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 Great little site. NHF's are wonderful things
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 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.