You have already come across Linux packages during the installation stage. Remember you were asked to choose packages you want to install in your Linux? Well, at that time, you may be clueless about what Linux packages do you need. However after some times playing with Linux, you may need to install new programs or perhaps network or security tools. Maybe you realize that you need to upgrade or patch some software because security reason. Now it’s the time you look for software package.

There are many Linux package management systems available. Most of major Linux distributions have their own package management system. Redhat Linux package management system is rpm, the well known and widely used package management system by other distributions as well. Debian uses its traditional package management system, dpkg to manage software packages. Slackware's pkgtool is the oldest package management available today (Some people say it's not a package management system).

What is a package management system? Here is a description and some of their functions:

Linux permission is a very interesting topic. It is part of Linux security and mandatory knowledge for Linux administration. Linux permission controls all files and directories in the Linux system. So every Linux user must understand how Linux permission works including end user, who only uses desktop application or x-window.

Every Linux user must learn how to create a new user account in Linux system. There should be at least one normal user account in your system. You can't continue using root to learn Linux. It's dangerous because root is a super power user. Some serious mistakes can damage your Linux system. This tutorial will guide user adding new Linux user account using adduser command. This account will be your main account and next time you login into your Linux system, use this account instead of root.

This is not a dedicated section for Linux system administrator though its name is Linux administration page. All Linux users need to manage their own system. Besides, all tutorials in this section probably cover only 20% of the real Linux system administrator tasks. So what you can find here are all basic Linux administration guides a beginner needs to know to manage their own Linux system.

It is important for system administrator to monitor hard disk usage from time to time. This will allow earlier action to be taken if hard disk is going out of space. In Linux, there are two commands that we can use to monitor and check hard disk usage, df command and fdisk command.

Linux df command

The Linux df command reports the amount of disk space used and available on mounted file systems. That means, df command can't show unmounted usb drive such as thumb drive or external hard disk.

One of system administrator's job is to manage groups in Linux system. Manage groups task including create new group, assign users to group, remove users from group, delete group and manage group's permission. In this tutorial, we are going to look at some commands needed to manage groups in Linux system.

Linux groupadd command

The groupadd command is used to create a new group in the linux system. Here is a basic information in the groupadd manual page.

Linux file and directory ownerships guide

Managing file and directory ownerships are important administration task in Linux. Setting up ownership means give security to a file or directory.

The vi editor has a long history in UNIX. It is a default text editor of the UNIX and UNIX based operating system including Linux. Some people say vi is difficult to use. Here is a good news for you, the improved version of Vi editor which is called Vim editor is a lot easier and user friendly. In this tutorial, I'll just mention Vi but it's the same as vim. I'll mention some vim improvements over original vi editor at the end of this tutorial.

There are many commands which can be used to search file in Linux command line terminal. In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Linux whereis command, Linux which command, Linux find command and Linux locate command to find file in Linux system.

Search file using Linux whereis command

The Linux whereis command can be used to find the location of a binary, source, and manual page files. Below are examples on how to use whereis command to find file location: