x x or modules 2 6 x x Upgrades to the GUI engine anything that says xorg in the name Upgrades to KDE The MEPIS desktop environment usually says kdebase or kdelibs Upgrades that involve significant changes in version number Usually version numbers might look a bit like this 6 2 01 2 Although programmers don t have a 100 consistent approach to these numbers a change in one of the first couple of digits e g moving 6 2 01 2 to 6 5 0 or 7 0 generally indicates some kind of major change in the program On the other hand a change to something like 6 2 01 3 is probably just a minor patch Before doing such upgrades you may want to consult the MEPIS forums to see if anyone has had problems with them Generally speaking though unless you are running a beta version of MEPIS or have changed from the default repositories you shouldn t see any dangerous upgrades 24 See script in glossary 25 Also binary see binary in glossary 26 Generally the MEPIS kernel is NOT upgraded except between major version changes e g 6 x to 7 x If you are seeing a kernel upgrade available chances are it is not a kernel from MEPIS Check with the community forum or look for an announcement at mepis org Part Ill Pra
26. on II See Installing software under section II Part I Fundamental Differences Modularity If you want to buy a stereo system you have two basic options an integrated system or a component system An integrated system comes with everything in one chassis CD player tuner speakers amplifier equalizer etc It may have additional inputs for things like an mp3 player or turntable but essentially it s a closed system you can t swap out the equalizer for one with more bands you can t trade out the CD player for an MP3 CD player etc A component system on the other hand allows you to do just that you can replace components that you don t like or leave out components that you don t need You can even add exotic pieces like a DAT player or reel to reel if you require them as long as the right inputs and outputs are present Windows is in many ways like an integrated stereo system It comes prepackaged with all the basic parts while you can add software to it you can t really mess much with the basic system You can install Firefox or Mozilla but you can t really remove Internet Explorer and replace it with one of them you can t rip out Windows Explorer and replace it with the Windows 3 1 desktop Linux on the other hand is like a component system You can add remove or replace any piece of software on the system from the very lowest level operating system components to the desktop environment or core applications This i
27. ong way toward keeping your computer secure But here are a few more Use your firewall to block incoming and outgoing programs that you don t use Remove or disable network aware programs that you don t use Download software only from legitimate trusted sources the repositories are a good start Keep your computer behind a router on a private subnet even if it s the only computer in the house Don t follow links in spam emails e If someone using your computer doesn t follow good practices limit their administrative access e Update regularly Nearly all updates you will get using the stable version of MEPIS will be security patches If some of these terms don t make sense to you and you need more help with staying secure see the getting help section below Good security on any operating system requires a certain amount of technical knowledge but fortunately MEPIS is fairly secure by default 19 This quote is believed to be attributable to security guru Bruce Schneier http www schneier com Part Il Software Using software Applications in MEPIS Depending on what software you used in Windows you may or may not see any familiar applications the first time you log in to MEPIS Although few well known commercial applications are published for Linux a rich selection of free alternatives are available for easy installation see the next section MEPIS even comes with many commonly used applications preinstalled and co
28. ook and feel of MEPIS and see the kinds of applications you can run on it But it is not truly representative of an actual install there are some things that won t work properly from the live CD and more importantly the performance of the live CD desktop is awful compared to an actual hard drive install especially on older machines Bear these things in mind before passing judgment It might not work 100 on your machine Linux hardware compatibility has come a long way Most hardware should give at least basic functionality in Linux and be perfectly usable But there are still problem areas some hardware requires extra tweaking or configuration and some hardware doesn t work at all We ll discuss some of the most common difficulties later on Start with the basics It s amazing how many new Linux users start out by trying to run Windows software in Wine or compiling software from source code to get the latest versions Start out slow stick to the preinstalled software or software from the repositories and try to get a feel for this new OS without trying to modify the system too much Take some time to find out what MEPIS can do well before trying to make it do things it might not do well Nm A U A derivative of MEPIS called AntiX has been designed specifically for older hardware More information is at http antix mepis org See live CD in glossary See section II See Windows applications in MEPIS under secti
29. operated Windows especially if you are 1 See appendix B for an explanation of Linux distributions an advanced user chances are your efforts will end in frustration and possibly a broken system and if you judge Linux solely on how much it is or isn t like Windows you are likely to be disappointed The best approach is to put aside your assumptions follow the recommended practices and try to get a handle on how the system is designed to be used Some practical advice Enough with the analogies here are some practical points e Try it on a decent computer Linux has earned a reputation for working well on older hardware and many people have used it to give a second life to an older computer running an unsupported legacy OS Even so it isn t going to work miracles if your hardware is defective broken or extremely old MEPIS will likely perform poorly and leave you unimpressed The MEPIS website http www mepis org recommends an absolute minimum of 128 MB of RAM and 2 5 GB of hard drive space to use MEPIS with at least a Pentium II processor though it cautions that these figures will give very poor results It also states that MEPIS will give you about the same level of performance you d get from Windows XP on the same hardware Don t judge performance by the live CD The live CD which allows you to run a live MEPIS session from a CD without actually installing gives you a great way to get a glimpse of the l
30. ou end up finding the solution to an issue or if the community manages to get you fixed make sure you post back saying how the issue was resolved and mark your post as solved This helps other people who may be having a similar problem and are searching the forums for ideas What Next Hopefully you have taken in more than enough information to get you started using MEPIS Linux If you haven t done so already here are a few recommended steps for getting started with MEPIS Install it Download the latest MEPIS live CD image from http www mepis org and install it on your computer Read the manual For the release of MEPIS 7 0 the MEPIS user community got together and produced an excellent practical guide for installing configuring and using MEPIS You can find a link to it on your MEPIS 7 0 desktop or point Konqueror to usr share mepis manual en index html Check out the wiki Check out the Getting Started section on the MEPIS documentation wiki http www mepis org docs Instructions on setting up many common and some uncommon devices and services can be found there as well as general usage information Join the community Pop on over to http www mepislovers org and join the MEPIS community You ll find lots of helpful people ready to answer your questions and help you get productive with your new OS Contribute MEPIS is free But if you decide MEPIS is the OS for you why not contribute by purchasing it
31. ou use a single program Synaptic to find select install and upgrade all the software on your system The interface is very easy and consistent no matter what software package you install In addition Synaptic does a kind of background check on every package you install with it making sure you have all the required support software to run a given program checking the packages to make sure they haven t been tampered with or corrupted and ensuring that you are getting the latest versions available for your OS Installing software with Synaptic is a simple De bit bags sams ta point and click procedure When you launch ee Synaptic you are presented with a massive list of software packages that you can install All of the software packages listed are located on special Web servers called repositories you can download the latest list by clicking the reload button Once you ve done this you can locate software you want to install using the search feature or by browsing through category sections like games or graphics When you find a package you want simply select it and hit apply Synaptic automatically downloads the package and any necessary support packages and Taob 93040 Teer aE 101 hi J installs them For more information about APT sssr sseni inae ienesa cenn and repositories see this excellent article on Installing software with Synaptic Wikipedia http en wikipedia org wiki
32. rictions that can be applied to a user for instance on MEPIS being a member of the cdrom group allows you to use local CD ROM drives while membership in the scanner group allows you to use scanning devices As mentioned before newer versions of Windows operate on this principle as well 3 1 95 98 and ME did not in theory Linux and Windows operate mostly the same in this respect However in practice there is a big difference Most people set up their Windows user account as a member of the administrators group meaning that their regular user account has unlimited privileges on the system in fact the user account you create in the setup wizard for Windows XP defaults to an administrator account with no password On Linux there is only one administrative account It is called root and it should only be used for doing system administration and special low level tasks Do not operate your system as root for normal tasks Doing so undermines the whole security model of Linux 15 See Configuration files under section I 16 Naturally a user account can be a member of multiple groups allowing you to have multiple system permissions Users in MEPIS are by default added to a variety of groups Because we do need to run programs with root privileges though for tasks like installing software or editing global configurations for example Linux provides us with ways of running individual programs with
33. rks Tools Settings Help Preece noes J Section Screen Identifier Device Device Monitor i DefaultDepth 24 F SubSection Display Depth 1 Default Screen Generic Monitor c Modes EndSubSection Cl SubSection Display Depth 4 Modes EndSubSection Ej SubSection Display Depth Modes Intel Corporation 82852 855GM Integrated Graphics 1024x768 800x600 640x480 1024x768 800x600 640x480 8 1024x768 800x600 640x480 stored in discrete human readable text files These files are usually referred to as config files or conf files In the old days administering a Linux system was largely a matter of editing text files even now the slick graphical tools we have for administering MEPIS are doing little more than making changes to text files which knowledgeable users could just as well edit directly As a new user you probably won t be hacking into any configuration files just yet but it s important to keep this difference in mind as you learn more about Linux naar Part of the config file that controls video display Case Sensitivity Like all Linux distributions MEPIS is case sensitive This means that MEPIS txt and Mepis TXT are not the same file and FireFox is not the same command as firefox For point and click users this generally isn t an issue but it s importan
34. root credentials without having to be fully logged in as root The most common include e kdesu This command is for running graphical nen ale programs as root in KDE To run a program with root ee ee apis nc credentials you would type kdesu someProgram below or click Ignore to continue with your after which you ll be prompted for root password Command synaptic current privileges e Administrator Mode In the system configuration soc i tools you may notice a button at the bottom of the ignore OK Cancel page on some configuration screens that says Administrator Mode Typically if a setting involves KDE asking for your root password global changes to the system such as adding a printer or setting the network settings you need to have root privileges to do this Just press the Administrator Mode button and enter your root password e su This command is used on the command line to switch to another user account within a terminal session You can specify the user account or specify no user account to become root e sudo This is a highly customizable command that allows only specific programs to be run by specific users with root privileges MEPIS does not use sudo for anything by default but it can be configured if you need it When running a program as root keep in mind that any user specific configurations that you do will be configured for the root user If you later run
35. rst stop for finding answers Of course Google can turn up all kinds of information Google even has a special search engine for Linux related topics at http www google com linux e Be polite friendly and positive Nobody on the forums is paid or obligated to support you it s a community Demanding service from a community forum is like complaining about the food at a family potluck Many people like to help newcomers for the pure joy of being helpful and making use of their knowledge Be respectful and appreciative of this fact Also be aware that the MEPIS community unlike some other Linux communities has historically been more of a user community than a developer community e Be teachable and self sufficient Everyone on the community site started out just like you over time they asked questions read responses broke things fixed things and just generally got their hands dirty digging in to what Linux is all about If you post a problem you will probably be asked to run some commands read some documentation or check out a post at another forum If you aren t willing to learn and do some legwork if your expectation is that someone will wave a magic wand and make your problem go away community support probably isn t for you you might want to check out a commercially supported Linux or find someone in your area through Craigslist or similar sites who is willing to do paid support for Linux e Report back on your results If y
36. s to BASH scripts but other languages can be used as well source code The human readable code in which software is written tarball An archiving format like zip popular on the Linux platform Unlike zip files though tarballs may use one of a number of different compression formats such as gzip or bzip2 They usually end in file extensions like tgz tar gz or tar bz2 window manager A component of a desktop environment that provides the basic maximize minimize close move functions for windows in the GUI environment Sometimes they can be used as an alternative to a full desktop environment Unix also UNIX The operating system which Linux is modeled after developed in the late 1960 s at Bell Labs and used primarily for servers and mainframes Like Linux Unix has many variations for more information see this article http en wikipedia org wiki Unix X also X11 X windows xorg The basic GUI engine for most Linux and Unix systems License Information This work is copyright 2007 Alan D Moore It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3 0 unported license This means you may legally redistribute or create derivative works based on this document provided you 1 provide attribution to the author and 2 distribute this work or any derivatives under a compatible license The above is only a loose summary of the license terms The full text of the license can be found at http creativecommons org l
37. s why Linux has always been considered ideal for customized solutions or for those who like to tinker Of course doing so requires a bit of knowledge and many people are content to have a system that just works with or without the options MEPIS gives you the best of both worlds although it still allows you the option of customizing your system to your heart s content everything you need to have a complete operating system and more is preinstalled and configured As you become a more experienced Linux user you may find yourself removing parts of the OS you don t use installing tools that make certain tasks easier or replacing components to create an environment more suited to your needs or your computer s hardware In the meantime it s only important that you understand that MEPIS is simply one combination of components that have been packaged together for convenience other versions of Linux or even another user s customized version of MEPIS may contain very different components The command line and the GUI To most Windows users the command line interface CLI is a relic of the past that died with DOS the mere suggestion of interacting with a computer via typed commands tends to inspire everything from revulsion to outrage in many new Linux users Yet the command line interface remains alive and well with many Linux users It is a powerful tool with decades of development and user experience behind it augmented by a wide selec
38. set up Linux and Windows on the same computer selecting the OS you want to use when you start the computer The downside of this is that you have to reboot every time you want to go back and forth between your Windows software and your Linux software e Wine and its derivatives Wine is a program that provides Windows compatible software with a fake Windows environment to run in Wine is not very easy to set up and the results are often disappointing if you even get results Still it typically works great for smaller older applications that don t need to deal directly with your hardware or for well known applications that have been out for a while such as Microsoft Office 2000 Wine is free but there are several commercial derivatives that add user friendly features and extended compatibility with certain types of Windows Software Cedega which is designed for games and Crossover Office designed for productivity applications are the two leading products e Virtual Computing One of the newest solutions to the Windows software dilemma is to simply run Windows on a virtual computer inside your Linux install It requires a relatively powerful computer with lots of memory but when set up properly you can run Windows in a window on your desktop and have instant access to your old software The most popular products for accomplishing this are VMware free qemu free and open source VirtualBox free and mostly open source and
39. t suddenly your old home directory will have a lot more room Important folders MEPIS has several directories right under the root of the file system These directories are based on the Unix filesystem hierarchy standard which you can read more about at http www pathname com fhs As a new user there are only a few of these directories you need to be concerned with By far the most important to you is the home directory Under home each user on the system has a 12 See file system in glossary 13 It s worth noting that network file shares such as shared folders on a file server or NAS are mounted in the same way as physical devices 14 See Unix in glossary folder called the user s home folder By default this folder is the only folder on the system in which you can save or edit files Everything about your user account from your desktop background to your email messages is saved somewhere in your home folder This may seem restricting at first as Windows users are used to being able to put files anywhere on the system they want to However keeping all your files folders and settings in one directory makes it very easy to back up all your data and protects you from accidentally overwriting or deleting system files The next folders you want to know which I ve already mentioned are mnt or media Removable devices such as floppy drives CD s and USB drives show up under media when you attach them to
40. t to be aware of especially if you use the command line at all 9 See binary file in Glossary 10 If you are old enough to have used DOS or Windows 3 1 you may remember ini files which were used to configure those systems Most Linux configuration files use a similar syntax and structure 11 It s worth noting that typical Linux configuration files are meant to be hand edited and as such they are typically both easily readable and heavily documented internally with comments and externally in a man page or handbook Contrast this to the Windows registry which is largely cryptic nonsense understood only by the system s specialized configuration tools File system Basic file system structure One of the first problems I struggled with as a Linux user was how the file system worked If you have been looking around your MEPIS system trying to find the C drive or A drive you are searching in vain Linux handles storage media very differently Floppy 1st HD 2nd HD On your Windows computer each drive or partition receives a letter like C The top level directory on C is C this is called the root of C Under that root directory there are various subdirectories and subdirectories of subdirectories branching out into a tree structure we call the file system of C Each device contains its own file system i Windows File System On Linux there is only one file syste
41. the program as a normal user you will no longer have your specific configurations For example if you were to run the KDE settings utility as root and changed the desktop settings the changes would affect root s desktop not yours It s tempting for many new Linux users who are used to Windows to want to try to disable as many of these security measures as they can and make their user as close to administrator as Linux will allow because this is common practice on Windows There is really no clean way to do this and in any case this sort of thing should be avoided as much as possible There is rarely any good reason to have administrative privileges for regular use in a properly designed system which we like to think Linux is Anti virus firewalls and other security software For many people the switch to Linux is motivated by problems they ve had with viruses or malware in Windows If this is part of your reason you are probably interested in getting some anti virus anti malware and anti intrusion software going on your MEPIS system Fortunately for you MEPIS ships with an excellent anti virus clamav and firewall guarddog already installed There are veritable gigabytes of debate on the web about what the future holds for Linux viruses and whether the increasing popularity of the platform will prompt more viruses to be written for it What is beyond debate however is the current state of affairs on viruses and malware for L
42. tion Because the Linux kernel and the software typically bundled with it are free and open source any company organization or individual is free to create a distribution and distribute it They are even free to take other existing distributions modify them and redistribute the result as a new distribution The large number of distributions that have resulted from this is often a source of criticism from both computer novices and industry veterans indeed the choices can be overwhelming when trying to settle on a distribution to use But keep in mind that this variety is good for Linux and Linux users in many ways e It allows Linux to develop in an evolutionary manner where the best ideas and approaches garner the most users and interest e It allows developers to re use other good ideas while inventing their own For instance by using the Debian distribution as a base MEPIS developer Warren Woodford only had to add the parts that he felt needed improvement in order to create a whole new distribution e It allows distributions to specialize Unlike Windows which tries to be everything from a gaming system to a secure server platform in one OS Linux distributions can be tailored to a specific niche For instance MEPIS and PCLinuxOS are tailored towards home desktop users CentOS and RedHat are geared toward secure servers Knoppix and Morphix are designed to be useful live CD s and Musix and Dyne bolic were designed for multimedia product
43. tion of command line applications and utilities that allow you to do everything from system updates to CD burning Nearly anything you can do through a graphical user interface GUI can be done with greater speed and flexibility through the command line and eventually even average users find ways to exploit its power If you remain unconvinced however don t despair MEPIS is made for you MEPIS has a complete graphical user interface with icons buttons menus windows and everything else you expect from a modern computer system You can install administrate and use MEPIS without ever touching a command line The power of the command line is still there if you wish to use it but it is completely optional Just bear in mind as you interact with more experienced Linux users especially if you are asking for 7 See desktop environment in glossary 8 A good example of the modularity of Linux can be seen by comparing MEPIS with its derivative AntiX technical help you are likely to see a lot of command line usage going on You may even be expected to run some commands yourself if someone is helping you troubleshoot a problem This is not a reflection on MEPIS s capacity to be administrated graphically but simply a deeply entrenched part of Linux user culture which despite criticism is not going to change anytime soon Configuration files When you change a setting on Windows such as the color of your desktop or the
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search