Linux newbie got questions

[Spitfire_x86]

I'm using Knoppix 3.3 (Feb-24-2004, Kernel 2.4.24, HD installed) and KDE 3.1.5. (don't have Gnome or Gnome libraries installed)

Here's the questions:

# Is there a GUI alternative of "Top"? I want something like Windows 2000/XP task manager.

# How can I upgrade to 2.6.x kernel? Does 2.6.x kernel have native support for Conexant HSF winmodems?

# How can I auto-mount drives? Now if I want to use a file from a drive without mounting, it doesn't work. Only my system drive mounts automatically. From GUI, I doesn't need to use "right click-mount" command, if I click on a device file, the drive automatically mounts and opens.

# How can I load services at startup? For example, I disabled Print Server and SMTP mail server service during setup. How can I enable them at startup again?

# Is there any "Hibernate" type feature available at Linux? (must work with Debian based distros)

# What's the best screenshot utility for Linux (& KDE)?

# What's the best free software firewall for Linux? (with GUI and KDE support, should be easy to configure)

# Is there any P2P client avaiable for downloading files from Kazaa Network?

# How to build DEB packages from tar.gz package? Again, a KDE-centric GUI app is preffered.

# Can I use LZMA compression (open-source compression technology of <A HREF="http://www.7-zip.org" target="_new">7-zip</A>) for building RPM/DEB package?

# What are the differences between Ext2 and Ext3 file system?


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[silverpig]

Unfortunately I know the answer to a lot of these questions as they pertain to gnome, but not to kde, so I'll do what I can

You can upgrade to the 2.6.x kernel by downloading the source and compiling a new one. Go to <A HREF="http://www.kernel.org" target="_new">kernel.org</A> and get the 2.6.5 kernel. Download the source .tar.gz and extract it in /usr/src. Then

rm linux
mkdir linux
ln -sf linux whatever_directory_the_targz_made_kernel-2.6.5

This basically makes a shortcut from /usr/src/linux to /usr/src/that_directory. cd to /usr/src/linux and type

make menuconfig

You'll be presented with a list of options and it'll take a whole hell of a lot of explaining to know everything that you need, so just select what you think you will need, and go with that. If need be, you can always recompile

then:

cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot

and edit your bootloader config file to include this new image. Basically just copy the template you already have sitting there. I'd post mine, but I'm in windows and I'm gonna re-do my gentoo system again...

As for automounting drives, you'll need a kernel patch for 'supermount', apply the patch to the kernel sources, compile them in, and then edit /etc/fstab to include supermount on the drives you want. Google for the supermount site, but I don't know if they have a patch for 2.6.5 yet.

Hibernate is a feature you can compile into 2.6.x kernels

There is a P2P kazaa client for linux, but the name escapes me. Google again

ext3 is just ext2 with journalling (records changes so that if you crash, you can recover lost data). There are a number of good journalling filesystems, so there's no real need to use ext2 anymore. ext3 is good, if slow, reiserfs is fast and has a good track record lately, xfs and jfs are a little less used.

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[Spitfire_x86]

Thanks for posting useful info

For screenshot, I've installed Kscreenshot and it's doing a quite good job for me.

I think I will install Gnome 2.6 (though I won't use it), since many apps require Gnome libs. I'm often needing some Gnome libs to make some packages work. Final Gnome 2.6 DEB package is not available in packages.debian.org yet, so I will compile source. Amyway, I want complete Gnome 2.6 in a in a single tar.gz file. I don't want to install everything seperately. And Gnome based apps are going work in KDE just if I have complete Gnome installed? Will I need to do something extra?

Feel free to name Gnome based apps. But KDE based apps are still first preference, since I haven't installed Gnome yet.

How much time it may take to compile 2.6.x kernel with Duron 1.1 (220 MHz FSB) + nForce2?

Can you link me to a a comparison chart that shows similarities/differences between ext2/ext3/reiserfs/xfs/jsf?

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[silverpig]

Maybe 15-20 minutes for the compile of the kernel and modules depending on how much stuff you have selected.

Heh, this is why I like gentoo. If I want gnome I just type:

emerge gnome

and it gets everything I need

Just make sure you satisfy all the dependencies of the package you want to install and it'll take you from there.

There was a review I found a long time ago, but I don't know where it was again. Check out google.

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[HolyGrenade]

gnome has something similar in their garnome distribution system.

Couln't get it to work though.


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