General use - FAQ
From WikiDoc
Help! I did:
$ cd ~/desktop
like you said, but it says no such directory!
The bash shell (the default shell in KateOS and most Linuces), along with most UNIX shells, is case sensitive. That means it distinguishes between majuscule ("capital" or "upper case") characters and miniscule ("lower case") characters. You have to do:
$ cd ~/Desktop
with a capital 'D'.
KateOS is so stupid. Where's my floppy drive?! All I have is my C: drive!
An important concept in UNIX is mounting. Before you can use floppies and other media, you have to mount them. To do that for a floppy drive, run:
# mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
assuming you want to mount your first (or only) floppy drive, and also that the floppy is an "IBM" (DOS, Windows) format floppy. The process is similar for other media, but most media can be automounted by KateOS (e.g., CDs and pendrives). Also, the C: drive is usually called /dev/hda1 on UNIX, and is usually mounted under / (the "root filesystem").
This is driving me nuts. I did:
$ mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
but it says only root can do that!
When your prompt is a dollar sign ("$") it means to run as a normal user. When it's a hash or pound sign ("#") it means to run as root. The examples show the shell prompt to tell you how you should run commands. When you need to be root but you're a normal user, you can use the su command to become root:
$ su
It'll ask for a password: it means the root password. This will make you root in just that terminal/console until you exit:
# exit
How do I get help for all these commands?!
There is one command you should never forget: man. The man command searches the MANual for pages ("manpages") for certain other commands and systems. For example to find help on the su command, do:
$ man su
You can even man man!
Where's notepad? How do I edit text files?!
KateOS comes with more than a handful of text editors. Here's all of them (as far as I know... there's a LOT!):
- CONSOLE
- ed
- elvis
- jed
- joe
- jove
- mcedit
- nano
- pico
- GUI
- bluefish
- leafpad
- mousepad
- xedit
- BOTH
- emacs
- vim
NOTE - For emacs to run in a terminal, specify the -nw option... For vim to run in a GUI, use -g (or invoke as gvim instead of vim)[ Also, you need the xvim package installed to run vim in GUI mode]
And there might even be more... those are the only ones I know of. Also, if you install Gnome, you'll also have gedit; and if you install KDE, you'll also have kate, kwrite, and ktext. Add on top even more in the community repos!
There's so many! Which one is the best one?
And the flame wars begin! Really, it's all about personal preference. The key is to find one you really feel comfortable with and learn it well. There's no use learning the basics of all of them.
How do I learn these things?!
Emacs has a tutorial you can run by launching emacs and typing:
Ctrl H T (Hold Control and press H, release Control and press T)
and Vim has a tutorial you can run by launching
$ vimtutor
Leafpad and Mousepad both work just like Notepad.
Where's Internet Explorer?
We use Firefox, Seamonkey, Dillo, Linkx, or Lynx here :D
What's the fastest way to learn how to use KateOS?
Just play with it! You can learn a lot by reading scripts and tinkering with settings. You can go from newb to dude in about a month... it just takes time and practice!
