As an old time Windows user, I would like to know if such a thing exist, e.g. installing a programme = install or run as administrator. If I try to install something on my acer, only ''extract'' or 'open' comes up with the file manager, but once extracted, nothing happens with e.g. Firefox update or other programs. Can somebody help me pls.

In Linux you normally don't install programs the way you do it in Windows, you do it with your distributions package management system. This will (in most distributions) also handle to install needed dependencies and takes care of available software updates for your distribution.
We can give you advice how to do that if you tell us which distribution you use.

Hello, thanks for your quick reply, I think you mean by distribution, the OS or operation sistem ? This is the one. Thanking for your help,
miramarcos

You can find more about Linux distributions (or distros) below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution

If you're using an Acer Aspire One, the version of Linux you have is Linpus (unless they've changed it). This is a stripped down version of Fedora, but I don't know much more than that (as I just got rid of it on my machine).

Also, it is important that you're aware that Linux is completely different to Windows. This article may be useful.

This seems to be the case from OPs earlier post. I have never used Linpus but I am a Fedora user. I prefer to install from the command line/terminal. Yum is the package manager for Fedora.
To install any program, for example, one named "package" , you can do the following:
This switches the user, and since you left the user blank (- ), it assumes the root user and asks for the root password. Now it should display something like: and you can then install things using yum like so: . You can also user sudo if your username is authorized as a sudoer.

notice that you are not the root user at this time. the -v option provides "verbose" output, or extra detail about the install process. You can understand more about using yum with the manual:

From most of the threads I've seen re Linpus Lite on Acer, the usual instruction is to replace the distro. Apparently its been crippled, so you'll only get grief trying to do anything other than just use it ie apps.

If that's the case, and Linpus is no longer being supported, then you're probably better off moving to Fedora, as it has a large user base and is most similar to your original OS.

In ubuntu distribution there are a Package manager 'synaptic' to add/remove programs.

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I haven't used Fedora in a long time but when I did synaptic was available for it. I would assume it still is or something every similar. This is probably a better approach for someone new to Linux than using the command line until they feel more comfortable with Linux.

Probably the most important thing to keep in mind is linux is not windows - as Nylex said. Things are done differently, things work differently, and there isn't always a nice 'equivalent' to microsoft.

To add programs in linux, you need to find out what packages if any your distro uses. Fedora, redhat, Centos, and probably linpus, use RPMs so to install a file from outside the repository you would download a file ending in .rpm, but the best place for a new user to get new software is their distros repositories. I have never used linpus - on my acer aspire I replaced it basically the first time I booted it, and never so much as looked at the default OS, but most distributions will have an "Add/remove software" button or something similar, which will give you a categorized list of software available to be installed and downloaded from your distro's repositories, from this menu you can download and install and handle all dependencies with a few mouse clicks. There are also command line tools (Like yum as thezerodragon mentioned) that allow you to do the same thing - get and install software and deps in a one line command. Also most distributions have an automatic updater of some sort - Fedora has a gui option to update packages, and yum can also be used to update packages, I am, however, unsure about a gui updater for linpus, having never used it.

Also it's worth noting that windows programs, for the most part, will not run natively on linux, you can typically find something to do the same tasks, but you can't use microsoft word on linux without something like Wine - you can use Abiword, Kword, The Libre office word processor, etc. to do the same job but these programs will not necessarily have the same features and commands that windows' program has. So if you can't find something on linux that does what you need - which is rare for casual use but can be a serious issue for professionals who use linux and for gamers - you can try to use wine(http://www.winehq.org/) to get the windows program running, a lot of programs work perfectly well, but you may take a hit to the performance or stability in some programs, and some wont work at all. Programs that are cross platform, like Firefox, will work normally provided you get the linux version rather than the windows version when you download it.

For running as an administrator - Sudo and Su are your usual options. It is encouraged that you only use the root account when needed for security reasons, and because as root it's much easier for you tu break your system than as a limited user. Sudo temporarily gives you administrative power to perform a certain command, where su logs you in as the root account. Both are command line options, and I don't recommend using root in a gui or for prolonged periods of time. I'm not sure of any useful ways to temporarily have root access without using the terminal(command line), some may exist but I've never used one.

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