I am a newbie to UNIX, where do I start? Is UNIX tough? Will this FAQ cover stuff like copying files? I accidentally created a file with name beginning with `-', how do I remove it? I want to start writing a shell script, where do I start? Is Netscape open source? What is Mozilla? How can I resize my Netscape window, which runs, out of my screen? Why do I get a lot of warnings from Netscape about freeing allocated resources? Why does my Netscape give a warning every five minutes about failure to save book marks? Why does my Netscape crash every so often under Linux/GNU, do I need to upgrade? How can I list the directory contents in color in Linux/GNU? I have aliased my rm to rm -i, now is it safe if I do a rm -rf? How can I know if my friend is logged in some machine in my lab? I don't understand the stuff with setting DISPLAY when starting a remote graphics program? What is X windows? Why is the concept of GUI so tough on UNIX? What exactly is a window manager? How can I change my window manager? My backspace key works as del under X, what do I do? How do I display a background image under CDE (HP-UX/Sun default WM)? How do I change the cursor in X windows from the symbol X? What the hell is an X-Term? What is XDMCP? I fired up a process, now when I do a ps it shows only a few processes but not my original process? What exactly is a search path? What are the ways to modify the search path on different shells? There is an executable in my current directory, why do I have to a ./ to run it? I know that a particular program is installed on my computer, how do I find if it has a man page also? How do I ask man to automatically search for man pages in a location? What the hell is info? Why are the permissions on a directory and file different? I want to give everybody access to my directory, why doesn't a simple read permission work? I want to recursively give permissions to everyone for accessing a directory, is there a command? How do I do it? I just want emacs to show colors, what do I do? Why I don't see colors after ls on a non-Linux/GNU system? What exactly is Linux/GNU? What is the difference between Solaris and SunOS? What are environment variables? How do I set them? What are the DISPLAY and TERM environment variables for? I have a shell script, which needs to set a few environment variables and then exit, how do I do it? Why does bc, show the result of 1/3 as 0 instead of .333..? What exactly are sed and awk? What is spam mail? What is mail filtering? I want to filter the mail, which I receive, is there a smart way? How do I setup an auto-reply for my mail account? I am going for a vacation, I donot want my mailbox to overflow, what do I do? What is a daemon, why is it so called? Why is the MPEG movie, which I play from the server so slow? What the hell is a library? Why does my compilation terminate with an error message about some missing library? What is the difference between a shared and static library? What the hell is exactly TCL/Tk? What is the difference between Sun ucbcc and Sun Workshop compiler? Where exactly is the Sun Workshop compiler installed? I can do a telnet to another machine, now I want to move a file to it, what do I do? What are widget libraries, why do we need them? I just installed a new program in my bin directory, the permissions are correct, auto-file name completion works, yet the systems says unable to find file when trying to execute it? I have set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LD_RUN_PATH variables under HP-UX still I get the library not found error? Why does xmms crib about incorrect ownership, when I run it remotely? How do I find out what exactly is installed on my computer in Linux/GNU? How do I change my default shell? I have installed the GNU shell tcsh in my directory, however when I do a chsh for this shell why does the program crib about incorrect shell? When I press the del or backspace key why do weirdo characters appear? What does installing a program/package mean? Why is installing a program/package under UNIX not so simple as on Windows? Is there some secret to installing programs under UNIX? Can I run windows programs on my UNIX workstation/server? I want to be a system administrator where do I start? What is the difference between a Hacker and a Cracker? What is OpenGL? Is OpenGL available on UNIX/Linux/GNU systems? What exactly is Mesa? What is meant by graphics performance? What is the best way to measure the performance of X windows? Is there a presentation package available on UNIX? What is Star-Office? What is a kernel module? What do I need to know to write a kernel module? I want to write a kernel module, where do I start? What is the difference between block devices and character devices? What is a FIFO? What is NIS? What is NFS? What is DNS? How can I find the registration information for a particular domain? What is system name resolver? What is a binary? How can I open zip files? Can I view doc files on UNIX? How do I take personal backups? What is tar? Who is Richard Stallman? What is xdm? What is Lynx? How do I download all the visible contents of a web site for offline browsing? What is fire walling? What is a proxy server? Can I send mail from any machine connected to the Internet? What is MIME? Who is Larry Wall? What is PERL? What is CGI? Why is PERL so intricately related to CGI? What is JavaScript? Is Java similar to JavaScript? Who is Linus Torvalds? Why is a Linux system called as a Linux/GNU system? What is GNU? What is free software foundation? How good is gcc as compared to other vendor specific compilers (e.g. Sun Workshop Compiler)? What is a cross-compiler? Can gcc be used as a cross-compiler? What is gdb? How tough is it to use gdb? Are there any good front-ends to gdb? How good is ddd (Data Display Debugger)? Why are there so many shells on UNIX? What is the difference between a hub a switch and a router (should this question be here?) ? When I do a telnet ip-address it works on a Sun machine however when I do telnet machine-name it doesnot. The same telnet machine-name works from another machine. What is the problem? By mistake a cat'ed a .o (or binary) file. Now the whole display is garbage. Is there any way to recover apart from starting a new terminal? How do I turn on the key repeat mode in X windows? I have attached an external CD drive to my Solaris workstation. I want to install a new OS and thus want to boot from this CD drive. However it still tries to take the old CD drive when I issue the command boot cdrom. What do I do? I want some stuff to be done automatically when I log into an X windows system. How do I do it? (Note: this stuff cannot be put in you .cshrc or .bashrc). What are X resources? How do I figure out what all resources are available for a particular client? What is a shebang? Why is the first line necessary for a shell script? What is a X-station? What is ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)? I have a SiS 6215 card (long obsolete) how do I configure it for X-windows on Linux/GNU? How can I restart X windows (XFree86) in to use more colors (pixel depth)? How are fonts supplied on an X windows system? How can I figure out which all fonts are available on an X windows system? I have downloaded a few fonts how do I install them (root/non-root methods)? How can I use windows True Type fonts on UNIX? True Type fonts are really cool, still why don't UNIX guys use True Type fonts? Where can I find more fonts on the net, specifically which type of fonts should I look for? I have Windows NT on my system what steps do I need to take to install linux (Now nothing new -:))? I have a hard disk with 20GB+ capacity. The hard disk originally had windows NT (or 2000) and 98 (or millemium), however when I tried to install Linux/GNU, everything messed up. Now the disk shows only 2-3GB space and both Linux/GNU and Windows fdisk fail. What do I do? I forgot the root password of my UNIX system (covers Linux/HP-UX/Solaris), what do I do? Is there any way to figure out whether my C/C++ program leaks memory in UNIX (should this question be here?)? Why do my NFS clients crib about not being able to get a request slot (exact message "can't get a request slot")? I have just moved my NIS server from a SunOS/HP-UX machine. ypinit -m worked fine even the server came up, still when I do a ypcat passwd I get an empty list, what could be the problem? How can I open Excel/Word files in UNIX? What is wordview, how good is it? How stable are Staroffice 6.0 and Koffice? Are there any free search engines available which I can download and install at my site? How good is ht://Dig as compared to other such technologies (e.g. ultraseek)? Can ht://dig index my word/pdf/postscript files? What about gzipped pdf and ps files? How is Linux/GNU able to print postscript/pdf/image files directly (using lpr) whereas other unices (SunOS/HP-UX) are not able to do so? What is a license daemon? What is lmgrd? By mistake I changed the permissions on /usr (or /bin) now when I execute any command it gives error (even ls doesn't work), what do I do? What is LHA? How do I open an LHA archive? How can I use the find command effectively, e.g. to change permissions on all the files (not directories) etc.? I bought an internal modem by mistake, how do I configure it under Linux/GNU? Is there a way to make my Linux/GNU box act as an answering machine? Why is there no /dev/audio in HP-UX servers. How come they are still able to play audio/video files? What is meant by text formatting? What are TeX and LaTeX? Is there any WYSWYG front-end to LaTeX? Where can I find some good tips for using LaTeX? Is there some sample document format available to start using LaTeX? What are the alternatives to LaTeX? Should I use/learn them? How good is emacs ps-renderer? What is a versioning system? What is the difference between rcs and cvs? How good is cvs? What is cvsweb? I configured cvsweb on my machine, still I get empty directory listings? What is the most likely cause? What is xargs? How can I supply stuff automatically to some command which expects interactive input (e.g. ftp, telnet)? Is it possible to separately redirect stdout and stderr in C-shell (tcsh, csh)? How do I do it? I have a HPUX server, while booting the machine is stuck and the panel shows Init C300. What do I do? How do I find out what all is installed on a SunOS/Solaris machine? How do I find out path to the various SCSI devices installed on an HPUX machine? I am trying to use the sun pkgadd utility. However it repeatedly says that there is no package in /var/spool. Is there some simple way to use it? How can I find the list of all the installed packages on a Sun system? Is something similar to SAM available on Sun? Howdo I change the hostname of a Sun machine? How do I change the hostname of a HP machine? I have a Linux/GNU NIS server running on my network, then also my HP server is unable to detect it. What is the possible cause? My Sun machine was participating in a NIS. However now the machine is a standalone, how do stop ypbind from starting automatically at boot? Why does the file locking fail with a Linux/GNU NFS server and Sun/Solaris client? What can I do to make the file locking work? I have unsetenv a variable still when I do a echo $variable-name it echoes some value. What is the possible cause? I have observed that on some UNIX machines I am able to run a program in the current directory with just program name command, while on others I have to give a ./program name. What is the problem and how to remedy it? I messed up my /sbin/init or /etc/inittab, now nothing works. What do I do? What is the difference between which and whereis? How come whereis is able to find the command whereas which is not? What is type in BASH? How can I get more help on it? Man says it is unable to locate a man page for it. Which is the best (?safest?) version of gcc to use as of now (2002)?