Why maven settings.xml file is not there?

I installed maven plugin for eclipse and was able to use it only in eclipse. I want to be able to run maven commands from terminal so installed maven as explained in the below link: [http://www.mkyong.com/maven/how-to-install-maven-in-ubuntu/][1] My questions are 1. I could not find `settings.xml` in this path `/home/raki/.m2/` -- What should I do for this? 2. Does the maven installed in the above step affects the maven installed in eclipse? These two mavens work independently or how is that? [1]: http://www.mkyong.com/maven/how-to-install-maven-in-ubuntu/