Hello,
This is my first post. I didn't want to post a question that had already been asked, so I've been trying to find my answers in the forums for hours now and am a bit more lost than when I started. If my questions have been answered before, please forgive me and assume that I was simply too stupid to know them when I saw them. I need serious help!

First: A little background might be called for.

I was using Win XP Pro... After the 3rd time that it crashed (BSoD) and lost ALL of my data, I decided that I was going to become a Linux user. I found and installed Fedora 6, and WINE... and that was all easy enough. That's where my troubles began though. I am a complete novice, and it seems to me that Linux operates off of the assumption that you know what you want to do and how to do it. I don't know...and almost all of the help I can find is written in terms that an average Linux beginner would understand, the rest is in absolute geek-speak...I don't understand a lick of geek-speak, and finding out exactly how to do what I want to do is driving me mad. I spent three hours last night typing curses and colorful phrases into something called "Terminal" in frustration over this. Can someone tell me how to do a few things (or where to find out how to do them) in terms that I can follow? Just assume that you're talking to an absolute idiot, or a small child and we should get along famously.

Here's what I need to know about:

1. I have a drive that is still in NTFS format with some valuable data that I don't want to lose, I'd like to access it, grab the data and then re-format it.

2. I use a linksys wireless usb device to access my VPN, and I can't get Linux to even acknowledge that it's there, let alone install it... (the install disk starts but incounters errors and freezes)

3. I need to install my printer and I'm clueless in that regard.

4. I have several win based games that I'd also like to install (Battlefield2, Neverwinter nights 2, and UFO: Aftershock) and I can get all of the install shields to start under WINE, but they crash unexpectedly shortly after without the actual install shield starting, and without an error message.

5. The video player I have seems to not have the appropriate decoders to play ANYTHING... and I don't know how to go about getting it the decoders it needs.

6. I also put in a program called VMWARE Server, thinking it would let me handle win apps, but I have the files sitting on my desktop and can't figure out how to install them.


Please help. Please, PLEASE HELP ME!?!

First recommendation (you always have the choice to ignore me) remove fedora, and install ubuntu. I'm willing to bet most of the problems you described disappear. Second, a great novice intro to Linux is: Introduction Linux Guide from TLDP.

Regards,

Alunduil

The first advice is that you take the questions one step at a time.
Second, try to clear your head of most Windows assumptions--Linux is different.

I'll address a few questions here...

1. Most modern distros will read NTFS with no problem. If the disk is not already in the computer, get it installed and connected with all the right jumpers and stuff. Reboot into Linux and see if it gets recognized. Something should show up in /mnt or /media. If not, do fdisk -l in a terminal (run as root) and post the results here.

3. Somewhere in the menus is somethig like a system control panel, which will include a place to setup your printer. On my Redhat Enterprise 4 it is Applications-->System settings-->Printing. You can also open a browser and type http://localhost:631/

4. Not everything will run with wine. Do some Google search using wine + the name of the game. Look into Cedega also.

6. VMWAre is for installing another OS (eg Windows) in a virtual machine. Set this aside until you get some other things resolved.

Let me know where I ahve lost you and I'll back up. Have faith---and patience

No offense, but I will say ignore ANYONE who simply advises installing a different Linux.
In this case I will tell you that switching to Ubuntu is not likely to solve very many of your issues

A little more than a year ago I too was in the same boat as you are in now. What I did was, one thing at a time. Use the man pages, google and the forums. Read, read, read. I was ready to give up at one point, but now I haven't used windows in a year or so and I've never looked back. The command line was daunting, where were my partions, how do I do this or that. Have patience and it will come. Read your distros web site.
Thanks to all the programmers and contributers to Linux everywhere, otherwise I'd still be stuck in Billy Gates land.

try this link as well:

http://www.faqs.org/docs/lnag/

Welcome to LQ. First, can you post some details about your PC - is it a laptop or desktop, what are the general technical specs, etc.

As for your questions:

1. You need to determine what which partition is NTFS (it's probably /dev/hda1) In order to get read access to it, you just need to mount it to a mountpoint. The format is "mount <partition> <mountpoint>", for example
Note that you need to substitute appropriate specific names for your machine. Once it's mounted, you should be able to access it by cd'ing over to the mountpoint or by using your GUI

2. What kind of wireless card are you using?

3. Check out LinuxPrinting.org the best one-stop shop for all things related to printing under Linux. They seem to be migrating to a new URL, so don't be surprised if it redirects

4. No help, I don't play any of those

5. What player application are you using? The best (I think) is MPlayer. Download and install the Linux codecs in addition to MPlayer itself

6. No help, I'm not familiar with using VMWARE

Okay... Thank you all for your help and encouragement.

Last night, I tried the " fdisk -l in a terminal (run as root) " suggestion... nothing showed up... All I got was " > " in the next line. I had to close terminal to get out of it. I am lost. I don't know the first thing about what I am doing, and this is going to be a long hard battle. I'm committed to seeing it through though. I want out of Billy Gates Land.

Now, as for my machine. It's an AMD (equivelant to about a 2.4 Ghz)It's native setting is 200 MhZ, but I'm running it at 203, the board is an NVidia chipset, I have a G-Force 128 vid card, a seperate vid capture card (also not working currently), Sound Blaster Audigy 64 sound card, a pioneer DVD-RW/CD-RW drive, a 40 Gig HD that is running my Fedora and a 25 Gig data drive in NTFS that is physically installed but unaccessable (due to my inability to locate and mount it). I'll have a 250 gig HD again once it gets back from RMA, (I'll let Linux format it, so I don't expect a problem there). The printer is a Lexmark. The network card I am trying to get operational is a Linksys Wireless G Compact USB that (when operational) connects to a Linksys Wireless G router to provide me with Internet and home network access. My room-mate is gooing to also make the switch to Linux in the next few days, so our whole netwrok should be Linux when it gets up and running.

I'm getting pretty frustrated, because I have zer functionality in my machine right now. I cannot access my data, I cannot play my games, I cannot access the internet, I can't even watch a DVD. It's an overpriced paperweight.

I managed to figure out how to mkdir, and I'm almost certain that I did it right I created a /hdb for the second hdd.

Hi,
You know, it's a hard step you've made. Nobody here I am sure will blame you to be a dual-booter, meaning having BOTH windows and linux on the same harddrive.
That way you can use your computer and when you feel more at ease with linux, remove win entirely.
One step at a time as the previous posters said, but to leave known territory to embark on another uncommon one is perhaps too hard at first.
Keep trying and read a lot !

I'm hoping that I won't be forced to go to dual booting... I'm afraid that I'll end up stuck in WinHell forever if I don't just lower my brow and forge ahead.

I can't duplicate this, but it generally happens when the system is waiting for more input. ctrl-c will generally stop it.

Try "fdisk" by itself. It should come back with several lines telling you about the command. Assuming this works, then do "fdisk -l" (that's a lower-case ell, BTW)

Also, how did you "run as root"? eg did you open a terminal and then type "su"?

When we give you things in quotes to type--don't type the quotes....

I logged myself out and when I went back into the Log-In screen, I typed in "root" as the username and then put in the admin password and it logged me in. I think I know now why it didn't work... I used the vertical line | instead of a lower case L... I'll try it again tonight... and I'll report what happens tomorrow. So, if I understand correctly, I don't need to log out and log back in, I can just type in SU?

Oh, I forgot to mention, it is a desktop.

yup, su followed by the root password. then to leave type 'exit' which will drop you back to the users prompt.

OK - I think the best approach would be to tackle these one at a time. As others have already mentioned, posting the output of
(note the lowercase "L") will identify what and where your partitions are. That to me is the most important question to answer at this stage.

Regarding printing, unfortunately Lexmark does not offer Linux drivers for a lot of its products. It depends on the specific model you are using. Hopefully your model is one that is supported, but realistically there's a decent chance that it simply won't work under Linux (which I would emphasize would be due to Lexmark's decision to ignore the Linux market more than any other factor). In any case, good luck with it

wow,a pleasure to meet you. Im impressed at your persistance, the first time i gave up trying linux after 30 min.

Yes, you can have root priviliges by typing su and password. The reason that you got the > sign is that you may have use quotes or an apostrophe.

This guide might help you to take it step by step. http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Fedora_f..._Starter_Guide