FergyTech

Since I’m new to linux, one of the most important tip to know is how to back up your data. With Windows we’re all used to the fact that our data is saved in multiple areas on the computer. Unless you’re very computer savvy it’s hard to know where everything is. It’s a bit different with linux. The files to your applications may be in different areas of the file structure, but all of your important confirguration files to those applications is conviently saved in your /home directory.

Hidden Files and Folders

You may not see them at first. That’s because they are hidden. If you’re using the GNOME desktop, then your file browser (equivilent to Windows Explorer) is Nauttilus. Find your /home directory, usually found /home/{username}/. You can either click on View | Show Hidden Files, or keyboard shortcut CTRL+H to show your hidden files and folders. Once that’s done you will see files and folder that begin with a period.

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A GUI is a very complex piece of software and there could be any number of reasons why it would lock up on you. If you need to kill your x server and then restart it, here are some tips:

Killing X server via Command

Type “init 3″ in your terminal and that should kill x server.  If it doesn’t find the command, then switch to the root user by typing “su -” (you will need to know the root password).

Restarting X server

Simply use the keyboard combination CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE. Some times this will help, but this combination will explicitly restart the X server.

Working with a Console

If the previous keyboard combination did not work then try CTRL+ALT+F1. This will not kill X server, it will simply open a full screen console. I believe Red Hat and Fedora Core have F1-F6 as options. If you want to switch back to a GUI environment use the keyboard combination CTRL+ALT+F7.

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I’m toying with the idea of using a virtual machine inside of linux.  It’s been about two+ weeks or so since I last logged into my windows partition.  And to be honest it’s mainly because my activation is up and I just don’t want to try and figure it out anymore.  I learned the other day that I can run VM software inside of linux (other OSs too) and actually save a particular state (just like I used to with video game emulators) and if anything goes wrong - just load from my last save.  This can probably work as well, in regards to activation.  I don’t plan on installing or using heavy applications - so in theory, if I get my installation fine and immediatly install the apps I plan on using.  Then I can save that state and whenever things go wrong just reload my last state and I’ll have another 30-days of bliss windows usage.  Just a thought.