University of Minnesota, Twin Cities School of Statistics (Local) SuSE Docs

Charlie's Linux FAQ

Questions

General Linux Questions

1.1 What should my MANPATH be? And while we're at it, how about INFOPATH?
1.2 How do I get separate pages from a multi-page PostScript file?
1.3 What does SuSE stand for and how do I pronounce it?
1.4 Where are the SuSE help pages? When I follow the menus, they take me to
http://www.localhost.com/doc/susehilf/index.html,
which is totally bogus.
1.5 Where is the manual for latex2html?
1.6 How do I move Splus data from HP-SUX to Linux?
1.7 How do I backspace in Mathematica? The backspace key doesn't work!
1.8 When I log into an HP box, it doesn't know about either GNOME or KDE terminals. Do I have to use an xterm?
1.9 The ls command doesn't tell me about file types like it used to. What gives?
1.10 My background jobs die when I log out or even kill the window I started them in.

Gnome Questions

2.1 The gnome help thingy doesn't find any man pages!
2.2 When I "minimize" a window (click the button with a line in the upper right corner) it disappears completely! Where did it go? How do I get it back?
2.3 How do I configure Gnome?
- 2.3.1 How do I configure Gnome itself?
- 2.3.2 How do I configure the Gnome panel?
- 2.3.3 How do I configure the default window manager icewm?
2.4 Where are the themes?

Bash Questions

3.1 Why bash? Why not tcsh?
3.2 How do I customize bash?
- 3.2.1 How do I safely put stuff in ~/.bashrc so it doesn't screw up ssh and scp?
- 3.2.2 How do I set environment variables?
- 3.2.3 How do I make aliases?

KDE Questions

4.1 My fonts suck big time in KDE since the degrade to SuSE 7.3!

Answers

General Linux Questions

1.1 What should my MANPATH be? And while we're at it, how about INFOPATH?
At least the following:

MANPATH
/APPS/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/man:/usr/X11R6/man
INFOPATH
/APPS/info:/usr/local/info:/usr/share/info:/usr/info:/usr/share/texmf/teTeX/info
1.2 How do I get separate pages from a multi-page PostScript file?
The psselect command does this. Unfortunately, right now this is only installed on bald.stat.umn.edu. We'll propagate this to the other Linux boxes when we upgrade to SuSE 7.0.
1.3 What does SuSE stand for and how do I pronounce it?
Answer number 1: It used to stand for something, but now it doesn't. That's why it used to be S.u.S.E. and now it's SuSE. You can search in vain at www.suse.com for an explanation. It's not there.
Answer number 2: In an interview with one of the SuSE developers I found it originally stood for System und Software Entwicklung, which is German for "System and software development".
The closest English approximation to the German pronunciation is something like soo'-sah with the stress on the first syllable (that's how suse.com says to pronounce it.
Of course, that's not a natural pronunciation for a native English speaker. The only e's at the ends of English words that are not silent are long (double e's), and this influences a lot of native English speakers to pronounce SuSE like Susie.
1.4 Where are the SuSE help pages? When I follow the menus, they take me to
http://www.localhost.com/doc/susehilf/index.html,
which is totally bogus.
At http://spider.stat.umn.edu.
1.5 Where is the manual for latex2html?
At /usr/share/doc/packages/l2h/manual/index.html.
Unfortunately, right now this is only installed on oak.stat.umn.edu. We'll propagate this to the other Linux boxes when we upgrade to SuSE 7.0.
1.6 How do I move Splus data from HP-SUX to Linux?
If you're asking about Splus Version 5 chapters, no problem. Just copy the chapter (which is a directory) to a Linux box. It just works.
If you're asking about Splus Version 3 .Data directories, you have a problem. Convert them from Splus 3 to Splus 5 format on an HP-SUX box. Now read the answer about Splus Version 5 chapters.
1.7 How do I backspace in Mathematica? The backspace key doesn't work!
Use the delete key (beside the enter key).
The problem is the the default "erase" character in the shell is delete. You can check this by doing stty -a at a UNIX prompt. There will be voluminous output, the first few of lines of which are
```
speed 38400 baud; rows 24; columns 80; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W;
```
If you windows aren't behaving the way you want, the problem is usually in this goobledegook somewhere. In this case we have (the Linux default) erase = ^? when we want erase = ^h.
What are ^? and ^h I hear you ask. Very simple, they are the UNIX secret codes for the delete key and the backspace key respectively. If you were thinking of asking why, don't. You don't want to know.
Hence putting
```
stty erase '^h'
```
in your shell's start-up file, that is, ~/.bashrc for bash or or ~/.cshrc for tcsh will solve the problem permanently.
But before you do that see the answer to Question 3.2.1.
1.8 When I log into an HP or the BSD box (muskrat), it doesn't know about either GNOME or KDE terminals. Do I have to use an xterm?
No. Either the GNOME or KDE terminal seems to work fine when it lies about its terminal type and claims to be an xterm.
Thus the following
```
(TERM=xterm; ssh muskrat)
```
will do a remote login and give terminal type the HP or BSD box can grok.
1.9 The actual vanilla behavior of the ls command just lists file names, nothing else, in every flavor of UNIX.
On the HP boxes we used to alias ls to "ls -F" in the file that many users included in their shell startup files. If you want this behavior under LINUX, you will have to put the required alias in your startup file (.bashrc if you are using bash or .cshrc if you are using csh or tcsh).
The syntax is different for the various shells. For bash it is
```
alias ls="ls -F"
```
or better still
```
alias ls="ls --color"
```
which doesn't append weird characters to file names.
1.10 My background jobs die when I log out or even kill the window I started them in.
You are too used to csh or tcsh. All UNIX shells except these have the same behavior that bash does. You have to say nohup (short for no hang up) to get what csh and tcsh make the default behavior. For example
```
nohup R CMD BATCH --vanilla infile outfile &
```

Gnome Questions

2.1 The gnome help thingy doesn't find any man pages!
That wasn't a question :-)
You need to configure the MANPATH and INFOPATH that the Gnome Help Browser (the thingy that comes up by default when you log in or later if you click the question mark on the Gnome Panel.
In the Gnome Help Browser choose Settings, then Preferences, then Paths and modify the paths to include the stuff mentioned in the answer to Question 1.1.
2.2 When I "minimize" a window (click the button with a line in the upper right corner) it disappears completely! Where did it go? How do I get it back?
You need to add the Gnome Pager to the Gnome Panel.
On the Main Menu (the one with the footprint), choose Panel, then Add applet, then Utility, then Gnome Pager.
2.3 How do I configure Gnome?
Too vague! See below. Gnome is not everything you see when you choose "gnome" at login. There is also a window manager, the default being icewm. There are also the various pieces of Gnome, such as the Gnome Panel.
- 2.3.1 How do I configure Gnome itself?
  Use the GNOME Control Center a. k. a. the GNOME Configuration Tool (what you get when you click on the picture of a tool box on the Gnome Panel). That will allow you (for example) to change the window manager.
  For more info, read the manual, which is found in nice readable format in the Gnome Help Browser
- 2.3.2 How do I configure the Gnome panel?
  On the Main Menu (the one with the footprint), choose Panel, and keep going :-) Lots of choices!
  For more info, read the manual, which is found in nice readable format in the Gnome Help Browser
- 2.3.3 How do I configure the default window manager icewm?
  This is done by a separate program. From the command line (if you haven't found the UNIX command line yet, click on the picture of a TV set on the Gnome Panel), run
  icepref
2.4 Where are the themes?
Some themes are available in the Theme Selector of the GNOME Control Center a. k. a. the GNOME Configuration Tool (what you get when you click on the picture of a tool box on the Gnome Panel).
At http://www.themes.org.
- For icewm.
- For enlightenment.

Bash Questions

3.1 Why bash? Why not tcsh?
Because bash is the Right Thing and tcsh is the Wrong Thing.
In many ways csh and its descendant tcsh are incredibly brain damaged. An article Csh Programming Considered Harmful by one of the Perl Gods (Tom Christiansen) gives the details.
Also bash is the standard Linux shell. Wherever you go all the knowledgeable users (except recalcitrant old farts) will be using bash. Might as well switch to the Right Thing now.
3.2 How do I customize bash?
Customization stuff goes in ~/.profile (read by login shells) or ~/.bashrc (read by all other shells).
- 3.2.1 How do I safely put stuff in ~/.bashrc so it doesn't screw up ssh and scp?
  Everything that goes in ~/.bashrc that is for use in interactive shells only, that is, not when using ssh to run a command remotely or scp to copy files, which is just about everything you might ever want to put in there, should go inside an if statement that tests whether the shell is interactive.
  The bash syntax is
```
if [ -n "$PS1" ]; then

	# junk for interactive shells goes here

	export EDITOR=vigor
	stty erase '^h'
fi
```
  Practically everything in your ~/.bashrc should be inside this if.
- 3.2.2 How do set environment variables?
```
export TEXINPUTS=".:~/myTeXjunk:"
```
  and the like.
- 3.2.3 How do I make aliases?
```
alias rm="rm -i"
```
  and the like.

KDE Questions

4.1 My fonts suck big time in KDE since the degrade to SuSE 7.3!
This is (apparently) due to the choice of fonts in the Desktop Settings Wizard during your first entry into KDE after the degrade (most people say upgrade but I always say degrade).
Rerun the Desktop Settings Wizard on the system submenu of the main KDE menu and choose the charset
iso8859-15
on the first screen that comes up. That should do it.