11
Special System Features
This chapter starts with information about various software packages, the virtual consoles
and the keyboard layout. We talk about software components like bash, cron and
logrotate, because they were changed or enhanced during the last release cycles.
Even if they are small or considered of minor importance, users may want to change
their default behavior, because these components are often closely coupled with the
system. The chapter concludes with a section about language and country-specic set-
tings (I18N and L10N).
11.1 Information about Special
Software Packages
The programs bash, cron, logrotate, locate, ulimit and free are very
important for system administrators and many users. Man pages and info pages are two
useful sources of information about commands, but both are not always available. GNU
Emacs is a popular and very congurable text editor.
11.1.1 The bash Package and /etc/prole
Bash is the default system shell. When used as a login shell, it reads several initialization
les. Bash processes them in the order they appear in this list:
Special System Features 193
