Newbie questions...bear with me.

[lithiumdeuteride]

A long-time Windows user, I decided to give Linux a try, so I installed the latest version of Debian (4.0, I think). Despite years of experience with Windows, I am utterly lost in the maze of terminal commands, and cannot perform basic tasks to customize the OS. I need help on several fronts:

1. How do I permanently mount specific NTFS drives (IDE and SATA) with read-only permission (so as not to corrupt data)?

2. How do I edit the functions of individual mouse buttons, especially in web browser programs like Iceweasel?

3. How do I install a .deb package I downloaded to the desktop? I tried "apt-get install <path>/<filename>.deb", and it said it couldn't find the file.

4. How do I make Nautilus perform all actions in the same window, rather than opening a new one every time I click something?

5. How do I create a keyboard shortcut for switching between keyboard layouts (for example, QWERTY and Dvorak)?

Please explain any terminal commands at a basic level, because the only things I currently know how to do in the terminal are login as root, change directories, list contents, and open files with Nano.

Thanks in advance.

[jledhead]

#1, you need the ntfs-3g to r/w safely to ntfs. to mount on boot (using fstab) read this
Debian User Forums :: View topic - accessing ntfs with read write access

#3, dpkg -i yourfile.deb

#4 nautilus opens new dirs in new windows? [Archive] - Ubuntu Forums

also remember, google is your friend

A long-time Windows user, I decided to give Linux a try, so I installed the latest version of Debian (4.0, I think). Despite years of experience with Windows, I am utterly lost in the maze of terminal commands, and cannot perform basic tasks to customize the OS. I need help on several fronts:

1. How do I permanently mount specific NTFS drives (IDE and SATA) with read-only permission (so as not to corrupt data)?

2. How do I edit the functions of individual mouse buttons, especially in web browser programs like Iceweasel?

3. How do I install a .deb package I downloaded to the desktop? I tried "apt-get install <path>/<filename>.deb", and it said it couldn't find the file.

4. How do I make Nautilus perform all actions in the same window, rather than opening a new one every time I click something?

5. How do I create a keyboard shortcut for switching between keyboard layouts (for example, QWERTY and Dvorak)?

Please explain any terminal commands at a basic level, because the only things I currently know how to do in the terminal are login as root, change directories, list contents, and open files with Nano.

Thanks in advance.

[oz]

Welcome to the forums, lithiumdeuteride!

Here's a great site for getting yourself up to speed with the command line:

LinuxCommand.org: Learn the Linux command line. Write shell scripts.

Let us know should you have any other questions.

[lithiumdeuteride]

I'm working my way through that "Learning the Shell" tutorial, but so far, I'm having no luck mounting drives in a way that lets me actually read them.

If I want the computer (upon startup) to automatically mount partition 1 on SATA drive A to /drive2, make a desktop shortcut, and grant read-only access to all users, what lines do I add to my fstab file?

[devils casper]

Execute this

su
fdisk -l
less /etc/fstab

Post output here.

[lithiumdeuteride]

fdisk -l yields the following:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 38913 312568641 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 300.0 GB, 300069052416 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 581421 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 581418 293034640+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40027029504 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4866 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 122 979933+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda2 123 487 2931862+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 488 4866 35174317+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 14593 117218241 7 HPFS/NTFS


My fstab file currently looks like this:

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda2 /var ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/hda1 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0


I'd like to mount the NTFS IDE drive, and both NTFS SATA drives, every time the computer boots, to /drive1, /drive2, and /drive3 in no particular order, with permissions set to read-only access for all users.

[abhishek456]

don't know wheter you got ntfs-3g if not get it first

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

then add the fallowing lines in to your fsatb file

/dev/sda1 /media/drive1 ntfs-3g ro,locale=en_US.utf8,uid=1000 0 0

/dev/sdb1 /media/drive2 ntfs-3g ro,locale=en_US.utf8,uid=1000 0 0

/dev/hdb1 /media/drive1 ntfs-3g ro,locale=en_US.utf8,uid=1000 0 0

Now if you want these new chnages to take effect there are two options one is you can simply reboot your machine and the second one is without rebooting you need to run the following commands

To unmount

sudo umount -a

To Mount

sudo mount -a

[devils casper]

/dev/sda1 /media/drive1 ntfs-3g ro,locale=en_US.utf8,uid=1000 0 0

Correct Code is

 /dev/sda1   /media/drive1   ntfs-3g        defaults 0 0

There is no need to pass ro and locale parameters.

[lithiumdeuteride]

Alright, I tried to install ntfs-3g, but it had a missing dependency (fuse-utils). I tried installing fuse-utils, but it was missing "libfuse2". I downloaded the latest version of libfuse2, but it needed "libc6 (>= 2.6-1)", whereas my system version of libc6 was only 2.3.6.ds1-13.

I tried running an update using apt-get, but it did not seem to see this new version of libc6. I searched via Google, and it appears this new version of libc6 is unstable.

How can I avoid installing unstable software, while still mounting NTFS drives? Remember that I do not care about write access. Mounting the drives as read-only is fine with me.

[devils casper]

Download libntfs and ntfs-3g.

wget http://snapshot.debian.net/archive/2007/03/01/debian/pool/main/n/ntfs-3g/libntfs-3g0_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb
wget http://snapshot.debian.net/archive/2007/03/01/debian/pool/main/n/ntfs-3g/ntfs-3g_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb

[/code]
Install fuse-utils and libfuse2:

su
apt-get install fuse-utils libfuse2

now install libntfs and ntfs-3g:

su
dpkg -i libntfs-3g0_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb
dpkg -i ntfs-3g_0.0.0+20061031-6_i386.deb