Well, I finally did it, I went to Linux

[i6s1]

Yeah, last night I wiped XP off my almost-a-year-old Dell 8100. I put on Mandrake 9.0 onto a 4.5gb partion. I have a 400 meg swapfile and two 2gb FAT partions for Windows, in case I need to go to dual boot. If not, I'll just put my videos and mp3s in there.

The installation was suprisingly easy, I thought I'd have to configure a lot more stuff.

It's wierd, now I know how my grandma feels, knowing next to nothing. I can surf with it and check my email, but not much else. I now have two immidiate priorities:

1: Get my screen sized right. During the install it asked me for my screen size, which is a 1400x1050 panel. But when KDE asked me for my screen size, I couldn't pick that, I had to go with 1280x1024.

2: Figure out how to install programs. Something about a command line and RPMs or something.

Lesser priorities:

1: Get the modem going
2: Network with my XP desktop, share files and it's printer
3: Find out if I can use the internal modem on a Simons M46 phone with Linux
4: Find a copy of the old free StarOffice



So there you have it. Can anyone point me towards a site set up like a "Dummy's guide"?

[Nija]

Originally posted by i6s1
It's wierd, now I know how my grandma feels, knowing next to nothing. I can surf with it and check my email, but not much else. I now have two immidiate priorities:

1: Get my screen sized right. During the install it asked me for my screen size, which is a 1400x1050 panel. But when KDE asked me for my screen size, I couldn't pick that, I had to go with 1280x1024.

2: Figure out how to install programs. Something about a command line and RPMs or something.

Lesser priorities:

1: Get the modem going
2: Network with my XP desktop, share files and it's printer
3: Find out if I can use the internal modem on a Simons M46 phone with Linux
4: Find a copy of the old free StarOffice

1.)Try Gnome or some of the other GUI's I don't believe KDE does such a high resoltion.
2.) yep. You need to learn how to install stuff with the command line, or RPMs or gzip. try Linux Newbie Dot Org (http://www.linuxnewbie.org) Great little site. NHF's are wonderful things :P
lessers
1) it's not a winmodem is it? if it is, you are SOL. If it's not look for documentation in your control panel (and i can't remember where it is since i'm not at home)
2) Samba. That is what you need.
4) I got my copy of StarOffice from the sun website :shrug: and it is the free version not their new, pay only version.

[Hoser]

What about http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ ? Just use google and you'll find more Linux information then you know what to do with it.

[wga22]

Originally posted by i6s1
It's wierd, now I know how my grandma feels, knowing next to nothing. I can surf with it and check my email, but not much else. I now have two immidiate priorities:


Agreed! I just installed Red Hat 8.0 on a partition. I have tinkered with older red hats in the past. I am impressed, and certainly think that a computer newbie in a vacuum would be just as good at linux as windows...with the basics. After that, its all downhill. RPM's are great. multiple desktops are good. I even like terminal commands.

So much isnt refined though. I installed ut2003 last night, and it didnt work. I needed to patch my kernel and follow a couple pages of instructions. well, today X wont boot. very intimidating.