So far, so good.  I did install DSL LInux this morning (I had intended
a dual boot with Windows 2000 on my old Pentium machine with 1 GB
primary drive and 2 GB secondary drive, with ~40MB RAM, but, I just
could not get it right and finally threw in the towel and simply
installed DSL to the HD using a installtool that I found on the GUI
desktop, that I think did the same thing as Rick's page "Installing to
the Hard Disk" from the dsl.org website).

During the installation, I think my bootable drive is hda5 (Type 83
LInux size) while the swap file is hda2 (Type 82), about 75% / 25%
share of the original C: 1GB HD, but I'm not sure the OS is
recognizing the swap file--how would I know?

I am using a very primitive text based (in a primitive GUI shell) file
manager called emelFM v0.9.2--is there something better?  I did create
a new directory, but would like more control along the lines of
Windows File Manager (that may be asking for too much however).

And I did set up a user other than 'root' (is this the same as 'home',
root that is?) called DSL.  Set up a password too, despite the program
seeming to choke on my password (I just powered through the numerous
false error messages).

So far, so good, because my expectations are very *very* low:  I want
a machine that will surf the net on a dialup modem, write a text file
(I got Beaver to do this to my floppy, but much to my chagrin found
that the floppy is not recognized by Windows--forgot this was a
problem but it makes sense--so how do I send a text file to a Windows
user?  Probably through the internet), and that's it!  No printing. No
sound (but system beeper).  Graphics are working fine, 1024
resolution, 16 bit, much to my pleasant surprise (10 years ago, when I
successfully dual booted NT with Redhat 5?, two problems caused be to
abandon Linux Redhat--the floppy could not be easily mounted/
dismounted--I see that's been fixed now to be automatic upon bootup--
and the graphics controller card was hard to configure--maybe because
I had a very cheap video card at the time--but this time it's not a
problem even on this old throwaway machine).

So far, so good, but I need a list of "useful commands" and apps for
Linux DSL (Damn Small LInux), or a faq to the same.

BTW, I am posting from my modern Windows machine now--the Linux one is
not yet connected to the Net.

CHeers,

Ray

> And I did set up a user other than 'root' (is this the same as 'home',
> root that is?) called DSL.  Set up a password too, despite the program
> seeming to choke on my password (I just powered through the numerous
> false error messages).
> 

The root directory is under /root, the default location for user home 
directories is under /home/xx where xx is the user name, i.e. if you 
created user ray then your files will be user /home/ray.

The configuration file /etc/passwd is where the location of user 
directories is specified. If you wanted to change the location of your 
home directory you would edit this file (THERE IS NO NEED TO CHANGE THE 
DEFAULTS SO DON'T EDIT THIS FILE).

> 
> So far, so good, but I need a list of "useful commands" and apps for
> Linux DSL (Damn Small LInux), or a faq to the same.

Google for UNIX CLI COMMANDS, there are a lot of FAQ pages available. DSL 
has online documentation, use it. This page lists their default 
applications
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html

On Jul 24, 9:30=A0am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>
> Google for UNIX CLI COMMANDS, there are a lot of FAQ pages available. DSL
> has online documentation, use it. This page lists their default
> applicationshttp://www.damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html

I need a book just to see how I can find what programs are on my HD
that came with the DSL distro... In Windows I would "Search" for .exe
files having a certain name, but in Linux land I am lost... also stuff
like how to install a program using RPM, how to set up a new user/
password form the 'root' (which has alias 'DSL'), how to detect new HD
(I have a "D" drive that is still NTFS and I want Linux to recognize
it so I can reformat it for Linux)... so I gave in and bought a book
"LInux Bible 2008" today--cost $30 new but maybe it will help.

Tx for your help

RL

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:49:11 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 24, 9:30 am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Google for UNIX CLI COMMANDS, there are a lot of FAQ pages available.
>> DSL has online documentation, use it. This page lists their default
>> applicationshttp://www.damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html
> 
> I need a book just to see how I can find what programs are on my HD that
> came with the DSL distro... In Windows I would "Search" for .exe files
> having a certain name, but in Linux land I am lost... also stuff like
> how to install a program using RPM, how to set up a new user/ password
> form the 'root' (which has alias 'DSL'), how to detect new HD (I have a
> "D" drive that is still NTFS and I want Linux to recognize it so I can
> reformat it for Linux)... so I gave in and bought a book "LInux Bible
> 2008" today--cost $30 new but maybe it will help.
> 
> Tx for your help
> 
> RL

DSL has a WIKI, this should be helpful in getting you started. They also 
have a forum which might be a better place to ask questions then here.

BTW DSL uses apt not rpm for it's package manager. 

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:49:11 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:

> On Jul 24, 9:30 am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Google for UNIX CLI COMMANDS, there are a lot of FAQ pages available.
>> DSL has online documentation, use it. This page lists their default
>> applicationshttp://www.damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html
> 
> I need a book just to see how I can find what programs are on my HD that
> came with the DSL distro... In Windows I would "Search" for .exe files
> having a certain name, but in Linux land I am lost... also stuff like
> how to install a program using RPM, how to set up a new user/ password
> form the 'root' (which has alias 'DSL'), how to detect new HD (I have a
> "D" drive that is still NTFS and I want Linux to recognize it so I can
> reformat it for Linux)... so I gave in and bought a book "LInux Bible
> 2008" today--cost $30 new but maybe it will help.
> 
> Tx for your help
> 
> RL

Sometimes it is helpful to understand the file system structure in Linux 
as opposed to Windows. This graphic can be a helpful reference when you 
are trying to figure out where a particular file might be located.

http://www.linuxconfig.org/images/7/79/Dirtree.jpg

-- 
-wp-
Envisioning peas on earth.

On Jul 24, 4:54=A0pm, Whirled Peas <p...@earth.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:49:11 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
> > On Jul 24, 9:30=A0am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wro=
te:
>
> >> Google for UNIX CLI COMMANDS, there are a lot of FAQ pages available.
> >> DSL has online documentation, use it. This page lists their default
> >> applicationshttp://www.damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html
>
> > I need a book just to see how I can find what programs are on my HD tha=
t
> > came with the DSL distro... In Windows I would "Search" for .exe files
> > having a certain name, but in Linux land I am lost... also stuff like
> > how to install a program using RPM, how to set up a new user/ password
> > form the 'root' (which has alias 'DSL'), how to detect new HD (I have a
> > "D" drive that is still NTFS and I want Linux to recognize it so I can
> > reformat it for Linux)... so I gave in and bought a book "LInux Bible
> > 2008" today--cost $30 new but maybe it will help.
>
> > Tx for your help
>
> > RL
>
> Sometimes it is helpful to understand the file system structure in Linux
> as opposed to Windows. This graphic can be a helpful reference when you
> are trying to figure out where a particular file might be located.
>
> http://www.linuxconfig.org/images/7/79/Dirtree.jpg
>
> --
> -wp-
> Envisioning peas on earth.

Thanks that was helpful.

On Jul 24, 1:19=A0pm, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:49:11 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
> > On Jul 24, 9:30=A0am, General Schvantzkopf <schvantzk...@yahoo.com> wro=
te:
>
> >> Google for UNIX CLI COMMANDS, there are a lot of FAQ pages available.
> >> DSL has online documentation, use it. This page lists their default
> >> applicationshttp://www.damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html
>
> > I need a book just to see how I can find what programs are on my HD tha=
t
> > came with the DSL distro... In Windows I would "Search" for .exe files
> > having a certain name, but in Linux land I am lost... also stuff like
> > how to install a program using RPM, how to set up a new user/ password
> > form the 'root' (which has alias 'DSL'), how to detect new HD (I have a
> > "D" drive that is still NTFS and I want Linux to recognize it so I can
> > reformat it for Linux)... so I gave in and bought a book "LInux Bible
> > 2008" today--cost $30 new but maybe it will help.
>
> > Tx for your help
>
> > RL
>
> DSL has a WIKI, this should be helpful in getting you started. They also
> have a forum which might be a better place to ask questions then here.
>
> BTW DSL uses apt not rpm for it's package manager.
>
> http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Thanks I bookmarked this.