Linux Configuration
6 May 2006

Guides

• Useful configuration hints
• Large file support

Optimizing

• Three articles on optimizing the desktop
  

Booting

• For system startup, see the System V init in KDE helpcenter
• Use KDE's SysVinit to edit the services in the various runlevels
• Debian booting policies -- section 10.3.
  • /sbin/init calls /etc/inittab, which sets runlevel, which calls /etc/rdX scripts
    

Browser

• Access Firefox 2.0 settings with about:config
• Disable tab scrolling: set browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 0 (source)
  
• Close tabs in one location: change the browser.tabs.closeButtons value to 3

CD-Rom

• mount /dev/hdb /media/cdrom -- define this in /etc/fstab and make icons for users

Cron

• Basic crontab with updatedb and ntpdate
  

Editor

• mcedit-debian, in the package mc, is useful for reportbug and crontab. Set in /etc/reportbug.conf -- but generally use "update-alternatives --config editor" to set the default editor for cron, reportbug and other apps.
  

E-mail

• Local guide for mail
  

Fonts

• just install msttcorefonts (and reconfigure fonts in KDE)
  

Hard disk

• fdisk -l -- harddrive information
• cfdisk -- partitioning
• mke2fs -j /dev/hdb1 -- put the ext3 journaling fs on an existing partition
• hdparm -- get and set hard disk parameters (see hard drive configuration)
• /etc/fstab -- map devices to file systems

Microcode

• just install microcode.ctl (on Intel CPUs only, cf. project)
  

Modules

• udev and /etc/modprobe.d
  
• /etc/modules.conf
• insmod, modprobe, rmmod

Mozilla

• Edit | Preferences | Appearance | Fonts | Monospace | Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 15
  

Networking

• ifconfig -- used to configure eth0
  
• /etc/inetd.conf -- defines which networking daemons to start
  • /etc/init.d/inetd reload -- reloads the values of /etc/inetd.conf
• Samba -- /etc/samba (smb.conf, lmhosts, etc)
• ssh -- /etc/ssh (more)

Optimizing

• Great ideas -- http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8308
  

System initialization

• /etc/inittab -- defines init levels (reload with telinit q)
• /etc/rc.config -- defines which services to start (by init level) (see details below)
  
• /etc/hosts -- define legal hosts

Video

• 3Ddiag -- configuring the video card (see example)
• imlib_config -- video configuration tool
• xf86cfg -- configures XFree86
• xvinfo -- shows XVideo values
  
• xvidtune -- set monitor synch parameters

Apt

To turn off pdiff (slower than full files if you're on a fast connection), add this to /etc/apt/apt.conf

  Acquire::Pdiffs { "false"; };

Tweaking sources.list:

Use this in sources.list for getting experimental packages:

# Debian experimental
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian experimental main contrib non-free
deb http://linux.csua.berkeley.edu/debian/ experimental main contrib non-free

in my sources.list, and:

Package: *
Pin: release a=experimental
Pin-priority: 1001

in my /etc/apt/Preferences file (see "man apt_preferences"). This gives me access to all official experimental packages.

Here's one with a bit more detail:

Package: *
Pin: release unstable
Pin-priority: 800

Package: *
Pin: origin people.debian.org
Pin-Priority: 880

Package: *
Pin: origin phebehouse.dyndns.org
Pin-Priority: 850

in my /etc/apt/preferences file.

This tells apt to give Debian/unstable a priority of 800 (i.e. higher than already installed debs and higher than the default for 'other' sources), but gives the two unofficial sources even higher priority than Debian unstable.

This means that the unofficial debs of kdenetwork and kdepim will be prefered over the old ones in Debian/unstable, but Debian/unstable will be used for everything else (i.e. everything not in the two unofficial
sources).

Please ask if you would like further details.

Paul Cupis
- --
paul@cupis.co.uk