Some Generic questions

[Ensiferum]

Hey guys,

So I got fed up with windows and decided to try my knowledge at Linux, and I have to say, for only having firefox and a few other applications downloaded, I love it. It's so customizable, although less user friendly than windows (which kind of makes me feel smart to be honest).

My questions are these:

1) When I download an install file, or run a sudo apt-get install <name>, or anything along that lines with an install file and a compilation of something, what is safe to delete after installing, and is there a place that Linux stores all these install files that I can clean up every once in a while, or does it do this on its own.

2) On the same lines, When installing things, just out of curiosity really, when I run a sudo apt-get or something like that, that directs to a website to install a file from, does it download the file from the website and store it somewhere for me to clean up later/it deletes later, or is it just reading information from the website, and nothing is stored on my drive besides the installed application?

3) This one is more specific and likely won't get an answer but... I am running on a DV9317 laptop, the dv9000 series. The fan is constantly on after a F.3D Bios update done in windows a while back, and this is a known problem. I know Linux has a bit more customization work to be done so I'm wondering if there is a program/multiple ones I can check out to see if I can slow down the fan manually? I tried SpeedFan and RMU or something when i was running vista, and neither detected my fan.

4) ... I think that's all actually. Thanks a lot for any responses! Please be as specific as you can, as I'm not *real* comfortable with the environment yet.

-Ensiferum

[Geeth]

1) When I download an install file, or run a sudo apt-get install <name>, or anything along that lines with an install file and a compilation of something, what is safe to delete after installing, and is there a place that Linux stores all these install files that I can clean up every once in a while, or does it do this on its own.

You can remove the source file / folder without issues

To remove the programs after an install.

sudo apt-get remove <package name>

If a program was installed from source i.e .tar.gz files or .deb you can search synaptic and remove from there.

Files that the program run from are stored in folders throughout the / directory depending on what the file is to do.

On the same lines, When installing things, just out of curiosity really, when I run a sudo apt-get or something like that, that directs to a website to install a file from, does it download the file from the website and store it somewhere for me to clean up later/it deletes later, or is it just reading information from the website, and nothing is stored on my drive besides the installed application?

When you use apt-get to install it won't save a source file on the computer with all the files in it, like a .tar.gz or .deb package. Just installs the files.

[techieMoe]

3) This one is more specific and likely won't get an answer but... I am running on a DV9317 laptop, the dv9000 series. The fan is constantly on after a F.3D Bios update done in windows a while back, and this is a known problem. I know Linux has a bit more customization work to be done so I'm wondering if there is a program/multiple ones I can check out to see if I can slow down the fan manually? I tried SpeedFan and RMU or something when i was running vista, and neither detected my fan.

I had some fan issues with an older laptop once. There are utilities out there that can help you control the speed of the system fans. I'm not sure if this solution will work for you, but you might give it a try:

HP LAPTOP fan control [Archive] - Ubuntu Forums

[fbianconi]

1)a. When installed by apt-get you can

$ sudo apt-get clean

(you'll have to download again if want to reinstall)
b. When installed by source you can delete the folder after install, but be warned you wont be able to uninstall until you have the source again (not with 'make uninstall'), you can do

$ make clean

to delete the binary files that where compiled and copied elsewhere (with 'sudo make install').

you can only use synaptic for managing deb packages, not programs installed outside apts (Application Package Tools like dselect, apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, etc)

2) When installing with apt-get the files (deb packages) are downloaded to /var/cache/apt/archives (is the folder that gets empty by 'apt-get clean')

[i92guboj]

b. When installed by source you can delete the folder after install, but be warned you wont be able to uninstall until you have the source again (not with 'make uninstall'), you can do

$ make clean

to delete the binary files that where compiled and copied elsewhere (with 'sudo make install').

I am not sure I understand you correctly. But the purpose of "make clean", usually, is not to delete the files installed with "make install". With "make clean" we usually delete the intermediate files that will be generated in the source directory, but it usually doesn't touch anything in your live system. For that, you need "make uninstall". Of course, what each command do is up to the programmer, but these are the traditional meanings for this commands.

[fbianconi]

Sorry is not what I meant. Was a punctuation mistake.
(hopefully will be clear this time) what I meant is
"make clean" deletes the files that were copied with "make install", the original ones, not the copies. The copies will remain there and the program will still function anyway.

And if you delete the source tree from where you did "make" you can't expect to "make uninstall" to get the program out of your system

My apologies again, English is not my home language.