[Scottish] Hopeless newbie part 2

[Iain M Conochie]

Steve Logan wrote:

> Thanks to all who replied to my earlier Samba question...
>
> Having had to interrupt my messing about to do some Proper Work for 
> the last couple of weeks I'm back in Hopeless Newbie mode (hereafter 
> contracted to HoNe) and have another batch of (probably trivial) 
> questions.  and yes I really have tried to RTFM.
>
> Here's what I've got:
> - a boxed copy of Suse 9.1 which I bought ages ago and have finally 
> installed on a Del PIII 500 with 768MB RAM and a couple of IBM 80GB 
> drives.
> - Suse manuals for 9.1
> - a copy of Suse 9.3 from Linux Something mag this month
> - a bunch of Oreilly books on Apache.
>
>
> Where I'm having problems:
>
> - Conceptual #1.  I'm struggling to figure out where Suse/Linux puts 
> things.  On XP, on the whole, programs are installed (by default) in 
> c:\Program Files, dlls etc in C:\Windows and subdirs, user data in 
> C:\Documents and settings\User\ and sub dirs.  Is there a direct Linux 
> equivalent?  And I'm beginning to think that Suse ain't the same as 
> Redhat?  Can you give me a HoNe Rule Of Thumb for where to find stuff?

*Disclaimer* I do not use Suse too much. However, these are the basics 
that can work on most RPM distros

Usually, programs go into /usr/bin. Sometimes, you will find them in 
/bin or /usr/local/bin, depending on various issues that are too long 
winded to explain here :)

However, you will also find network servers (called daemons) installed 
in /usr/sbin, as well as some system utilities, again depending.....

>
> - Conceptual #2.  Being a big Firefox fan I downloaded the RPM from 
> mozilla.org to my desktop (as root) and ran it.  It seems to have 
> installed in a directory under the desktop, which, I suspect, isn't 
> correct.  Where should I have put it so that all users can run it?


Strange! What you can do, is open a command prompt and type

rpm -q -a | grep -i firefox

This command quries (-q) the RPM database for all (-a) installed 
packages, with the grep bit only showing the firefox rpm. -i is for case 
insensitive

Then, you can type

rpm -q -l <Firefox package name>

where firefox package name is the name that was given in the first 
command. This will list all the files installed by the firefox RPM and 
where they are.

>
> - I installed Webmin (sort of), ie I downloaded the RPM and double 
> clicked on it.  I suspect that I've got another of these strange 
> 'where are things supposed to be' problems because Webmin can't find 
> my Apache 2 install (which I did directly from YaST from the CDs).  
> So, two things (a) is Webmin a Good Thing? (b) What do I need to do to 
> get it working (that's probably a dumb question!  I have tried using 
> YaST to install the Webmin from the CD set but YaST appears to bomb 
> out without doing anything).


repeat the above, except replace firefox with apache to find out where 
that is and then webmin to find out where RPM has put that

>
> HoNe Q1: How do I uninstall apps?


rpm -e <package name>

Or, i suspect YAST will have a listing of all packages installed and you 
can remove from there

>
> HoNe Q2: I've got this Suse 9.3 from the Linux mag.  Can I 'install' 
> that over what I've got?  Will I lose anything (eg YaST online update 
> or similar?  I'm hazy as to what I get for paying fifty quid for the 
> boxed version of 9.1 vs the free versions)


hmmm. To be honest, I prefer clean installs rather than upgrades. You 
can never be sure what will go on during an upgrade. And since you paid 
for 9.1, I would keep that on for just now (just _my_ preference ;)

>
> I'll stop now 'cos life is too short but there's more!  (Apache Tomcat 
> etc etc)...
>
> Thanks for any assistance...


Good luck

Iain

>
> Ta
>
> Steve
>
>
>
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