various questions regarding knoppix 3.4 -> hd -> fully

[ovidiu]

Hello ppl,

just to introduce myself: I have beend fiddling around with linux more or less for severall years now, but it never came to more than testing different distros, recognizing they were not perfect and skiiping to the next. So I have a basic linux knowledge, not specialized in any distro and I know how to use the man command and how to look up things in a book :D I use my laptop for surfing, emailing, (sometimes I need to send an email from a local mailserver) web design ( good xhtml / php editor with syntax highlighting needed) and office working.

Now I will tell you what I did:

Used a knoppix 3.4 livecd booted my laptop (sony vaio pcg grx 416) and tested the hardware. Everything was working out of the box, even ACPI seemed to be ok. So I did a hd install (debian like). I used a 9 gb partition formated with reiserfs and a 1gb part as swap. I then used apt-get update and apt-get upgrade / apt-get dist-upgrade so now I have the most up to date packsges. I installed synaptic and used that to get the unstable versions of packages I was keen on seing / testing the latest versions of. Used Bastille to make system more hardened, also shutted down daemons I did not need like fetchmail, sendmail, whatever


What I want / need help with:
- what are the most common guis for administrative tasks like: configure different settings, etc
- is there an equivalent for a windows - like gui firewall? what should I use? I have to add I know about protocols, ports and so on, I guess I could use a command line firewall as well if there is a good documentation for it.
- how can I see / solve problems occuring at boottime? when I start up I see various errors / failures but they flash by too fast to catch them - where can I look up the logfile craeted during boottime? would anyone help me fix those errors?
- what knoppix specific tools / applications can / should I remove? I want to get rid of unneeded things like the knoppix : configure swap file - this does not make any sense with my hd install


well, thats all that comes to mind - I'll be back for sure with more :)

[mzilikazi]

What I want / need help with:
- what are the most common guis for administrative tasks like: configure different settings, etc
- is there an equivalent for a windows - like gui firewall?

IIRC guarddog & firestarter are firewall GUI's. That said...I've never used either.


- how can I see / solve problems occuring at boottime? when I start up I see various errors / failures but they flash by too fast to catch them -

dmesg|less


where can I look up the logfile craeted during boottime?

/var/log


would anyone help me fix those errors?

Not a chance. :) Well ok post em and we'll see.


- what knoppix specific tools / applications can / should I remove? I want to get rid of unneeded things like the knoppix : configure swap file - this does not make any sense with my hd install

Fire up Synaptic, look at the Knoppix section and start removing. Just mark one or two at a time and then hit 'Remove' and it will tell you what else it intends to yank out. Of course removing something like sysvinit or x-windows is a bad idea. :)

[ovidiu]

thx, that was a fast reply

I'll start and try to apply the hints you gave, although I am not sure about the deinstallation of knoppix stuff: a lot of the knoppix stuff looks to me like it is used for the debian sssystem as well like prism54, pdf-printerconfig, etc. I guess I'll just have to keep all oackages I am not sure about :-)


Btw is there a list that suggests one application for a specific purpose, maybe with one alternative or so? What I mean is this: there are serverall editors included, a lot of email clients, severall browsers, serverall multimedia products, etc. Now what I meant is there a list of "kind-off" best apps? I do not feel like testing every email client just to end uo using one, test all mp3 players to end up using one, etc. - coming from windows I am used to having one favorite application for a specific task and upgrading that app as time goes by. Rarely I change my favorite app like going from MYIE2 to firefox, just because it has a lot of useful extensions for web page development :D

What about starting such a list? And mind that I am not talking about one of these "whats the best app for ...." post but about a civilized post llike: if looking for a sleek email client use XXX, if looking for a multi pop3 tool, with calendar, and all the extras use XXX....

This is just an idea, anyway I am waiting for some feedback before starting such a thing.


P.S. ISthere such a thing like the cleartype technology for microsoft xp? my fonts are not looking too good using 1600x1200 ( a little worse than in xp)