Installation and Configuration is one of four courses leading to Linux certification. Linux certification beyond LCP requires that each course be taken and the corresponding exam be passed. Each level of certification is based upon the four-part Knowledge Array - each subsequent level of certification studies the Array in increasingly greater depth.

Prerequisites

A+ certification, competence in DOS navigation, and good typing skills.

Theory of Operation

• 1.1.10 History of Open Source and Free Software
  
• 1. Historical trends in free software
  
• 2. Definition and cost of free software
  
• 3. Advantages and disadvantages of free software
  
• 1.1.20 The GNU General Public License (GPL)
  
• 1. A brief history of the GNU GPL
  
• 2. The use of copyright to enforce copyleft
  
• 1.1.30 Third Party Analysis of Open Source Software
  
• 1. The Microsoft Halloween memos and conclusions
  
• 1.1.40 Living with Free Software
  
• 1. The nature of free software development
  
• 2. The business of selling free software
  
• 3. Freedom from the software warranty
  
• 1.1.50 Linux System Concepts
  
• 1. Modular structure of Linux
  
• a. Kernel
  
• b. Network
  
• c. Init
  
• d. Daemons
  
• e. User level system process (login, shells, utilities)
  
• f. The X Windows System
  
• 2. Preemptive multi-tasking software
  
• 3. Single user vs. multi-user software
  
• 4. Switching among virtual terminals and page scrolling
  
• 6. Command line interpretation vs. GUI system administration
  
• 1.1.60 Mainboard Configuration Issues
  
• 1. IBM-PC Bus architecture
  a. System busses
  
• b. I/O addresses
  
• c. IRQ's
  
• d. DMA or Shared memory
  
• 2. RAM requirements and memory configuration issues
  
• 3. The PC BIOS, the kernel, and device settings
  
• 1.1.65 Peripheral Configuration Issues
  
• 1. Primary and extended partitions
  
• 2. Multi-boot and multi-volume alternatives
  
• 3. CD-ROM controllers
  
• 4. The Video Adapter
  
• 5. Graphics modes
  
• 6. The Monitor
  
• 7. Monitor characteristics
  
• 8. Diagnostic and Setup for adapter card configuration
  
• 1.1.70 Network Configuration
  
• 1. IP address
  
• 2. Network mask
  
• 3. Gateway
  
• 4. Domain name service
  
• --> Section Exercise
  
• 1.2.10 Installation media choices
  
• 1. CD-ROM
  
• 2. MS-DOS partition
  
• 3. Floppy disk
  
• 4. FTP
  
• 5. NFS
  
• 6. SAMBA

Base System

• 1.2.20 Component Compatibility and Configuration Responsibilities
  
• 1. Printers
  
• 2. Video Adapters
  
• 3. Controller-less modems (Win modems)
  
• 1.2.30 Linux Distributions and Their Tradeoffs
  
• 1. Debian 2.1
  
• 2. LinuxGT
  
• 3. Mandrake 5.3
  
• 4. OpenLinux 2.2
  
• 5. Red Hat 6.0
  
• 6. Slackware 4.0
  
• 7. Stampede 0.89
  8. S.u.S.E. 6.1
  
• 9. TurboLinux
  
• 1.2.40 Install Steps Common to All Distributions
  
• 1. Hard disk allocation planning
  
• a. Dual or single OS installation
  
• b. Swap space
  
• 2. Booting the kernel from the installation media
  
• 3. Creating Linux partitions
  
• 4. Format file system and swap partitions
  
• 5. Unarchive software packages
  
• 6. Configure boot up mechanism (LILO)
  
• 7. Configure the network parameters
  
• 8. Configure the X Window System
  
• 1.2.50 Installation Step by Step
  
• 1. Debian 2.1
  
• 2. OpenLinux 2.2
  
• 3. Red Hat 6.0
  
• 4. Slackware 4.0
  
• 5. S.u.S.E. 6.1
  
• 1.2.60 Start Up and Shut Down Sequence
  
• 1. Linux Loader (LILO)
  
• 2. Kernel initialization and the init process
  
• a. OpenLinux and Red Hat
  
• b. S.u.S.E.
  
• c. Debian
  
• d. Slackware
  
• 3. Init and Run Levels
  
• 4. Logging In and Out
  
• 5. System Shut Down
  
• a. Data cache
  
• b. Procedures and Commands
  
• 1.2.70 File System Hierarchy
  
• 1. File system conventions
  
• a. The file system hierarchy standard
  
• b. Uniform directories
  
• 2. Mounting volumes
  
• 3. Mounting removable media (floppy, CD-ROM, etc.)
  
• 4. Using MTOOLS for quick MS-DOS floppy access
  
• 5. File system abstractions (/proc, /dev/..., etc.)
  
• 1.2.80 Basic System Navigation
  
• 1. Case sensitivity
  
• 2. The "cd" and "ls" commands
  
• a. file permissions
  
• 3. What programs are running ("ps" command)
  
• 4. Process management (kill, nice, etc.)
  
• 5. Who is using the system ("w" and "who" commands)
  
• 6. Proper use of the superuser account
  
• 7. Starting an X11 display or window manager (e.g., kdm & KDE)
  
• 8. The X Window System initialization files
  
• 9. The X Window System Graphical User Interface
  
• a. The virtual display
  
• b. X Window scrollbars
  
• c. X Window resize
  
• d. X Windows copy and paste
  
• e. X Windows Fonts
  
• 10. The GUI Administration Utilities
  
• 1.2.90 User Accounts
  
• 1. Creating a user account
  
• 2. Adduser
  
• 3. Useradd, userdel, and newusers
  
• 4. Adding accounts with Linuxconf, Yast, & Lisa/COAS
  

Shells and Commands

• 1.3.10 The Shell
  
• 1. Shell initialization files
  
• a. System-wide initialization files
  
• b. Individual user initialization files
  
• 2. Environment and shell variables
  
• 3. The path variable
  
• 4. Passing special characters to the shell
  
• 5. Command history and tab completion
  
• 6. Command aliases
  
• 7. I/O redirection
  
• 8. Program-to-program I/O channels (pipes)
  
• 9. Background program creation
  
• 1.3.20 Single character commands with stty (interrupt, erase, etc.)
  
• 1.3.30 The "ls" command - directory listing
  
• 1. File system security (permissions)
  
• 1.3.40 The "cd" command - change directory
  
• 1.3.50 The "more" and "less" commands - pager utilities
  
• 1.3.60 The "cp" command - copy a file
  
• 1.3.70 The "ln" command - duplicate a directory or filename
  
• 1.3.80 The "mv" command - move or rename a file
  
• 1.3.90 The "mkdir" command - make a directory
  
• 1.3.100 The "rm" command - remove a file
  
• 1.3.101 The "rmdir" command - remove a directory
  
• 1.3.120 The "head" and "tail" commands - peak at beginning or end of a file
  
• 1.3.130 The "file" command - view the file type
  
• 1.3.140 The "grep" command - search files for a target string
  
• --> Exercise
  1.3.150 The "du" and "df" commands - show disk usage and free space
  
• 1.3.160 The "tar" command - places multiple files into one archive
  
• 1.3.170 The "gzip", "gunzip", and "zcat" - un/compression utilities
  
• 1.3.180 The mtools - read and write MS-DOS files quickly
  
• 1.3.190 The "find" and "locate" - search for names in the file system
  
• 1.3.200 The "vi" editor
  

System Services

• 1.4.10 Device Driver Utilities
  
• 1.4.20 Printer Configuration
  
• 1. Linux printer drivers
  
• 2. The lpd server and the lpr client
  
• 3. Configuring printers with GUI utilities (YaST, Printtool, etc.)
  
• 4. The /etc/printcap file
  
• 5. Printer filters
  
• 6. Printer request (lpr)
  
• 7. Printer control (lpq, lprm, lpc)
  
• 1.4.30 The X Window System Architecture
  
• 1. Conceptual overview
  
• 2. Components of the X Window System
  
• 3. X32 for MS-Windows
  
• 4. Xhosts and the DISPLAY shell variable
  
• 5. Location of X11 configuration files
  
• 6. Format of the XF86Config file
  
• 7. X11 Configuration utilities
  
• a. SuperProbe - Determine graphics chip set
  
• b. xf86config, XF86Setup, Xconfiguator, SaX
  
• 1.4.40 Window Managers
  
• 1. Afterstep
  
• 2. KDE
  
• 3. Window Maker
  
• 4. FVWM and FVWM95
  
• 5. Enlightenment
  
• 6. Blackbox
  

Applications

• 1.5.10 Gathering Information
  
• 1. Help switches (--help, -h, etc.)
  
• 2. Man pages
  
• 3. The "locate" command
  
• 4. The "find" command
  
• 5. Info command
  
• 6. Xman, xinfo, tkman
  
• 7. Gathering information from online sources
  a. Linux Documentation Project
  
• b. Deja News
  
• c. Search engines
  
• d. Linux breaking news (slashdot.org, linuxhq.com, freshmeat.org)
  
• 1.5.20 Network Applications
  
• 1. WWW browser software
  
• 2. FTP clients
  3. Telnet clients
  
• 4. Mail clients
  
• 1.5.30 Text Processing Programs
  
• 1. WordPerfect
  
• 2. Star Office Suite
  
• 3. Applix Ware Suite
  
• 4. WYSIWYG vs. mark-up word processing
  
• 5. Ispell - Spell Checker
  
• 1.5.40 Graphics Applications
  
• 1. GIMP - GNU image manipulation program
  
• 2. X-Fig - Interactive vector based drawing tool
  
• 3. ImageMagick
  

Troubleshooting

• 1.6.10 Installation Troubleshooting
  
• 1. Read Error or File Not Found error
  
• 2. Common TAR errors with installation
  
• 3. Device full error
  
• 4. "Read_intr: 0x10" Error (Bad Blocks)
  
• 1.6.20 LILO Troubleshooting
  
• 1. When LILO says "LI"
  
• 1.6.30 Uses for the Rescue Disk
  
• 1. MBR corruption
  
• 2. Password File Corruption
  
• 3. Lost dynamic library
  
• 1.6.40 Boot and Login Errors
  
• 1.6.50 Locked up programs
  
• 1.6.60 Unresponsive Printer
  
• 1.6.70 Misc. Troubleshooting
  
• 1.6.80 Error Message Logging

Advanced Topics

• 1.7.10 Monitoring system status
  
• 1. The "last" command
  
• 2. System-wide "ps" command
  
• 3. The "top" command
  
• 4. The "netstat" command
  
• 1.7.20 File backup
  
• 1. Design tradeoff
  
• 2. Example backup program suites
  
• 3. The "tar" command
  
• 1.7.30 Networking
  
• 1. LANs, WANs, and the Internet
  
• 2. Hardware versus software network addresses
  
• 3. IP addresses
  
• 1.7.40 Domain Name Service
  
• 1. General mechanisms
  
• 2. Adding a DNS entry to a name server
  
• 1.7.50 Mail service
  
• 1. User account entries
  
• 2. System-wide aliases
  
• 1.7.60 Networking services
  
• 1. Apache web server
  
• a. Configuration files
  
• 2. Samba
  
• a. The "smb" utilities
  
• 3. Network file system (NFS)
  
• a. Exports
  
• b. Mounts
  
• c. Network information services
  
• 1.7.70 Network Security
  
• 1. File system security (permissions)
  
• 2. TCP (hosts) allow and deny
  
• 3. IP firewall allow and deny
  
• 4. Routine security steps