GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
Desktop Survival Project Home Preface Advocacy History Distributions Installation Basic Survival Wajig Audio AbiWord APM Backup Bash Booting Cameras CD Chinese ChRoot Clock Commercial Conference Management Configuration CRON CVS Databases DIA Directories Disks Documentation DVD Email Eye of Gnome Evolution File Systems Firewalls Floppy Disks Fonts Ghemical GIMP Glade Gnome GnuCash Gnumeric GQView Graphics Groups HTML Editors ImageMagick Initialisations on Booting Java KDE Kernels Keyboard Konqueror KVM Switch LaTeX Log System Login Magellan Mathematics Memory Modems Mounting Devices MS/Windows Music MySQL Nautilus Networks NFS NT File System OpenOffice.org Oracle Packages Partitions Passwords PDF Photos PPP Presentations Printing Python R Remote Desktops Rsync Samba Scanning Science Security SH File System Sketch Spell SPlus Spruce SSH SUDO Subversion Swap Themes USB Video Virtualization Web Word X XML Sample Installations Troubleshooting Index

Account Configuration

Set up a basic system with ssh, wajig, emacs21, less, most, zile, sudo:

  # apt-get install wajig
  # wajig install ssh emacs21 less most zile sudo

Now create or copy a standard /etc/apt/sources.list and get things on the road:

  # cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.original
  # scp athens:/etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list
  # wajig update
  # wajig dist-upgrade

Use visudo to set up wajig usage for a user by adding the following lines in the appropriate (and obvious) places:

  Cmnd_Alias APT = /usr/bin/apt-get, /usr/bin/apt-cache, /usr/bin/dpkg, \ 
                   /usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure, /usr/bin/dpkg-repack, \ 
                   /etc/init.d/*, /usr/sbin/update-alternatives, \ 
                   /usr/lib/apt-move/fetch, /usr/bin/dselect, \
                   /usr/bin/alien, /usr/sbin/apt-setup, \
                   /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d

  kayon ALL=(ALL) APT

Set up, for the user account, ssh for access to remote accounts if you like, to avoid repeatedly typing a password:

  $ ssh-keygen -t dsa
  ...accept the default file location
  ...enter a pass phrase - not too long
  $ scp .ssh/id_dsa.pub athens:.ssh/id_dsa.new
  $ ssh athens; cd .ssh; cat id_dsa.new >> authorized_keys
  $ ssh-agent bash
  $ ssh-add
  Enter passphrase for /home/kayon/.ssh/id_dsa: 
  Identity added: /home/kayon/.ssh/id_dsa (/home/kayon/.ssh/id_dsa)

Now copy setup files from remote hosts:

  $ scp athens:{.bashrc,.bash_profile,.emacs,.emacs-custom,.emacs-kayon} . 
  $ scp athens:{.xsession,.Xresources} .

Copy the same files for root.