Introduction 1 About This Book 1 How to Use This Book 2 Three Presumptuous Assumptions 3 Icons Used in This Book 4 Where to Go from Here 4 Part 1: Getting Your Feet Wet 5 Chapter 1: Getting Acquainted with Linux 7 Is Free Really Free? 7 Linux: Revolution or Just Another Operating System? 8 Anatomy of an Open Source Software Project 11 GNU who? 11 Who''s in charge of Linux, anyway? 13 Einstein was a volunteer 13 Packaging Linux: The Distribution 14 Core Linux distributions 14 Specialized Linux distributions 16 The Linux Live distribution 16 Chapter 2: Prepping Your Computer for Linux 19 Preparing to Use Linux and Microsoft Windows Together 22 Installing a second hard drive 22 Partitioning an existing drive 23 Double-Checking Hardware Compatibility 29 Finally, Finally, Before You Get Started 32 Disabling the secure boot feature 33 Creating a boot disk 33 Chapter 3: Installing Linux 37 Things to Consider Before You Begin Installation 38 Installing from Ubuntu Live 39 Your First Ubuntu Boot 49 Installing openSUSE 51 Chapter 4: Examining the GNOME Desktop 61 The History of GNOME 61 Breaking Down the GNOME Desktop 62 Menus, please! 63 The desktop 67 Exploring the Activities Overview 69 The dash 69 The windows overview area 73 Working with workspaces 74 Customizing Your Ride75 Background 76 Appearance 76 Displays77 Mouse and touchpad 79 A Closer Look at Accessibility Features 80 Chapter 5: Examining the KDE Plasma Desktop 83 The KDE Plasma Desktop 83 More menus! 85 The panel 89 The desktop 91 Using Widgets 91 Adding widgets 91 Getting more widgets 95 Plasma System Settings 96 Desktop Folder Settings 97 Accessibility Settings 98 Chapter 6: Exploring Alternative Desktops 101 Spicing Things Up with Cinnamon 101 History of Cinnamon 102 Looking at the menu 103 Changing settings 105 Adding more spice 106 Working with MATE 107 The history of MATE 107 Looking at the menu 109 Changing desktop settings 110 Applets 111 The Xfce Desktop Interface 112 History of Xfce 112 The Whisker menu 113 Changing Xfce settings115 Applets 116 Part 2: Getting Up to Speed with Linux 119 Chapter 7: Getting to Know the Linux Filesystem 121 Pieces of the Puzzle 121 Touring the Linux Filesystem 122 The root of the tree 122 The importance of being /etc 124 Where removable media lives 124 Where the computer is the /usr 125 Managing Your Filesystem without a Net (or Mouse) 125 Viewing information about files on the command line 126 Understanding file listing information 127 Comprehending file types 129 Navigating the filesystem in Linux 130 A Permissions Prime r131 Checking out the triplets 131 Beware of owners 133 Hanging out in groups 133 Chapter 8: Using the Filesystem 135 Clicking Your Way Through the Filesystem 135 Using Files 136 Setting how much info you see 139 Creating new directories 140 Opening files and running programs 140 Copying and moving files 141 Deleting files and directories 142 Taking out the trash 142 Viewing and changing permissions 143 Swimming with Dolphin 144 Don''t Forget Xfce! 146 Using DVDs and Other Removable Media 149 Accessing Windows Drives on This Computer 150 Accessing Network Drives 150 Finding Things 151 Chapter 9: Connecting to the Internet 153 Internet Connectivity 101 153 Setting Up the Hardware 155 Selecting an Internet Service Provider (ISP) 156 Getting Information You Need from Your ISP 157 Configuring Your Connection 158 Network Manager 158 Command line tools 163 Dialin'' out 169 It''s All Fun and Games Until Something Doesn''t Work 169 After You''re Connected 171 Part 3: Getting Things Done 173 Chapter 10: Using the Internet 175 Browsing the Web with Firefox 175 Configuring Firefox 176 Expanding your universe with add-ons 180 Surfing the web 181 Communicating with Email 182 Evolving into email 183 Working with KMail 191 The amazing Thunderbird 195 Ol'' Fashion File Transfers 197 Talking with Skype 199 Working with Other Internet Tools 201 Chapter 11: Putting the X in Text 203 Viewing the Contents of a Text File 203 Editing Text Files with nano 204 Saving your work as you go205 Saving and moving on with your life 205 Going with gedit 206 Entering and editing text in gedit 207 Saving your work 207 Setting preferences 208 Editing Text in the KDE Plasma Desktop 211 Writing with KWrite 211 Meet Kate 216 Chapter 12: Word Processing and More with LibreOffice 219 Installing the LibreOffice Suite 220 Word Processing with LibreOffice Writer 221 Taking a tour of LibreOffice Writer 221 Working with Writer files 225 Spreadsheets with LibreOffice Calc 226 Taking a tour of LibreOffice Calc 226 Working with Calc files 230 Presentations with LibreOffice Impress 230 Creating a new presentation 231 Taking a tour of LibreOffice Impress 231 Working with Impress files 235 Fine Art with LibreOffice Draw 236 Taking a tour of LibreOffice Draw 236 Working with Draw files 239 Managing Data with LibreOffice Base 240 Getting help from the wizard 240 Taking a tour of LibreOffice Base 243 Sitting down at the table 245 Layout with LibreOffice Math 246 Menu bar 247 Standard toolbar 248 Document section249 Chapter 13: Messing with Audio 253 What Sound? I Don''t Hear a Thing! 253 Listening to CDs 256 GNOME 3 and Rhythmbox 256 KDE Plasma and CDs 258 VLC to the rescue 259 Listening to Downloaded Music 260 Amarok 260 Rhythmbox revisited 264 Listening to Internet Radio 264 Ripping Music Tracks from CDs 265 Burning Audio CDs and DVDs 268 Using Brasero 268 Using K3b 269 Chapter 14: Messing with Video and Graphics 273 Watchin'' Videos on the Web 273 Firefox video support 274 Getting even more video support 275 Viewing Movie Files 277 GNOME Videos 278 KDE Dragon 279 VLC 280 Watchin'' DVDs 281 Creating and Modifying Graphics 282 GIMP basic tools 283 Capturing screenshots 284 Editing an image file 285 Using GIMP scripts 287 Playing 3D Games 288 Part 4: Junior Administrator Boot Camp 291 Chapter 15: Adding Software to Linux 293 Opening Downloaded Files 293 Compressing and Packaging Files to Share 295 Keeping Up-to-Update 296 Updating Ubuntu 296 Updating openSUSE 297 Installing New Software 298 Adding applications 299 Adding packages 301 Finding More Software 303 Upgrading Your OS 304 Chapter 16: Working without the GUI 305 Playing the Shell Game 306 Getting a shell 306 The shell prompt 307 Understanding bash Command Syntax and Structure 309 Starting Programs from the Shell 311 Putting Wildcard Expansion to Good Use 311 Working with Long Commands 312 Asking Linux to complete a command or filename for you 312 Accessing your command history 313 Working with Variables 314 Variables versus environment variables 314 Checking out commonly used environment variables 314 Storing and retrieving variables'' values 315 Using Redirection and Pipes 318 Redirecting command output 318 Laying pipes 320 "Help!"320 Clearing the screen 320 Chapter 17: Basic System Administration 323 Managing Users and Groups 324 Finding the right tool 324 Adding new users 326 Adding new groups 329 Printing 331 Printer server settings 333 Adding a new printer 334 Modifying printer properties 337 System Monitor 338 Processes 339 Resources 341 File Systems 342 Chapter 18: A Secure Linux Box Is a Happy Linux Box 343 Choosing Secure Passwords 343 Updating Software 344 Network holes 345 The secure shell game (SSH) 350 Software holes 355 Keeping an Eye on Your Log Files with the System Log Viewer 356 Locating Security Resources 358 Chapter 19: Automating Your World 359 The Basics of Shell Scripting 359 Running multiple commands 360 Redirecting output 360 Piping data 361 The shell script format 362 Running the shell script 364 Advanced Shell Scripting 365 Displaying messages 365 Using variables 366 Command line arguments 369 The exit status 370 Writing Script Programs 371 Command substitution 371 Performing math 372 Logic statements 374 Loops 378 Chapter.