www.dbeBooks.com - An Ebook Library by Naba Barkakati SUSE Linux ® 10 FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page i by Naba Barkakati SUSE Linux ® 10 FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page i SUSE Linux ® 10 For Dummies ® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permit- ted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Linux is a registered trade- mark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. 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Library of Congress Control Number: 2005933651 ISBN-13: 978-0-471-75493-0 ISBN-10: 0-471-75493-5 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1O/TQ/RR/QV/IN 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page ii About the Author Naba Barkakati is an electrical engineer and a successful computer-book author who has experience in a wide variety of systems, ranging from MS-DOS and Windows to UNIX and Linux. He bought his first personal computer — an IBM PC-AT — in 1984 after graduating with a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park. While pursuing a full-time career in engineering, Naba dreamed of writing software for the emerging PC soft- ware market. As luck would have it, instead of building a software empire like Microsoft, he ended up writing successful computer books. Currently, Naba is a Senior Level Technologist at the Center for Technology and Engineering in the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Over the past 16 years, Naba has written over 25 computer books on a number of topics, ranging from object-oriented programming with C++ to Linux. He has authored several best-selling titles, such as The Waite Group’s Turbo C++ Bible, Object-Oriented Programming in C++, X Window System Programming, Visual C++ Developer’s Guide, Borland C++ 4 Developer’s Guide, and Linux Secrets. His books have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, French, Polish, Greek, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Naba’s most recent books are Red Hat Fedora Linux Secrets and Linux All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, also published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. Naba lives in North Potomac, Maryland, with his wife Leha, and their chil- dren, Ivy, Emily, and Ashley. 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page iii 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page iv Dedication I would like to dedicate this book to my wife, Leha, and daughters Ivy, Emily, and Ashley. Author’s Acknowledgments I am grateful to Terri Varveris for getting me started on this book — a For Dummies guide about the up and coming SUSE Linux. As the project editor, Susan Christophersen guided me through the manuscript submission process and kept everything moving. Tiffany Franklin took care of the project while Terri was away on maternity leave. I appreciate the guidance and sup- port that Terri, Tiffany, and Susan gave me during this project. I would like to thank Susan Douglas for reviewing the manuscript for techni- cal accuracy and providing many useful suggestions for improving the book’s content. Thanks to everyone at Wiley Publishing for transforming my raw manuscript into this well-edited and beautifully packaged book. Of course, there would be no reason for this book if it were not for Linux. For this, we have Linus Torvalds and the legions of Linux developers around the world to thank. Thanks to Christian Egle, Andreas Jaeger, and others at Novell for helping me with information about SUSE Linux. Thanks to the openSUSE project for continuing to develop and enhance the SUSE Linux distribution and for making publicly available the ISO image used to create the DVD-ROM bundled with this book. Finally, and as always, my greatest thanks go to my wife, Leha, and our daugh- ters, Ivy, Emily, and Ashley — it is their love and support that keeps me going. Thanks for being there! 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page v Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following: Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development Project and Copy Editor: Susan Christophersen Previous Edition: Linda Morris Acquisitions Editor: Tiffany Franklin Technical Editor: Susan Douglas Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen Media Project Supervisor: Laura Moss Media Development Specialist: Kit Malone Media Development Manager: Laura Carpenter VanWinkle Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth Cartoons: Rich Tennant ( www.the5thwave.com) Composition Services Project Coordinator: Adrienne Martinez Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers, Andrea Dahl, Stephanie D. Jumper, Barbara Moore, Barry Offringa Proofreaders: Leeann Harney, Jessica Kramer, Dwight Ramsey, TECHBOOKS Production Services Indexer: TECHBOOKS Production Services Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director Publishing for Consumer Dummies Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director Composition Services Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page vi Contents at a Glance Introduction 1 Part I: Getting to Know SUSE 7 Chapter 1: What Is SUSE Linux? 9 Chapter 2: Installing SUSE Linux 23 Chapter 3: Starting SUSE for the First Time 39 Chapter 4: Taking Stock of What’s New in SUSE 53 Part II: Test-Driving SUSE 61 Chapter 5: Exploring the SUSE Desktops 63 Chapter 6: Finding and Organizing Files 79 Chapter 7: I Want My Internet, Now! 103 Chapter 8: Setting Up an Ethernet LAN with Wireless Access 121 Part III: Doing Stuff with SUSE 137 Chapter 9: Browsing the Web 139 Chapter 10: E-Mailing, IM-ing, and Using IP Phone in SUSE 151 Chapter 11: Reading Newsgroups and RSS Feeds 171 Chapter 12: Preparing Documents and Spreadsheets in SUSE Linux 187 Chapter 13: Doing Even More Office Stuff in SUSE Linux 209 Chapter 14: Playing Music and Burning CDs 221 Chapter 15: Working with Photos and Images 229 Chapter 16: What’s a Shell and Why Do I Care? 245 Part IV: Becoming a SUSE Wizard 255 Chapter 17: Look, Ma, I’m a Sysadmin! 257 Chapter 18: Updating SUSE and Adding New Software 275 Chapter 19: Securing SUSE Linux 289 Part V: The Part of Tens 311 Chapter 20: Ten Frequently Asked Questions about SUSE 313 Chapter 21: The Ten Best Things about SUSE 323 Chapter 22: Ten Great Web Sites for SUSE Maniacs 327 Chapter 23: Ten Most Commonly Used SUSE Linux Commands 331 Appendix: About the DVD-ROM 341 Index 345 02_754935 ftoc.qxp 11/7/05 9:34 PM Page vii 02_754935 ftoc.qxp 11/7/05 9:34 PM Page viii [...]... Know SUSE T In this part his part is all about getting you started on your way to a lasting relationship with SUSE Linux Before you can begin your SUSE Linux experience, I spend a chapter explaining what SUSE Linux is and what you can do with SUSE Linux (pretty much anything you can do with a PC that runs Windows) To start using SUSE Linux, first you must install SUSE Linux on your PC’s hard drive SUSE. .. out of your SUSE Linux system Chapter 1 What Is SUSE Linux? In This Chapter ᮣ Explaining what Linux is ᮣ Going over what SUSE Linux includes ᮣ Introducing you to what SUSE Linux helps you do ᮣ Getting started with SUSE Linux I bet you’ve heard about Linux, even if you may not know much about SUSE (pronounced soo-za) Linux Even if you haven’t, don’t worry: I’ll explain everything about Linux, what... source or cannot be distributed freely This book includes SUSE Linux 10. 0 OSS from the openSUSE project I tell you a lot more about SUSE in this book, but you can also visit www .suse com for more information (especially the latest news) about SUSE Linux Making sense of Linux version numbers Both the Linux kernel and a Linux distribution such as SUSE Linux have their own version numbers, not to mention the... applications SUSE usually releases new versions of SUSE Linux on a regular basis — every six months or so For example, SUSE Linux 9.0 was released in October 2003, 9.1 was released in April 2004, 9.2 came out in October 2004, and 9.3 in April 2005 The current version of SUSE Linux is 10. 0 Typically, each new major version of SUSE Linux provides significant new features What’s in SUSE Linux? A Linux distribution... Introducing the Installation Steps 23 Checking Your PC’s Hardware 25 x SUSE Linux 10 For Dummies Installing SUSE Linux .26 Booting your PC from the DVD/CD-ROM drive .26 Installing SUSE Linux from CDs or DVD 27 Chapter 3: Starting SUSE for the First Time 39 Powering Up SUSE Linux .39 Getting GUI 40 Setting Up Printers .44... enterprise This book includes a DVD with SUSE Linux 10 OSS, with everything you need to use it as a personal desktop system If you are starting out with SUSE Linux, you need a beginner’s guide that not only gets you going with the installation and setup of SUSE Linux, but also shows you how to use all the tools that come with your desktop That’s why I wrote SUSE Linux 10 For Dummies in plain English, using... started on your SUSE Linux adventure Take out the DVD and install SUSE Linux, following the instructions in Chapter 2 Then, turn to a relevant chapter and let the fun begin Use the Table of Contents and the Index to figure out where you want to go Before you know it, you’ll become an expert at SUSE Linux! I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it! 5 6 SUSE Linux 10 For Dummies Part... 17 Figuring Out What You Can Do with SUSE Linux 18 Disks, CD-ROMs, and DVD-ROMs .19 Peripheral devices 19 File systems and sharing .20 Networking 21 Getting Started with SUSE Linux 21 Install and configure SUSE Linux 21 Explore SUSE Linux 22 Use SUSE Linux .22 Chapter 2: Installing SUSE Linux 23... Know SUSE Discovering SUSE Linux SUSE Linux is a commercial distribution that focuses on the desktop and includes some proprietary components that prevent its redistribution You can buy SUSE Linux online or in computer stores and bookstores If you have heard about open source and the GNU (GNU’s not UNIX) license, you may think that no one can sell Linux for a profit Luckily for companies that sell Linux. .. program for promoting the use of Linux everywhere Specifically, at www.openSUSE.org developers, end users, and other open source enthusiasts can collaborate to evolve a freely available SUSE Linux Open Source Software (OSS) Novell’s commercial SUSE Linux retail product is based on SUSE Linux OSS The retail SUSE Linux is similar to SUSE Linux OSS except that the commercial version includes some packages that . Library by Naba Barkakati SUSE Linux ® 10 FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_754935 ffirs.qxp 11/7/05 9:33 PM Page i by Naba Barkakati SUSE Linux ® 10 FOR DUMmIES ‰ 01_754935. 21 Getting Started with SUSE Linux 21 Install and configure SUSE Linux 21 Explore SUSE Linux 22 Use SUSE Linux 22 Chapter 2: Installing SUSE Linux . . . . . .