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The Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
Chapter 10 Customizing your installation of Debian GNU/Linux


10.1 How can I ensure that all programs use the same paper size?

The file /etc/papersize contains the name of the system-wide default paper size (i.e. letter or A4). It can be overwritten using the PAPERSIZE environment variable. For details see the manual page papersize(5).


10.2 How can I provide access to hardware peripherals, without compromising security?

Many device files in the /dev directory belong to some predefined groups. For example, /dev/fd0 belongs to the floppy group, and /dev/dsp belongs to the audio group.

If you want a certain user to have access to one of these devices, just add the user to the group the device belongs to, i.e. do:

     adduser user group

This way you won't have to chmod the device file.


10.3 How do I load a console font on startup the Debian way?

The kbd and console-tools packages support this, edit /etc/kbd/config or /etc/console-tools/config files.


10.4 How can I configure an X11 program's application defaults?

Debian's X11 installation expects you to leave the files in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ unchanged. If you want to customise X applications globally, put your customizations in /etc/X11/Xresources. This file is marked as a configuration file, so its contents will be preserved during upgrades.


10.5 Every distribution seems to have a different boot-up method. Tell me about Debian's.

Like all Unices, Debian boots up by executing the program init. The configuration file for init (which is /etc/inittab) specifies that the first script to be executed should be /etc/init.d/rcS. This script checks and mounts file systems, loads modules, starts the network services, sets the clock, performs other initialization, and then runs all of the scripts (except those with a `.' in the filename) in /etc/rc.boot/. Any scripts in the latter directory are usually reserved for system administrator use, and using them in packages is deprecated.

After completing the boot process, init executes all start scripts in a directory specified by the default runlevel (this runlevel is given by the entry for id in /etc/inittab). Like most System V compatible Unices, Linux has 7 runlevels:

Debian systems come with id=2, which indicates that the default runlevel will be '2' when the multi-user state is entered, and the scripts in /etc/rc2.d/ will be run.

In fact, the scripts in any of the directories, /etc/rcN.d/ are just symbolic links back to scripts in /etc/init.d/. However, the names of the files in each of the /etc/rcN.d/ directories are selected to indicate the way the scripts in /etc/init.d/ will be run. Specifically, before entering any runlevel, all the