Chapter 2: Making Commitments

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Installing Linux on Your Machine

If you have already installed Fedora Core (or even Red Hat Linux 9) on your machine, you can skip right over this chapter and go on to the next one. If, however, you haven’t installed Fedora Core yet and are ready and raring to do so, then you had better stay right where you are and read on. In this chapter, I will guide you through the installation steps and review everything you need to do before that in order to get Linux up and running on your machine.

Protecting You from Yourself

Before beginning the installation of Fedora Core, you must decide upon a root password, a user account name, and a user password. You will be asked for this information during installation, so it will be good to get it out of the way here.

You may wonder what this root business is all about, so I will explain. Generally, Linux asks that you have at least two accounts: a root account and a user account. The root account is there automatically; all you have to do is come up with a password. The root account is used for system administration chores, such as installing programs or changing system settings.

As for the user account, this you will set up yourself during the post- installation process at the end of this chapter. You decide on your own username and password. The user account is the one that you use for your everyday computing chores.

In general, if you are doing anything other than altering the system setup in some way, you should be using your user account. This is Linux’s way of protecting you from yourself, so that in the course of your everyday computer use you will not damage the system by doing anything dumb. If you screw anything up, it will only affect your personal data; the system will remain intact.

With your root account powers, you can create additional user accounts at any time. Let’s say that your family wants to use your computer, but you don’t want them messing around with your files or, worse yet, blitzing the whole system in some way. You could use one account for yourself, and then add additional accounts for your daughter (Erika), your son (Jethro), and your spouse (Pat).

Under this system, when any one of them starts up your computer, they will only be able to log in to their own account, from which they will have no access to the system itself or to any of the files in anyone else’s account. Jethro cannot read Erika’s private letters; Erika cannot find out what Jethro has bookmarked in his Web browser, and your beloved Pat cannot pop open one of your spreadsheet files to find out how you are squandering the family fortune — all very safe and convenient. Of course, because you set up the computer and, thus, also have access to the root account, you can log in as the root user and enter any of their accounts to see what is going on. This may not be fair to them, but that is just the way things are.

Now that you understand the root/user distinction, decide upon a root password and a user password. You will be using the user password every time you log in, so make sure it is something that you won’t forget and, more importantly, won’t mind typing in every day. The root password you won’t really need to use as much, although you will be using it quite a bit while doing the projects in this book. Still, it should be something that you will remember, because it is very important.

You will also need to come up with a username for yourself. It could be as simple as your initials (my username is rg) or the name of your favorite tropical fish, such as neontetra. Whatever you choose, it will appear on your desktop once you’ve logged in, so make sure it is a username you don’t mind seeing every day. Having to see “stinky’s Home” on your desktop day in and day out could prove a little annoying if not embarrassing. By the way, your username cannot have any spaces and must be all lowercase.

Once you’ve decided upon your username and your root and user passwords, make sure that you write them down on a piece of paper or in a book, and keep it at hand until the installation process is over and you have gotten the swing of things. After that, you can store it in some safe place — but don’t forget, as I am prone to do, where that safe place is. The information is very important, and it is easy, as time rolls by, to forget such things, which you definitely do not want to do. Holding on to your root password is most important of all, because without it you won’t be able to install packages, add users, or even change your printer settings.



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Linux for Non-Geeks. A Hands-On, Project-Based, Take-It-Slow Guidebook
Linux for Non-Geeks: A Hands-On, Project-Based, Take-It-Slow Guidebook
ISBN: 1593270348
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 188

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