Chapter 7. Home sweet /home

Table of Contents

7.1. General good housekeeping

7.1.1. Introduction
7.1.2. Make space

7.2. Your text environment

7.2.1. Environment variables
7.2.2. Shell setup files
7.2.3. A typical set of setup files
7.2.4. The Bash prompt
7.2.5. Shell scripts

7.3. The graphical environment

7.3.1. Introduction
7.3.2. The X Window System
7.3.3. X server configuration

7.4. Sound and video

7.4.1. Sound card configuration
7.4.2. If automatic sound card detection fails
7.4.3. Sound and video playing

7.5. Region specific settings

7.5.1. Keyboard setup
7.5.2. Fonts
7.5.3. Time zone
7.5.4. Language
7.5.5. Specific information for Belgium
7.5.6. Other countries

7.6. Installing new software

7.6.1. General
7.6.2. Package formats
7.6.3. Automating package management and updates
7.6.4. Upgrading your kernel
7.6.5. Installing extra packages from the installation CDs

7.7. Summary

7.8. Exercises

7.8.1. Shell environment
7.8.2. Graphical environment

This chapter is about configuring your environment. Now that we now how to use an editor, we can change all kinds of files to make ourselves feel better at home. After completing this chapter, you will know more about:

Organizing your environment
Common shell setup files
Shell configuration
Configuring the prompt
Configuring the graphical environment
Sound and video applications
Display and window managers
How the X client-server system works
Language and font settings
Installing new software
Updating existing packages