I installed mandriva 2009 free edition on 01/01/09; since then i've had to reinstall at least four or five times because things that worked in the install don't work when i add other programs. i then bought the powerpack, i forget when, and installed it. (hey, i was able to use the filezilla program to do this and then burnt the dvd successfully!) then the problems began.
I download movies that tell me that the decoder isn't installed or that the program cannot be read due to plugins that aren't available like .torrent when i've had both torrent and transmission clients installed. please help gramps out!!!! i don't know anything about linux but microsoft wants me to pay them through the nose with blood and bone to make my vista work.

Welcome to the Linux community!

Hey, you should know by now that any time you start out with something new, you have to take the time to learn it. While there may be a lot of superficial similarities between Windows and Linux systems, there are also a lot of differences, and to be completely honest, there are still a lot of things that are less-than-newbie friendly here. But there's also a lot more power and flexibility overall, once you learn how to master the basics. What you get out of Linux depends on the time you put into it.

The first thing you need to do is get out of the habit of reinstalling whenever something goes wrong. That's Windows-based learned behavior, and generally not necessary on Linux. You'll find that most problems are fixable with a little research and a few shell commands, once you know what you're doing. Take your problems on at a time, use google and the search functions, and make posts here if you really need help.

Next, learn how to use the shell. It may seem like a step backwards to people who see the windows dos box as an anachronism, but in truth, that's where the real power is. Complex commands that are really awkward to implement in gui can be done easily in a console. It will do you good in the long run. I recommend the Linuxcommand.org tutorial as a good starting point.

Finally, there are many different distributions out there, and what works good for one person doesn't always suit another. If Mandriva keeps frustrating you, then try switching to something else like Ubuntu/Kubuntu. I personally started with Mandrake 9 (precursor to Mandriva), but their software packaging system at the time frustrated me and the need to reinstall everything when updating annoyed me, so I switched to Debian, with it's more robust apt package management system. I never looked back.

Hello Asaruhu,

I am 60 and beginning to learn myself

Please be more specific so we can help you :
- what do you want to do exactly (play movies, watch TV, DVD, whatever)?
- which software(s) do you use for that / for these functions?
- what problems do you encounter in using it?

Send as precise information as possible.

I'm 55 and teaching the 48 y/o roommate about Umbuntu so we can cut
the cord ... each OS is different and when I went from DOS command line to windows I had to relearn to keep the hand on the keyboard and the mouse at the same time.
There are some really good tutorials out there... and I found some really good books on Amazon that don't break the budget or the back to pick up. The help files built in are also a good starting point...
just remember the goal and the reward for getting there... cutting the
cord and freedom... Most of what you were doing in XP/Vista was click and point... Most that you do under some of the distros will also be that way.
Jackie

When I turned 60, I was aware of Linux and had dabbled a bit, but 90% of my knowledge was acquired after joining LQ just before turning 64. So----no sympathy here with the age thing......

I second the comment about not re-installing to solve problems, but I am also not a fan of Mandriva. The best out-of-the-box functionality I have ever seen is with Linux Mint (A Ubuntu derivative)

My only other simplistic advice is to take the issues one at a time.

indeed ... **Clapping** ... i really find ur words very interesting man and offering a good motivation to anybody starting anything -not only linux-

actually i'm too a newbie in using linux , i wish i could gather much more info as i can ,,

Andy ...

I can recommend Linux for the over 60's too. Keeps you young.

i recommend xine or mplayer for playing media.

you then need codec packs (check the laws in your country)

assuming x86 (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/rele...071007.tar.bz2)

and extract them to the correct directory.

Hello Didier
please forgive the delay in responding but i am not as organized as i'd like to be and procrastinate ad infinitum. but here it goes; below you will see an example of the obstacles i face when dealing with this os and am incapable to overcome them.

[root@comcast asaruhu]# /etc/passwd
bash: /etc/passwd: Permission denied
[root@comcast asaruhu]#

now, my major obstacle: i did uninstall the original copy of powerpack mandriva which my experience with linux (short as it is) tells me is the most intuitive of the distributions in the market. i reinstalled from the cd i had burnt while using mandriva free and thought that by installing the paid for edition would solve the issues i had with the free edition. by the way, the first install of powerpack had sound. the reinstall didn't
and is the reason i have ventured to ask for help in resolving the issue.
i'd like movie player to have sound so i can watch videos, dvds don't load with the error message that the decoder isn't installed; some file formats aren't supported. i'm not looking for anyone to feel sorry for me. this community is a generous community as evidenced by the many solutions i see everywhere, although, the solutions offered are as chinese expressions to me, being completely ignorant of the jargon used or the omission of the step by step procedures to resolve the issue at hand. is this specific? by the way, i have been reading the linuxcommand.org tutorial and the example i copied above comes from my efforts at decoding the shell. can you help?

thank you for your kindness in responding, the books i've bought through amazon don't match my ignorance. i've bought "running linux" and "linux in a nutshell" neither of which offer a newbie to this world of specialized wizards of programming lingo any introduction.

thank you for your kind response; i followed your suggestion to start with linuxcommand.org tutorial. i did and the response from bash is this:[root@comcast asaruhu]# /etc/passwd
bash: /etc/passwd: Permission denied
[root@comcast asaruhu]#
how do i overcome this obstacles when the root is supposedly the superuser?

I'm happy to hear that you're working hard through the tutorials. Just give it time and it will all start to become clearer. I remember feeling almost hopelessly lost when I first started too.

You really should start a new thread for specific questions like this, but in any case, what are you trying to do exactly? When you call on a filename directly like you're doing, you're telling bash to execute it like a program or script. But /etc/passwd is just a text file, and so it doesn't know what to do. You need to use another command to work with the file. For example:

"file /etc/passwd" -- tells you what kind of file it is.
"ls -l /etc/passwd" -- gives you detailed file information (permissions, etc).
"less /etc/passwd" -- view the contents of the file.
"cat /etc/passwd | grep xxx" -- pipe the contents into grep to search for lines containing "xxx"
"nano /etc/passwd" -- open up the file in the nano text editor.

Note that /etc/passwd is one of your most important configuration files, so I do NOT recommend doing the last one.

This is a good tutorial: http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

as I see you're logged in as root, imo try to avoid being logged in as root as much as possible and use your normal users.

if you need root permissions on files/etc. in command line, set sudo up for your user account.

for that again you need to be logged in as root though

steps:

abd# su
root/# visudo /etc/sudoers
read through the file, then add your regular username at the appropriate place, with appropriate permissions (most likely username ALL=(ALL) ALL )
:wq

(here is how vim the editor (of which visudo is an 'instance') works --> http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/vimcheat.html )

once saved, exit root back to your normal account.
using commands requiring root rights you execute via
# sudo <command>...
Enter your password (your user's password, not root's password)

then you can do for example

# sudo less /etc/passwd
to get an output on screen of the file contents

Here is a post from the Mandriva forum of this site about adding a PLF repository for downloading programs that can play DVDs or MP3s.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...lf#post3398220