Switching to Ubuntu From Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora
It's easy to apply your existing knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora to Ubuntu. The key differences between them are covered in this guide.
Administrative Tasks
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora by default, each administrative user needs to know the root password, in addition to their own password.
In Ubuntu, each user only has one password. Users in the admin group can run command line and graphical applications with elevenated priveleges. Graphical admin tools prompt for this password when run, and command line tools can be run with root-privileges using [RootSudo sudo].
Packaging
Ubuntu has one of the largest ranges of packages available to it, so you'll have more chance of finding what you want in the repositories. Graphical apps will put a link into Ubuntu's Applications menu.
Graphical Tools
You'll find Synaptic to be an excellent tool for finding, fetching and installing packages.
Command Line Tools
Ubuntu uses apt-get instead of yum / up2date / urpmi etc. to find, download, and install packages (and their dependencies).
Note that unlike yum, apt-get is only for packages available in repositories - it cannot handle packages you've already downloaded. dpkg is used instead.
Task |
Using RHEL or Fedora |
Using Ubuntu |
Refresh list of available packages |
Yum refreshes each time it's used |
apt-get update; apt-get update |
Fetch and install a package (and any dependencies) |
yum install package |
apt-get install package |
Get information about an available package |
yum search package |
apt-cache show package |
Show available packages |
yum list available |
apt-cache dumpavail |
List all installed packages |
yum list installed OR rpm -qa |
dpkg --list |
Get information about an installed package |
yum info packagename OR rpm -qi packagename |
dpkg --status packagename |
List files in an installed package |
rpm -ql pkgname |
dpkg --listfiles pkgname |
Get information about a package file |
rpm -qpi package.rpm |
dpkg --info package.deb |
List files in a package file |
rpm -qpl package.rpm |
dpkg --contents package.deb |
Extract files in a package |
rpm2cpio package.rpm |cpio -vid |
dpkg-deb --extract package.deb dir-to-extract-to |
Install a package file |
yum install package.rpm OR rpm -i package.rpm |
dpkg --install package.deb |
Remove a package |
rpm -e pkgname |
dpkg --remove pkgname |
Find package that installed a file |
rpm -qf filename |
dpkg --search filename |
Find package that provides a particular file |
yum provides filename |
apt-file search filename |
More technical information about Debian style packaging can be found at http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkg_basics.en.html and http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/index.en.html
Services
Graphical Tools
Services can be configured by clicking System -> Administration -> Services
There's also [http://www.marzocca.net/linux/bum.html Boot-Up Manager].
Command Line Tools
Task |
Red Hat Enterprise / Fedora example (with Apache HTTPd) |
Ubuntu example |
Starting/stopping services immediately |
service httpd start |
/etc/init.d/apache start or service apache start (from sysvconfig package) or use sysv-rc-conf |
Enabling a service at boot |
chkconfig httpd on |
sysv-rc-conf apache on or update-rc.d apache defaults |
Disabling a service at boot |
chkconfig httpd off |
sysv-rc-conf apache off or update-rc.d apache purge |
Note: whereas Red Hat and Fedora's servers boot into runlevel 3 by default, Ubuntu servers default to runlevel 2.