engine and type in the keywords of the error you received. You will need to adjust the keywords you use as you focus your search.
In this category, the most common problems deal with LILO configuration issues. Diagnosis and solutions to these problems can be found in the LILO mini-HOWTO found on the Linux Documentation project's website at http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/htmLsingle/LILO.html.
If you have GRUB problems, the GRUB manual is online at http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/.
For best results, go to http://www.google.com/linux to find all things Linux on the Internet. Google has specifically created a Linux area of its database, which should allow faster access to information on Linux than any other search engine. Usenet newsgroup postings are searchable at http://www.google.com/grphp. Mail list discussions can be searched in the Mailing listARChives (MARC) at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/.
You will use the following commands when managing the kernel and its modules in Fedora:
> gcc — The GNU compiler system
> make — GNU project and file management command
> mkbootdisk — Fedora's boot disk creation tool
> sysctl — The interface to manipulating kernel variables at runtime
> mkinitrd — Create a RAM-disk file system for bootloading support
Reference
> http://www.kernel.org/ — Linux Kernel Archives. The source of all development discussion for the Linux kernel.
> http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/index.html — Linux Kernel Traffic. Summarized version and commentary of the Linux Kernel mailing list produced weekly.
> http://www.gnu.org/ — Free Software Foundation. Source of manuals and software for programs used throughout the kernel compilation process. Tools such as make and gcc have their official documentation here.
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/22/1453228&mode=thread — The famous AC Patches from Alan Cox, for whom they are named.
> http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/Kernel-Build-HOWTO.html — The Linux Kernel Rebuild Guide; configuration, compilation, and troubleshooting.
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/KernelAnalysis- HOWTO.html — KernelAnalysis HOWTO. Describes the mysterious inner workings of the kernel.
> http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Module-HOWTO/ — Kernel Module HOWTO. Includes a good discussion about unresolved symbols.
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other- formats/html_single/Modules.html — The Linux Kernel Modules Installation HOWTO; an older document discussing recompiling kernel modules.
> http://www.tldp.org/ — The Linux Documentation Project. The Mecca of all Linux documentation. Excellent source of HOWTO documentation, as well as FAQs and online books, all about Linux.
> http://www.minix.org/ — The unofficial minix website. It contains a selection of links to information about minix and a link to the actual homepage. Although minix is still copyrighted, the owner has granted unlimited rights to everyone. See for yourself the operating system used to develop Linux.
> http://jungla.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html — A web page with links to Linux kernel documentation, books, hacker tomes, and other helpful information for budding and experienced Linux kernel and kernel module developers. This list also will be found in the /usr/src/kernels/linux-2.6/Documentation/kernel-docs.txt file if you install the Fedora kernel sources.
PART VII
Appendices
APPENDIX A
The History of Red Hat and Fedora
The main object of this book has been to give you practical advice on getting up and running with Fedora 8, and as such we haven't really spent any time looking at the origins of Fedora and how it got to where it is today. This appendix gives you information that will enable you to put Fedora into context and understand the history behind Fedora 8.
Fedora represented an evolution in the business direction of its sponsor, Red Hat. Red Hat itself is the largest commercial Linux developer in the world, and is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. For nearly 10 years, Red Hat provided copies of its commercial Linux distribution, Red Hat Linux, free over the Internet and also sold boxed copies to consumers and businesses. All that changed in October 2003, when Red Hat discontinued the sale and free distribution of the commercial Red Hat Linux.
As the company has since its inception, Red Hat then released all its work on the open source software in the former commercial distribution. The work, which was to be a new version of Red Hat Linux, was then merged with an existing Fedora Linux project and was reborn as Fedora Core. Red Hat now focuses its efforts on enterprise and corporate Linux-based products and services, but again, continues to make source code available for all its products that are under an open source license.
Red Hat's Enterprise Linux is a series of software products aimed for corporate and enterprise migration, deployment, and use. Although all Linux distributions could be considered the same underneath because all use the Linux kernel, Red Hat takes special pains to create, test, sell, and support commercial Linux distributions optimized for deployment on multiple hardware and CPU architectures. These high-performance enhancements include hardware-tweaked Linux kernels, failover and load-balancing clustering, and integrated Java support — essential for mission-critical applications and production environments.
Red Hat is one of the world's foremost open source development houses and returns nearly all its development efforts back to the Linux development community.
The company has been involved in many open source and GNU GPL projects, such as the Apache web server, the glibc software libraries, the
