According to this site

http://194.150.201.35/cnmlifestyle/d...rootaccess.htm

I would have to download 2 files just to enable me to get to the root

As much as I am grateful to everyone for their responses, it really is far too complicated for me. I have used windows for years, and this little netbook is my first experience of linux and I just cannot get my head around it at all.

Out of sheer frustration with all this I have now resorted to phoning Elonex (extortionate) helpline, and spoke to a woman who worryingly seemed to know about as much as me, and only suggestion was to download a recovery (found here http://www.elonex.com/support/produc...trecovery.shtm) to another computer, load it onto an SD card and boot up the machine with the SD card in pressing F2.

I have ordered an SD card online, so now have to wait for it to arrive to follow those instructions.

All this just to use MSN is ridiculous

I can understand the frustration - all of us have been there at some time or another - but don't let it drive you mad! You are not the first to arrive here with a similar netbook-type machine, and having the exact same troubles trying to figure out how to install/remove/upgrade the software installed in it. And usually it takes us a page of posts just to figure out what operating system is on them.

The netbooks use a lot of different stuff in their special little versions of operating systems, compared to run of the mill desktop or laptop Linux distributions, so there are also less people around who know all the ins and outs of the netbooks (as most of us have got a desktop, laptop, server, whatever).

I agree it's a lot, just to use MSN. But I wish you luck, and hope you don't give up and that a solution occurs when you get your new SD card.

Kind regards.

I'm sorry to read about your situation. It sounds as though you have downloaded the source code for pidgin. It is possible to compile pidgin from the source so that it can connect to MSN, however, if your distro Elonex doesn't make it easy for you to open a terminal I think it's unlikely that you will have the tools needed to compile packages from the source code. I had a similar situation a few years ago with an asus eeepc. In that situation the only solutution was to use a usb stick to install another distro. Not a job for a novice.

Hi,

Elonex seems to be Laptop brand not Linux Distribution.
Please let us know some how which Linux Distribution you are using then we will help you.

Try Ctrl+Alt+F2 or Ctrl+Alt+F3 (keys all at once not one by one)to get into command prompt.Login and give us the out put of

cat /etc/issue

You can also see the Linux Distribution name when Laptop boots!!

Tried both of these key combinations and all the happened is the same thing every time I switch the machine on...loading screen>desktop.

The only key I found so far which does anything different is F3 which takes me to a screen which is for system recovery where I have 2 options <enter> for recover or <Q> to quit.

The loading screen information is:
ELX-V07 Elonex Loading....

I have done a system recovery using the recovery update supplied on Elonex website but pidgin has not updated/improved from doing this. So the same problem remains.

As previous posters have said it is Debian linux, and that is as much as I know.

Hi,

Dont go to F3.
try Alt+Ctrl+F4 key once you will get the login prompt.(it always works)
If you are not able to do this;then follow this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9Zt1SZaA0g

if you see there;its shown how to open terminal...

once you open the terminal follow this link to install pidgin

http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=33938