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Getting started with Linux

hdc: CREATIVECD2421E, ATAPI CDROM drive

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14

ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15

Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M

FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077

md driver 0.35 MAX_MD_DEV=4, MAX_REAL=8

raid0 personality registered

DLCI driver v0.30, 12 Sep 1996, mike.mclagan@Linux.org.

Partition check:

hda: hda1 hda2

VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.

Adding Swap: 16092k swap-space (priority -1)

Soundblaster audio driver Copyright (C) by Hannu Savolainen 1993-1996

SB 3.1 detected OK (220)

sb: Interrupt test on IRQ5 failed - device disabled.

YM3812 and OPL-3 driver Copyright (C) by Hannu Savolainen, Rob Hooft

1993-1996

sysctl: ip forwarding off

Swansea University Computer Society IPX 0.34 for NET3.035

IPX Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera, Inc.

You will realise that the messages scrolled down before you could read

them. To see them page by page type "dmesg | less" or "dmesg | more".

The dmesg command provides valuable information about the hardware

devices detected by Linux. It also helps in knowing if there was some

problem somewhere. Like if you see the line: sb: Interrupt test on

IRQ5 failed - device disabled. It means there was a problem with

setting up of the Sound Blaster sound card at IRQ5. If you get such

errors, it may mean that some of your hardware is not working

correctly under Linux.

The BASH shell has a lot of ease of use. If you like working a lot on

the command line, you will find it very easy. The bash shell allows

using the previous command by press the up arrow key. You can also

search for previous commands by typing "CTRL-R" and typing some words

from the previous commands. To clear the screen press CTRL-L or simply

type "clear".

Another important command is df. Just type "df" and you will see

something like:

Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on

/dev/hda6 388362 341804 26501 93% /

/dev/hda5 614672 572176 42496 93% /dosd

This gives information of all your mounted hard disk partitions,

available space and used space. The space shown is 1024 blocks which

is 1024 bytes or one Kilo Byte. It also shows at which directory the