David Pilz wrote: > > I am about to install linux for the first time, and am having a few > problems: what are the symbolic links for? what do they do? They are not > being downloaded to my computer when I download the packages. Do I need > them?
If you're coming from the world of Win9x/NT, a symbolic link is like a shortcut. It's simply a pointer to the real file (but in console mode, so it's not an icon on X) DOS/Windows doesn't really have anything comparable, but as said, you can kind of think of them as shortcuts. Generally, if a link is needed, it'll be created by the installer. Sometimes you might need to create one manually, like so: ln -s /home/pilz/the_real_file /starterfiles/Start_The_Real_File > Also, the file sizes specified for the packages are relatively > small - 3 Kb, 4 Kb, etc., but when I download the packages they turn out > to be larger - 3 Mb, 4 Mb, and devel was about 150 Mb. Why is this? Any > help would be appreciated. I can't speak to this.
