Ok PeaceDog! THAT IS USEFUL! Very very useful! It's good to know there are texts for people like me who just want the broad strokes.

glad to be of service, i hope i was friendly as well we'll all be here for any future questions.
good luck.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your help and patience. I was seriously 5 minutes away from giving up Linux forever and possibly pro-actively bashing it! Sour grapes I know, but I would be embarrased to tell you how long I've been trying to get help.

5 minutes could be a lifetime somewhere else. life is relative, glad i/we could help.

Don't give up hawss... If you are even fairly motivated you'll be able to figure out enough to keep going. At least that is how it works for me. I figured out the install thing first of course. That took lots of trial and error. While I was figuring that out I also had to learn about dual-booting, because I didn;t want to trash my computer while trying to install Linux.

So I learned how to install it, then how to dual boot, then i had to learn how to connect to the internet so I didn't have to keep switching from linux to windoze in order to ask questions here! After that it was sound, then printing, and it keeps going on and on. But I love it!

I've asked lots of questions here and never gotten any bad answers, never been snubbed or anything like that. I make sure I do a search first, and I include what I already know in my question.

So hang in there, and don't be afraid to ask any questions at all! Maybe you'll even ask an easy one that I'll be able to answer, imagine that! And then someday (soon, yes, soon) someone will ask a question that you'll be able to answer!

I apoligize for the times I have been rude.

Half the difficulty of any new OS is finding out where to actually get help. Once you have a few resources, you're on your way. Here's a tremendous site

http://www.linux-tutorial.info/

The tutorial does have some of that stuff you said you weren't interested in reading. However, the overall site is a wealth of knowledge. Hopefully you can put it to use at least once.

sometimes people coming to linux have too many expectations. i know i did when i first started and wanted answers to all my questions RIGHT NOW. it could get frustrating when that didn't happen, but it was actually good because it taught me to first try (and i mean *really* try) to find the answers for myself.

also, don't misinterpret a terse response for rudeness. i'm not saying people *haven't* been rude to you, but ime that is the exception rather than the rule. most people who respond to your linux questions genuinely want to help you, they are taking valuable time out of whatever they are doing or away from work to answer you, and often they don't have time to kiss your butt or write a book. be glad someone is even answering at all. and when people are rude, i've found they're most likely script kiddie sorts who aren't really worth your time anyway. (and sometimes people have a bad day and are just rude, hey it happens. )

so don't give up, but try to get a base level of knowledge that you can work from. the rute book is primo must reading, and you can also find a mind-boggling amount of other tutorials and linux documents on the web -- linux cookbook, linux administrator's guide, linuxhq users' guide, etc. as the others have said, once you are past an initial learning phase things will get a lot easier.

hawss,

I know exactly what you are talking about- sometimes you want the theory and history and other times you'd just like to find out how to do something without all the extraneous blather. When you're in the latter mood you can turn to How Linux Works by Brian Ward, No Starch Press (http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=2936628912760&isbn=1593270356).
The books is very readable, get's right to the point and I haven't found error one so far. It is command line oriented (which is great- linux should be learned from the command line perspective) so you won't find much of anything on GUIs but if you read it with that understanding you won't be disappointed.

I've been using linux for about 6 years now and i destroyed my OS prolly 100 times in the first 2 months....re-install after re-install after re-install I finally got to a point of understanding some of the basics....I started linux with a "unix for dummies" book that I obtained from someone at a junky telemarketing job. 6 years later I still have advanced user probs (just made a post in the security forum actually). But not as many....keep going with it, it really is worth it. Haven't rebooted my server in 6 months, never even rebooted after the last clean install I did...lol....find a windows person out there to say the same...I think you'd be hard pressed.

And remember...once you get it, you've got it.

cya'll in the funny papers.

linux_terror

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In the game of life it takes a root prompt to really foul up.