you can use ‘apt-get’ tool to manage packages via the CLI instead of using the GUI. ‘apt-get’ can be used to install and uninstall packages as we needed. For your convenience Im going to introduce another CLI tool , ‘dpkg’. Most of you may already have useded it.

Installing a program:

apt-get install

system will check the repositories and install it into the pc from a desired place. By default it will connect your PC to a FTP server and download the required package and its dependencies, then install. This method is highly effective for a good installation.

If you want to install a package which is already saved in your pc,

dpkg -i

At times you have to download the package source code/binaries and compile it then install. To do that go in to that folder and follow the following steps,

#./configure
#make
#make install

Uninstalling a program:

same tools again!

dpkg --list

using the above code you can get a list of installed programs.You can use ‘apt-get’ as shown bellow to remove programs,

apt-get remove

when after performing an ‘apt-get install’, by experience you ll understand that its installing  also other packages as dependencies. We can also remove a program with all its dependencies.

apt-get --purge

these are the basics of Linux file management via CLI. Feel free to experiment the commands and rediscover the CLI.
……………..enjoy…………….

Its kind a cool to create .iso images in Linux because it don’t require any special software to do it. All you have to do is to handle some commands in CLI. So put your CD/DVD into the ROM and open up the terminal/konsole. I ll  show 3 methods to do this,

method 0.

              This is my favorite! Follow the code

‘dd’ means disk dump. Actually this has to be ‘convert and copy’, but ‘cc’ is already using in gnu    compiler collection so they are using ‘dd’. ‘if‘ and ‘of‘ stands for input file and output file.This method makes the .iso file at your ‘/home’ directory by its default. I think this is the easiest way to finish the job.

Method 0

 method 1.

               If your going to use this method first you should have to unmount your optical drive

Method

method 2.

              mkisofs -o /path_to_.iso_file /path_to_optical_drive

So this is it. There can be many other ways to create .iso files. Thats because GNU/Linux means ‘choice of options’. Enjoy…..! 

Hi Fellows! My OS[Linux Mint] is near to crash because of my endless, inappropriate experiments. But what to do, My endless curiosity doesn’t leave My OS  alone.

            In this post I m going to demonstrate how to partition a Hard Disk/Flash Drive without any extra tools. All you have to do is to enter some commands in CLI. I’m using My 1GB small old pen drive. And please make sure that you have chose the correct device. Else I don’t have to say what would happen!

            Open the terminal/konsole, then identify your device by giving,

fdisk -l             (I have done this in an early time in detail)

            My device is /dev/sda1.

cfdisk /dev/sda1 (cfdisk is the Curses based disk partition table manipulator for Linux)

then you l end with something like this,

cfdisk /dev/sda1

 In My example I m creating 2 partitions. And one of them is a swap area. Navigate to  New using arrow keys. Press enter. you l end up with the following result,

Creating a New Primary partition

 Press Enter.  Then give the Partition size you want.

Assigning The Partition Size

I gave 800MB for My 1^st partition. Press Enter.

Add Partition at Beginning of Free Space

Select Beginning. It will create the partition at the beginning. Or if you want it at the end select End.As I done the fist partition(sda1p1), I have created another partition named sda1p2.

Two Partitions are Created

With the arrow keys navigate to Type. Then press Enter.

Selecting a File System

 Check this out. you get a big list with a variety of file systems. I want mine as Linux Extended. I went step forward by pressing a key. Then gave the corresponding number for Linux Extended.

Entering The Filr System Type

 Following the same steps, I set the other partition’s file system as swap. Finally select Write and press Enter.

Hope my last two post gave some basics of Linux/CLI for your knowledge. From Part III I m l trying to demonstrate some file operations which is very common in CLI, stuff like making new directories/files, coping, moving and removing . Lets hit it from level 0. So fire up your Terminal/Konsole & start working with me.

Lets start by making a new directory named D1.

Making a New Directory

You must be familiar with ‘mkdir’ because we have used it before. In a moment when we have to create more than one directory, its not a must to create them one by one. See the example.

Making More Than One Directory

I have created 3 more new folders/directories namely D2,D3 and D4 just entering a single command. Like that you can add more arguments with mkdir. It saves lot of time.

             Now try to make changes in our newly made directories. Its not working huh? it happens because of its default permission pattern. Check it out by giving ls -l. Now  I m assigning full rights to all, by giving 777 with chmod (chmod 777 directory_name  see cli-partI for help) for my convenience. Now I m creating another directory named as D5 and configure its permission to 777. But in a single step,

Creating ang Changing Permision

See, I didnt use chmod command. -m is to set the permission mode.    

Now I need another directory D6, with a subdirectory named sub1. this is how  I m making it,

Creating Subdirectories

Tryout this with -m argument.

Ok, now its time to make files. You can use touch command for this purpose. touch command enables the user to change access, modification time for a given file and create files. Here, I m creating files inside of D1 directory.

touch

I have created 5 different files with different extensions. use stat command to get more info about a specific file.

stat

Notice the Access time. I can change it to my present time with -a argument.

-a argument

Like that I can also change the Modify time to my present time with -m argument.

-m argument

User can also assign date/time for his/her request. I m changing the date into 2009/jan/15 and time into 12.48.10. Here we go,

Changing Date/Time for User Request

Coping is another file operation. In CLI cp is used for this. cp can be used with many arguments and it can be done in many ways . Here I m coping D1 and its content into D2,

cp

Now I m coping only the content of D1 into D3,

Coping Only the Content

And watch this,

-i with cp

-i prompt you before overwriting a file    

This is not all with cp command. It can work with many other arguments.

Moving is another important file operation. You can perform it in the same way we  copied files and directories. But you have to give mv command instead of giving cp.  mv is also used to rename files and directories.

Renaming a File/Directories

In the above example, I have renamed directory D5 as D10.

rm command is to remove files and directories. Usually this 1^st example is called as ‘interactive Remove’.

Removing Files

Above, I have entered into D1 directory. Then removed the file named ‘file2.odt’. Here, its important to using -i argument because it prompt the user before deleting any files or directories. You can also force to delete write protected files by giving the -f argument instead of giving -i.   

Notice: Be careful with using rm command because it can destroy your important data.   

use -fr argument with rm command to delete/remove directories.

Removing Directories

I have delete ‘D4′ by following the above method.

This post is getting longer and longer. So I should stop from here. I ll give you more awesome CLI tips from another post, Remember this Blog is dedicated to GNU/Linux beginners. So stick with dushan888.wordpress.com.

 ……….Later……….

Hope you enjoyed my last CLI post. I told you its Cool! Today you will able to mount your devices/file systems using the CLI . Yes there are lot of things to learn before this, but I think this will be more helpful for you’r day to day work. Sometimes devises/file systems will not be mounted automatically (most of the time it happens on newly attached hard drives in NTFS or FAT32 format and when the partition table entries are not in disk order. But there can be more other reasons for this). You may have experienced this already. So in this case  you need the command line to mount them manually.

            Before mounting you should identify the partitions correctly. So fire up your terminal/konsole (I use Yakuake) give this command,

fdisk –l           

            When using this command, You should first have to be ‘root’ to get information about the internal hard drivers(internal file systems). If not you can only get info about external media/USB devices, if you have plugged any. So type,

su or sudo su and press enter. then give the root password to get root privileges. then give fdisk -l. Now you l get what you want.

This is a part of my result (which gives me troubles),

fdisk -l

 I want to mount ‘hdd5′. I give this commands to do this,

mkdir /mnt/hdd5        

mount -t ntfs /dev/hdd5 /mnt/hdd5    

            Great! Now I have mount the partition I wanted. ‘mkdir‘ is to make a directory. Here I made a directory named ‘hdd5′, inside the ‘mnt’ directory. ‘mnt’ directory works as a mount point for a temporarily mounted file system. The 2^nd command describes the following things,

mount -t ntfs /dev/hdd5 /mnt/hdd5

User can remount his/her partitions with assigning permission types. I m going to remount my ‘hdd5′ with ‘read only’ permission.

Remount with Read only

Mount with Read Write

 This is all to teach about Mounting! No big deal huh? Keep learning Linux/CLI with Dushi.

                                                                ……………Later………..

Lets say its HOT! I just started to work in command line. Its awesome, its reliable, fast and powerful. So this is to give some basics of CLI for beginners.  First I started it with getting know to move around the the file system. Because its always good to start in level 0.

            Fire up your terminel/konsole (I prefer Yakuake for this. But its upto you to make the choice). Type the following commands,

pwd        -it gives the present working directory. 

ls              - show you the directories and files which is in your present/home                                              directory

cd             - user can access a  directory wich is in the home diretory by giving                                              the spesific directory name with cd

                                    example: cd directory_name

cd ..          - user can exit/go back from the current directory to its parent directory

ls           - list the items in the directory.  If the user wants to view this info in long format, type ls -l

               If he/she wants to the view all the files including the hidden files, he/she can use ls -al or ls a

When using this ls command, it explains a lot. consider the example,

ls -l

I have divided this into 9 parts to make it easy to explain.

1. the 1^st character is to say the file type.  ‘d’ = directory ,’-’ = normal file & ‘l’ = symbolic link
2. indicates the  permission pattern. In here there are 3 types of parties and gives permission for 3 different type of actions. The 3 parties are,

A-  Owner of  file                     B-  Member of Group              C- World

The 3 actions are,

r- read              w- write           x- execute

According to my example, the Owner have permission to Read, Write and Execute. But the Group member and World have permission only to Read and Execute.

1.  Number of  links to file or directory contents
2. Owners name
3. Name of the group
4. Size of the file
5. Date last modified
6. Time last modified
7. Name of the directory/file. According to me the directory name is ‘Blender’

 Ok now I type su and enter root password to get root privileges. then I type,

chmod 575 Blender  and press enter.

Notice the difference,

chmod-575 blender

            The permission pattern has changed. The reason is,

7=111 in binary = rwx and 5= 101 in binary = r-x  . This is the way to assign permision.

            You can change the ‘Group’ by giving the following command,

chgrp user file                        watch how I have don it,

chgrp

to change the ownership give this command,

chown name file          same as the above.

            Ok enough CLI for this post. But here on I m going to continue this awesome work and share the experience with you! Finally command your computer to shutdown after a minute !

            shoutdown  1

For more action visite

www.tldp.org

www.freeengineer.org

                                                      …………………..later…………………….