Mandrake 7.2 (Odyssey) is available as a two CD download. There is a installation and a extension CD. The installation CD is fine for most people but the second CD carries a lot of useful applications.

Make your machine bootable from the CD drive, insert the first CD and you are ready to roll. The installation process is amazingly easy with emphasis on flexibility and choice.

Having got that under way, we explored the various install options. Pressing F1 gives you info on available options. Just pressing enter starts the default graphical install.

In the traditional BSD style of startup, there are only a few initialization scripts, which are something like the autoexec.bat and config.sys pair of DOS. Commands are executed and services are loaded up sequentially as given in the scripts.

This article is a practical guide giving you some shortcuts to ease your way around Linux. This is a compilation coming out of some reading on our part, references from various resources on the net and of course the many gray hairs that we have acquired -- administrating and using Linux. Apart from a whole lot of tips out here, we will also be dealing with some common commands that you will need while working on any *nix system. In general it would safe to say that almost all the commands mentioned here should work in the same manner on the other Unices out there. Well, almost.

Writing a thousand line code is better than having to debug it. The mistakes can vary from a missing ";" error to major errors of logic. At the end of the day, code that refuses to run is merely a temp file waiting to be deleted!

Given below are the most often used gcc options. Though a lot more exist, these are the most commonly used ones (26 to be specific) and can make debugging easier.

For more information refer to the man pages type "man gcc" at the command line. GCC offers a host of options, some even for the AMD-K62 processor.

Linux is a proper multi-user environment. In a multi-user environment,

security of user and system data is very important. Access should be given

only to users who need to access the data. Since Linux is essentially a

server OS, good and efficient file security is built right into Linux. Of

course, such security does create problems for users, especially novice

users. Many user queries are due to incorrect file permissions or just

because a user ignores that fact that the file permissions do not allow

access.

  In the previous article named "Introducing Motor: A Programming IDE

for Linux", I covered the basics of software development using

Motor. Now I continue with a look at some advanced issues such as

debugging, organizing your libraries, version control and a bit

more. By the way, I've just released the new 2.0.0 version of Motor,

so features appearing in this latest release are also covered in this

article.

Currently, almost all the planned features of Motor have been implemented.

About eight years ago, everybody was talking about the

convergence of technology. Computers had just gained the status

of "Multimedia" machines. One could watch full motion,

high-resolution videos in tiny 320x200 windows played off a

massive 650mb cdrom disc and listen to exciting FM quality music

from tinny 8 bit cards. And then someone realized that every

device on earth could be integrated into the computer. One can

now find integrated 3d video cards, audio cards, mpeg decoders,

internal modems, web cams, pluggable microwave (huh?), and most

Most of you would have heard of mutt. Mutt is an MUA, a Mail User Agent,

which is the program that you would use to send and receive mail. So, why

use mutt when there are so many other mail programs available? A bunch of

free and not so free mail readers exist, and each one has its pros and

cons. However, apart from pgp which has add-ons for pgp/gpg support, almost

no other client supports gpg natively. I could be wrong though.

So far, mutt is the best email client I've come across. I quote the Debian

package description for mutt here:

Installing Red Hat 7.0 is a breeze. Unlike the previous version, which

promised support for the i810 chip but gave up when it came to the crunch,

RH 7.0 has come a long way in hardware auto detection. In fact, we hardly

had to make any manual selections with the exception of Time zone,

programs to install and the like. At last, Red Hat seems to have woken up

to the needs of the average user.

Pre-Install checklist

You would need the following survival equipment

1. Manuals for your computer monitor. If you do not have them, then try

Welcome back to an exciting odyssey in making your Linux box more secure.

In the previous article we dealt with various issues like BIOS security

passwords, securing your LILO prompt with a password, restricting the use

of "setuid" and "setgid" programs etc. We also dealt with common user

habits that compromise security on networks as well as some other aspects

of securing your Linux installation.

As we have mentioned earlier and repeat again, "The only secure machine is

one unplugged from the electrical point." Another point we would like to