Linux ... for dummies!

The first place you should visit is your local library. They must have Linux books. There's even a book called "Linux in 24 hours".

Next would be to do a google search for 'Linux Tutorial'.

Mandrake has an online tutorial for their distro.

I use Ubuntu and am often on their forum.

Some links:
http://www.mozillaquest.com/indexes/Linux4Windows_index.html
http://elibrary.fultus.com/technical/index.jsp?topic=/com.fultus.suse/index.html
http://www.linuxcommand.org/index.php
http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?act=ST&f=14&t=503&s=
http://www.brunolinux.com/
http://www.linux-tutorial.info/
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/
http://linuxsurvival.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=1&meid=-1
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/gs/node5.html

I usually suggest that a person get a separate drive for Linux. You disconnect the Windows HD, set the new HD to master, install Linux, set it to slave, reconnect the Windows HD as master, then use the BIOS to select the boot OS or use a floppy to boot into Linux.

Most people start with KDE. I prefer GNOME 2.8 (Ubuntu WARTY distro).

 

YEah I'm using GNOME, but I have KDE installed too, I just prefer GNOME, and I tried some other wm that was supposed to be really small and fast, it totally confused the hell out of me. I had xmule, but mostly I just mldonkey now, and it works great. And firefox for the browser of course. The file system makes sense once you get used to it, you might check IBM's website, they have some useful info on linux. As far as installing things, I find it works best from the command line, and if you are unsure of any commands or programs, just type 'man programname'

 

OK here's something I could use some advice on - right now i connect to broadband over an ethernet cable. i have a wireless card that linux isn't recognising (although PCMCIA gets an "OK" in the boot checks).

So I'd like to be able to use both, but if either/or then the card. Obviously I need to download a driver, which is easy enough, but then what? How do I install the driver, and do I have to change some setting to get it to connect via that card instead of the ethernet port? It always recognises "eth0" as the connection, do I need to tell it to look somewhere else additionally or instead?

 

PointBreak,

What distro are you working with?

 

When I first posted the message I was on BLAG which is more or less a slimmed down version of Fedora Core 3. But I reinstalled XP and then set up a dual boot with Mandrake/KDE. The wireless card (a Netgear WG511) works fine in XP and it seems to have been recognised in Mandrake (when I go through the wireless networking setup, it assumes the correct kind of card and so on. I'm using DHCP so there aren't many options to choose.

But the card doesn't seem to be "on line". Its not that it won't connect or can't find the connection, the card is lifeless. No lights at all. So it seems the problem is that the system isn't recognising that the card is there rather than having some kind of problem connecting. I've looked through the PCMCIA options and don't see anything much to do there.

Also, for a PIII 600Mhz/200MB notebook, it is pretty sluggish even under IceWM. Is there some tuning I need to do?

 

I've just installed SuSE 9.2 (dual boot with XP) and the first thing I can't seem to do is get online!

All my PCs access the net through a Windows 2000 machine sharing it's connection. But so far, I can seem to get it to network with it, although my NIC drivers are installed fine.
Anyone wanna shed a little light here?

 

Generally speaking, the very first thing that Linux does is try to get on-line, so it's strange that it's not working. Is your network wireless? It can be a bit more complicated with wireless networks. In freeBSD, the command you want to connect your PC to a network is ifconfig and route if it's using a router. I'm pretty sure it'd be different for Linux.

 

It's not a wireless network, no. Just plain old wires running from my Windows 2000 machine to my SuSE machine.

I've tried everything I can think of. I opened Yast and configured my NIC with all the correct IP addys (such as gateway etc). I'm not using DHCP and not part of a domain.
Every time I try to go to any website, I get an error like 'an error occured while loading 'http://www.whateversite.com'. Unknown host'
It's just so confusing! I can get this Windows machine (which is the same machine) to connect just fine.

 

I'm running a Debian-Linux and DSL over pcmcia on a Notebook without any problems and I'm not familar with Mandrake. May be, there are some kernel-modules missing. For configuring my web-access i used a small programm, called pppoeconf, took it from a SuSE-Distro. Try the command lsmod from the command-line, to see, what modules are installed. Here's the output of my lsmod:

Module Size Used by
ppp_async 8864 1
crc_ccitt 1696 1 ppp_async
r128 100964 2
apm 18124 1
vmnet 29392 12
vmmon 48344 0
3c589_cs 11016 1
usblp 10880 0
uhci_hcd 29264 0
intel_agp 19616 1
usbhid 16096 0
ehci_hcd 26020 0
snd_rtctimer 2224 0
rtc 9496 1 snd_rtctimer
msdos 7360 0
snd_es1968 25832 1
snd_pcm_oss 49448 0
snd_mixer_oss 17504 2 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 83336 2 snd_es1968,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc 9032 2 snd_es1968,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart 5792 1 snd_es1968
snd_seq_oss 31008 0
snd_seq_midi 6400 0
snd_rawmidi 19428 2 snd_mpu401_uart,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 5856 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 47664 5 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 20196 3 snd_rtctimer,snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 6440 3 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec 66244 1 snd_es1968
snd 46276 13 snd_es1968,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec
soundcore 6848 2 snd
ati_agp 6476 0
agpgart 28136 3 intel_agp,ati_agp
usb_storage 27200 0
usbcore 101444 7 usblp,uhci_hcd,usbhid,ehci_hcd,usb_storage
vfat 11328 0
fat 38880 2 msdos,vfat
ide_scsi 13988 0
ppp_deflate 4832 0
zlib_deflate 21848 1 ppp_deflate
ppp_generic 19700 6 ppp_async,ppp_deflate
slhc 6304 1 ppp_generic
zlib_inflate 21312 1 ppp_deflate

Another way for help could be, to find a LUG (Linux User Group) near by you.