Keep / small by distributing larger parts of the directory tree to other filesystems.

Separate a small /boot partition below cylinder 1024 for kernels.

Separate /var into its own partition to prevent runaway logs from filling /.

Separate /tmp.

Separate /usr if it is to be shared read-only among other systems via NFS.

Set swap size to be somewhere between one and two times the size of main memory.

LILO has historically been the default Linux boot loader.

LILO consists of the lilo command, which installs the boot loader, and the boot loader itself.

LILO is configured using /etc/lilo.conf.

GRUB can boot Linux as well as most other PC-based operating systems.

GRUB relies on various files in the /boot/grub directory to support reading from various types of filesystems.

GRUB is configured using /boot/grub/menu.lst (or /boot/grub/grub.conf on some distributions).

GRUB can be configured to present a text or graphical menu interface and also has a command-line interface.

Software often comes in a compressed tar archive file.

Larger source code packages include a configure script to verify that everything is in order to compile the software.

make is then used to build the software.

make is also often used to install the software into directories such as /usr/local/bin.

System libraries provide many of the functions required by a program.

A program that contains executable code from libraries is statically linked because it stands alone and contains all necessary code to execute.

Since static linking leads to larger executable files and more resource consumption, system libraries can be shared among many executing programs at the same time.

A program that contains references to external , shared libraries is dynamically linked at runtime by the dynamic linker, ld.so.

New locations for shared libraries can be added to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable. As an alternative, the locations can be added to /etc/ld.so.conf, which lists library file directories. After this, you must run ldconfig to translate this file into the binary index /etc/ld.so.cache.

dpkg automates the installation and maintenance of software packages and offers a number of options.

dselect uses a text based interactive menu to select (or deselect) packages for installation.

alien can install RPM packages on Debian-based systems .

apt-get is a powerful tool that interfaces with online repositories of Debian packages to install and upgrade Debian packages by package name and resolves each package's dependencies automatically.

RPM automates the installation and maintenance of software packages.

Package dependencies are defined but not resolved automatically.

-i, -e, -U, -v, -h, --nodeps, and --force are common options.