This Reference Manual is aimed at people who wish to better understand their Mandrakelinux system, and who want to take advantage of its huge capabilities. After reading this manual, we hope that you will be at ease with daily administration of a GNU/Linux box. Here's an overview of it's three components, along with a brief description of each chapter it contains:
In the first part (The Linux System), we introduce you to the command line and its various uses. We also discuss text-editing basics, which are essential under GNU/Linux.
In the first chapter
(Chapter 1, Basic UNIX System Concepts) we introduce the UNIX®
paradigm while speaking more specifically of the GNU/Linux
world. We discuss the standard file-manipulation utilities as well
as some useful features provided by the shell
. Then comes a
complementary chapter (Chapter 2, Disks and Partitions) in which we explain how
hard disks are managed under GNU/Linux, as well as hard disk
partitioning. It is very important that you fully understand those
concepts before going on to Chapter 3, Introduction to the Command Line.
The next chapter covers text editing (Chapter 4, Text Editing: Emacs and VI). As most UNIX® configuration files are text files, you will eventually want or need to edit them in a text editor. You will learn how to use two of the most famous text editors in the UNIX® and GNU/Linux worlds: the mighty Emacs and the good-old Vi, written in 1976 by Bill Joy.
You should then be able to perform basic maintenance on your system. The following two chapters present practical uses of the command line (Chapter 5, Command-Line Utilities), and process control (Chapter 6, Process Control) in general.
In the part called Linux in Depth, we touch upon the Linux kernel and the file-system architecture.
We explore the organization of the file tree in Chapter 7, File-Tree Organization. UNIX® systems tend to grow very large, but every file has its place in a specific directory. After reading this chapter, you will know where to look for files depending on their role in the system.
Then we cover the topics of file systems and mount points (Chapter 8, File Systems and Mount Points). We define both of these terms as well as explain them with practical examples.
The next chapter deals
with file systems (Chapter 9, The Linux File System). After presenting the
available file systems, we discuss file types and some additional
concepts and utilities such as inodes and pipes. The
following chapter (Chapter 10, The /proc File System) introduces a special
(and virtual) GNU/Linux file system called
/proc
.
The next chapter (Chapter 11, The Start-Up Files: init sysv) presents the Mandrakelinux boot-up procedure, and how to use it efficiently.
In Advanced Uses, we explore actions which you don't have to perform daily. We will guide you through the necessary steps to build and install free software from sources in Chapter 12, Building and Installing Free Software. Reading through this chapter should encourage you to try it out, even though it might look intimidating at first. Finally, the information provided in the last chapter (Chapter 13, Compiling and Installing New Kernels) will help you acquire total GNU/Linux autonomy. After reading and applying the theory explained in this chapter, you can start converting Windows® users to GNU/Linux (if you haven't started yet!).