Most Linux software is written in C and compiled with the GNU C compiler. GCC is a part of every Linux distribution. The latest compiler version, documentation, and patches are on ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/. Programs that are written in C++ must be compiled with the GNU G++ compiler, which is also included in Linux distributions and available from the same place as GCC.

 

 

In text mode, press the left Alt-F1 to Alt-F12 to select the consoles tty1 to tty12; Right Alt-F1 gives tty13 and so on.

 

To switch out of X you must press Ctrl-Alt-F1, etc; Alt-F5 or whatever will switch back.

 

However, If you have a non-PC compatible system, please see the note below.

 

If you want to use a VC for ordinary login, it must be listed in /etc/inittab, which controls which terminals and virtual consoles have login prompts. The X Window System needs at least one free VC in order to start.

 

 

Linux supports read/write access of Windows for Workgroups and Windows NT SMB volumes. See the file Documentation/filesystems/smbfs.txt of the Linux kernel source distribution.

 

The SMB Web site is http://www.samba.org, and there is also a Web site at samba.anu.edu.au/samba/.

In general, this is very hard to do on unices because of their multitasking nature. Undelete functionality for the ext2fs file system is being worked on, but don't hold your breath. There are a number of packages available which instead provide new commands for deleting and copying which move deleted files into a "wastebasket" directory. The files can be recovered until cleaned out automatically by background processing.

 

The Midnight Commander file manager provides an undelete facility that uses Ext2 file system library functions and an undelete directory for each file system. Commercial distribution packages of MC may or may not have this feature enabled, so be sure to look in the source code distribution for instructions on how to enable the undelete feature.

 

Alternatively, you can search the raw disk device which holds the file system in question. This is hard work, and you will need to be logged in as root to do this. But it can be done. Run grep on the raw device; e.g.: grep -b 'bookmarks' /dev/hda If the data has not been overwritten, you should be able to recover it with a text editor.

 

You can back up a directory hierarchy or complete file system to any media using GNU tar or cpio, the standard *nix tools for this purpose. tar seems to be the more commonly used program currently, and includes command line options to make compressed, incremental, and multi-volume backups. Complete information is contained in the documentation, which is in GNU Texinfo format.

 

The free program, Amanda, receives a lot of mentions on Usenet. Its home page is http://www.amanda.org.

 

 

Look first in the Linux Software Map.
It's at: ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/linux-software-map/, and on the other FTP sites. A search engine is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.boutell.com/lsm/. Also check out the Freshmeat Web site: http://www.freshmeat.net, which is where many new announcements of free software first appear.

Freshmeat is basically a site index that continuously updates the notices of new or upgraded software for Linux, and maintains indexes of the announcements and links to their URL's. The FTP sites (Where Are the Linux FTP Archives?) often have ls-lR or INDEX directory listings which you can search using grep or a text editor. The directory listings files can be very large, however, making them unwieldy for quick searches.
Also look at the Linux Project's Map: ftp://ftp.ix.de/pub/ix/Linux/docs/Projects-Map.gz.

There's a search engine for Linux FTP archives at: http://lfw.linuxhq.com. Searching for "Linux" on the World Wide Web provides copious references. (Where Is the Linux Stuff on the World Wide Web?) If you don't find anything, you could download the sources to the program yourself and compile them. 

 

If it's a large package that may require some porting, post a message to news:comp.os.linux.development.apps. The popularity of Linux makes this an extremely unlikely occurrence. The great majority of software available on other Unix-type systems has already been ported to Linux. If you compile a large-ish program, please upload it to one or more of the FTP sites, and post a message to news:comp.os.linux.announce (submit your posting to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . If you're looking for an application program, the chances are that someone has already written a free version. The news:comp.sources.wanted FAQ has instructions for finding the source code.

 

Linux runs all of the standard open source utilities, like GCC, (X)Emacs, the X Window System, all the standard Unix utilities, TCP/IP (including SLIP and PPP), and all of the hundreds of programs that people have compiled or ported to it. There is a DOS emulator, called DOSEMU, that lets Linux run programs written for DOS. The FTP archives are at ftp://ftp.dosemu.org/dosemu.

 

Work has been progressing on WINE, an emulator for Microsoft Windows binaries.

 

WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator), is a reimplementation of Windows APIs for Linux and Unix. WINE is a great project with huge potential, but it is still not ready for general distribution. It is already capable of running many Windows programs.

 

A proprietary program called VMWare is also available to let you run Windows under a Linux "host" operating system. See the company's website at http://www.vmware.com.