As I said,I'm not surprised millions use windows;at least it is userfriendly without your needing to be a programmer.It seems this newbie site is new to linux rather than new to computing.Most of us want to surf the web(drive the car) rather than understand the workings of the engine.

PLEASE attach the file "devices.txt" (you'll find in in your home dir) to your post. The command I posted does NOT produce output, it creates a file.

Yes, Linux is usually aimed at computer enthusiasts, but there are very simple distros like Ubuntu and Mint. There are studies that say that people who never used a computer before find Ubuntu Linux easier than Windows!

Your problem is that Linpus Linux is so bad. I remember I once saw someone joking that "Linpus" is a combination of the words "Linux" and "pus", but I can't seem to find it now, though.

...userfriendly??? A complete new installation of (for example) Slackware needs about 8 Minutes, a Windowsinstallation (including servicepacks, all updates and programs) half a day. most of us are no programmers. correct, that's the reason why I use Linux instead of Windows.

Markus

The thing is I have no idea where to look for it,no idea what my home dir is(directory obviously but where who knows)

The home directory is the equivalent of "My Documents" in Windows. It's where you keep all your stuff. Unlike Windows, you cannot modify any files outside of it unless you're root, which is one of the reasons Linux is so secure.

Just click "Go Advanced" at the bottom of the thread, click "Manage Attachments" in the new page, and then click "Browse..." in the popup window. A file chooser window will pop up. It will likely have a list on the left, click the item that has your username written on it. You should be in your home dir.

If that fails, go to the root directory (the very base of the tree, called "/"), then click on "home", and there should be a folder named like your username in there. When you click on it, you should be in your home dir.

(Note: To get the path to your home dir, you could also open a terminal and type "echo $HOME" and it will print it out.)

Now choose the file called "devices.txt" (make sure you ran my command in a terminal first!).

I think my "name" is user,that is what appears in file manager.Is this any good?
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If that's either the name Acer gave you or what you entered in the setup screen (I don't know if there is any, I never saw an Acer Linpus laptop), then yes.

I don't know what that was for, but your attachment is good.

Your CD burner is called "/dev/sr0".

Next, does the laptop have a DVD burner or a CD burner? (note that there commonly are drives that burn CDs and read DVDs but do not burn DVDs). Maybe you could post a link to Acer's page about the model of laptop you have? This is necessary for me to choose which ISO file download to put in my automatic script.

Well, since there's a link dvdrw->sr0, I think the device is a DVD-burner. And the laptop is new, despite the worse distribution of Linpus, that does not mean the hardware isn't modern enough.
So (since I understood joe jordan has already downloaded a DVD-image) I'd suggest to try this at first, it maybe the shortest way to success.

Markus

But it's 32-bit.

Open a terminal and enter:

A text editor will pop up. Copy and paste all of this into it:

Now, save it and close the editor. Make sure there is a blank DVD into the DVD burner. Back in the terminal, enter this:

(DO NOT run this without a blank DVD, it will fail!)

And wait until it's done!

I don't understand? How do we know that joe jordan's laptop is a 64bit machine? the 32bit image should work anyway.

Markus

Seems like if you have 64-bit hardware, why not use it.

Userfriendly,yes,to novices,not that I am defending it but simple enough for me to talk my 80 year-old mum through downloading a program:download,open/save,run and voilá,while you are referring to installation-I wouldn't go near that.But this is why the linux thing intrigues me.
Well maybe most of you are not programmers but certainly nearer to geek than simpleton
What is marvellous how patient and helpful you so-called amateurs are.

Thanks

Just looked at this and have downloaded the prog and the installer to use the pendrive.Let's see if it really is easypeasy