questions for linux people..

[darkangel]

I installed mandrake 10 a few days ago and being a total Linux newbie i 've got some questions.

1)I've tried to install/write to some folders and get a denied message being should i be denied access to any files being that my account should be admin, or am i still thinking windows here?

2)what would be the default installation directory for files i.e. program files in windows?

3)is there any good firewalls, like outpost or black ice for Linux?

4)know that Linux is inherently more secure but is an AV needed yet?

5)i didn't have one of my drives in it's cradle when i installed, how do i add this ntfs drive so i can read it in linux

hope u can help i'm sure i'll have many more questions in the future, thanks in advance

p.s any good newbie support site recommendations welcomed.

[philip.j.fry]

Originally Posted by darkangel

1)I've tried to install/write to some folders and get a denied message being should i be denied access to any files being that my account should be admin, or am i still thinking windows here?

In Linux, files and directories have ownership by different users, these directories that you are trying to write to are most likely owned by root which is the top level user that has all permissions. To write to these places you will have to become root or change the permissions on the file/directory. Your best bet here is to google for an introduction to linux and linus file permissions (mainly because I've had a bottle of wine and am not the best person to ask at the moment )

2)what would be the default installation directory for files i.e. program files in windows?

Most likely either /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin (the bin is short for binary)

3)is there any good firewalls, like outpost or black ice for Linux?

IPTables is good, but you have to script the firewall yourself, there are some tools that help you write these if you google for them, or I can give you a copy of mine which isn't the greatest but protects against most things (all of the online scanning services I've used against it haven't broken it yet).

4)know that Linux is inherently more secure but is an AV needed yet?

There's just simply far fewer linux viruses around, but you can never be too careful so try f-prot http://www.f-prot.com/download/download_fplinux.html

5)i didn't have one of my drives in it's cradle when i installed, how do i add this ntfs drive so i can read it in linux

NTFS is a difficult one, it will depend on whether your kernel has ntfs support in it. Like I said, I'm a bit too drunk to think about it now, maybe tomorrow

[punky]

If you access problems, try the following things:

Type in "su", without the quotation marks, to go into super user mode. That will give you full permission to update the system.

If that doesn't work, you may need to change the permissions of the files themselves. To do that, you use the chmod command.

In the prompt type in:

chmod 700 file.name

That would make the file, readable/writeable/executable to the owner (first number), but neither to user and group, which applies to other users that login. if you want them to be able to read the file, you would change 700, to 755, which is read an execute. check here for more info).

HTH

[philip.j.fry]

Ok, have sobered up now and can help with point 5, mounting the ntfs drive

First we need to check a few things, if you could open a console and type in:

cat /proc/filesystems

and tell us if you see NTFS in the list, this will tell us if you already have the necessary drivers for reading NTFS (from what I can tell it is most likely you will, but best to check first).

Then if you could type in the following, you may need to su first as punky suggests:

fdisk -l

Look for the line where the system has NTFS in it and make a note of the device, which will be something like /dev/hda1, if you're not sure post the list (or pm it).

Once we've done that we can sort out how to get it mounted.

[darkangel]

thanks for the help with ur advice and with a bit of googleing i've sorted it
i'm looking at nod32 as an av i use it for windows, and maybe firestarter or guarddog for firewall.
just a quick question i've got a folder called local it's locked i can't change it with chmod x only any reason why or is should this file be locked?

[philip.j.fry]

Originally Posted by darkangel

thanks for the help with ur advice and with a bit of googleing i've sorted it
i'm looking at nod32 as an av i use it for windows, and maybe firestarter or guarddog for firewall.
just a quick question i've got a folder called local it's locked i can't change it with chmod x only any reason why or is should this file be locked?

Is it usr/local ? You really don't want to be changing the permissions of any folder other than you home directory (/home/username)