Files you want to know about

• /etc/network/interfaces – configure IP addresses here

• /etc/fstab – configure automatically mounted filesystems here

• /etc/sysctl.conf – configure runtime-accessible kernel variables here

• /etc/hostname – just what it sounds like

• /etc/hosts – when you need fake DNS

• /etc/passwd – where user accounts are defined

• /etc/shadow – where user passwords are stored

• /etc/group – where groups are defined

• /etc/crontab - “that other place” that regularly scheduled jobs run from

• /etc/X11/xorg.conf – abandon all hope, ye that must edit xorg.conf