*sigh* Do we really need this sort of silly arguing? Let's get back on topic, please. Thanks.

megalomando - in KDE, you can also get to the command line by clicking on the icon in the lower task bar that looks like a monitor with a sea shell in front of it. That will open a console session, and you can proceed with any commands you wish to run.

Regarding your question about a general, all-purpose intro book to the exciting world of Linux, I would recommend Rute by Paul Scheer, which is 100% available online, as well as being available as a free PDF or HTML download. It's very complete, and has been a very helpful book to have in my library. Happy reading!

megalomando,

Okay, so we have addressed the first of your issues listed in your original post. You now know how to start a command line window and how to enter a command.

Issue two: where do you find resources for beginning to learn about Linux? I would not purchase any books yet. There is so much information on the Internet that you may never need to purchase a book. Here are some good web sites to get you started.

linux.org | click on the "Documentation" button for some good basics. This is really just a better table of contents to the Linux Documentation Project.

The rest of these have information for all levels of Linux users.
howtoforge.org
tuxmagazine.com
tuxme.com

===========

Mounting your NTFS partitions is a bit complicated. You can only mount them in read only mode. You cannot write to NTFS partitions in Linux. Maybe you could copy/move your data onto the FAT32 partition? If not then you could search this site for ntfs or do a Google search for "Linux+mount+ntfs".

I do not mean to interrupt you conversation, but I have 2 quick questions about installing SUSE 10.0. I have 5 CD's that are ready to be completed downloading and I was wondering if I had to create an image for each of those CD's and will SUSE automatically write itself to a blank HD with FAT32 on it? Again sorry to interrupt, but I really like the way stress_junkie helps people. Thank you megalomando & stress_junkie!

BFGeier,

Thanks for the compliment. I'm using SuSE 9.2 but I have installed it recently on a machine. I only used the first two CDs of the five.

As far as installing on a FAT32 partition, I don't know. I believe that it would prefer to install on one of the non-Microsoft file system types. I believe that the installation defaults to using the Reiserfs file system. Certainly the FAT32 file system would not allow you to enjoy the security features of the native Linux file systems.

Stress Junkie,

I too would like to thank you for the help, extremely well presented and objective.

JW, thank you for the link. I have no icon like a monitor with seashell on my screen. I installed gnome during setup instead of KDE as it said with gnome I'd get firefox. I know I could install that anyway but it seemed a more familliar path. Might that be why?

Stress Junkie,

I've just reformatted and reinstalled Suse 10 as I had no programs installed on it outside the installation files. Now in my windows folders does appear the contents of the other two drives. How one goes about adding a new drive with data & have that be acknowledged in Linux is now on a back burner.

What Is curious is that with this installation (done on a newly formatted partition) does not ask me for my password like it did before, it boots directly to the desktop.. I wonder if I did not select something in the installation I should have?

Another curiosity is when I click on the "computer" on desktop > file system the root folder has a red X & clicking on it says I do not have the necessary file permissions. Why is that, I am the only one using the computer?

Lastly, I'd like to update the firefox browser. What installs by default is V1.0.7 but I downloaded V1.5 from their download site.

I clicked on the firefox-1.5.tar.gz file hoping an installer would appear but doing so offers me the opportunity to unzip.

I unzipped and there was an error message "An error occurred while extracting files" with a command Line output box beloe the warning. However a great number of files were unzipped into their own folder. It might be more helpful to know where to go at this point rather than clicking on files to see what happens.

Not sure where you're located but A Very Happy New Year to you.

Hi, the red "x" shows the need for root permissions to access. Being logged on as a regular user you probably won't be able to access anything beyond the home directory. As far as software installs, I think you can use yast if I remember right. It has been a long time since I have touched a Suse box. One of my Fedora boxes and one of my Mandrake boxes logged straight into the gui as I only had one regular user and by default it only had one choice. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors as "Linux" can start out a fascination and become on obsession. Just remember, it isn't harder than Windows, just different.

Just wanted to throw in a Happy New Year to all!

megalomando,

If I recall the SuSE installation does something that many people wouldn't like. The default is to allow the computer to automatically log in to the normal user account when it starts. That is probably why it is not asking for a password. It is possible to turn this off so that you always have to log on. Since this computer is yours it probably doesn't matter.

This is how I install Firefox on my SuSE machine. I start a web browser as a normal user and get the Firefox installation file. I put the installation file in a directory that I've already created. In my case it is /home/download/firefox but you could put it into /tmp if you don't want to keep the file. I start a terminal command line window as a normal user. I unzip the firefox.tar.gz file, then I extract the file. You could do this in one step but I prefer to use two steps. I use the sux command (not su) to log in as root. The sux command allows you to run X applications when you switch users from a command line window. As root I cd to the directory with the extracted Firefox files and run the installer. Here are the commands starting with extracting the installation file. Start a command line window.

cd /home/download/firefox
gunzip firefox.installer.tar.gz
tar -xvf firefox.installer.tar
sux -
<enter root password>
cd /home/download/firefox/firefox-installer
./firefox-installer

The last command will start an X application that will install firefox. It will put firefox in a directory that it creates at /opt/firefox. You can test whether it worked by running firefox from a terminal command line window. Open a terminal window as a normal user and enter this command.

/opt/firefox/firefox

The terminal window cursor should appear to be stuck. A moment later you should either see error messsages in the terminal window or you should see the Firefox window appear.

Creating an icon in your Gnome or KDE desktop is a lot like making an icon on the Microsoft desktop. I haven't used Gnome in a long time. In KDE a desktop icon is created by putting the mouse cursor over the desktop and right button click. Select Create New | File | Link to Application. A window appears. You put the title of the icon into one box. You put the command line into another box. Click OK. An icon appears on the desktop.

I often have trouble with file permissions when I install software because my root account default file permissions are very restrictive. So, once I have installed the software I try to run it as a normal user. If the software won't run then I change the file ownership and permissions as follows. Start a terminal command line window as root.

cd /opt
chown root:users firefox
find firefox -exec chown root:users {} \;
chmod 750 firefox
find firefox -type d -exec chmod 750 {} \;
find firefox -type f -perm +100 -exec chmod 750 {} \;
find firefox -type f ! -perm +100 -exec chmod 640 {} \;

These commands will fix any file permission problems.

Another quick question, I installed SUSE very early this morning and I fell asleep in the process. I never got to set a username or password and when it comes to the SUSE login screen I tried to put nothing in, but it did not like that. Is there something I can do to find the password or do I have to do a clean install? Thanks.

BFGeier,

If you remember the root password then you can log on as root and create a normal user account using YaST. If you don't remember the root password then you can boot from CD 1 | Select Install | Select Repair an Existing Installation | Select the option that is if you know what is wrong | The somewhere in there it will let you set the root password. I haven't done that for about a year so the steps above are just a rough guide. Also keep in mind that I am currently running SuSE 9.2 so all of my instructions may be a little bit different than what you see with SuSE 10.

Once you can log on using the root account you can create a normal user account. In your KDE Start Button select System | YaST. A YaST window will appear. Select the "Security and Users" icon in the left hand column. The icons in the right hand side of the window will appear. Click on the icon labeled "Edit and create users". A new window will appear showing your existing normal users. If there are none then you will have to create one. If there is one then you can highlight that user account and select the "Edit" button to change the account password. If there are no normal users then you will have to click on the "Add" button at the bottom of the window. If you edit an existing account you will see a window with most of the boxes filled in. Just select the password box and type in a password. Then select the verify password box and type in the same password again. Then click on the "Next" button at the bottom of the window. Keep clicking on "Next" buttons until the window disappears. If you are adding a user then you will see the same box as you would if you were editing an existing account. This time all of the boxes are blank. Just enter a user name, password, and verify password. Then click on the "Create" button. This will create a normal user account with a home directory and it will use KDE as its graphical interface.

Voila. You have either set the password for an existing normal user account or you have created a new normal user account.

Have fun.

Stress Junkie,

Thanks for the suggestiions. the downloaded file was firefox-1.5.tar

I put it in the temp directory. I can't seem to do much with the home directory, don't have permissions to make folders & paste so I did put the downloaded file into the tmp directory.

By the command line I got into the temp directory & then I entered gunzip firefox.installer.tar.gz but it came back no such file or directory.

I modified the line to reflect: gunzip firefox-1.5.installer.tar.gz but I got the same respons, I tried several variations but nothing I did by the command line unzipped it.

Giving up on the command line I went to the file itself and extracted the compressed files via the archive manager.

entering that directory via shell konsole there are two files with the name firefox; one with a sh on it & the other is firefox-bin

When I entered tar -xvf firefox.installer.tar I got this:

fiddle@linux:/tmp/firefox> tar -xvf firefox.installer.tar
tar: firefox.installer.tar: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
fiddle@linux:/tmp/firefox>

So I still must be doing something wrong.

Frustrating when I can't even install a simple program after working with microsoft based computers for over 20 years. Obviously the program will eventually get installed but I have the feeling the kinds of problems I'm having are what keeps Linux from being embraced by consumers and till it becomes more intuitive there will be a true resistance to it.

I'm going to take a walk by the lake & think about this installation problem later.

Happy New year

Hello again! I have the SUSE 10.0 up and running so it appears that I am now in the same boat as megalomando. I do not know any commands besides the ones that stress_junkie has already provided. I chose KDE and I ended up getting FireFox as well. The only thing is that I cannot connect to the internet. I have a D-Link DWL-G520. Their website does not have a driver for Linux (I have to boot under WinXP to get to the internet). There is a page on how to install this product on the Hardware Compatibility List, but no one explained how to do it under SUSE. Do you know what I can try? Oh, and one more thing. When I go to the display options it says that the moitor's refresh rate is 0. I was wondering if that was what was causing a whole bunch of lines to pop-up randomly. Sometimes it covers the screen and other times it is only part of it. I can get rid of them by refreshing the desktop but they will shortly come back and it doesnt get rid of the lines in the windows. I'm clueless on what to do.

Thank you Stress_Junkie!

BTW: Megalomando if you would like me to create my own thread and leave yours I will. I don't want to intrude, but I thought we had something in common. Just let me know...Thanks!

megalomando,
I'm afraid that I did you a disservice. When I included the name of the firefox.installer.tar.gz I actually intended that to be an example of a file name. I don't know the name of the firefox 1.5 installer file. I am using firefox 1.0.6. It has the name firefox-1.0.6.installer.tar.gz. So I just got the installation file for Firefox 1.5. The name of the file is firefox-1.5.tar.gz. So you can just substitute that file name into the commands and you should be fine.

One way to find the files in a directory would be to use the command line with the command ls. Example:
ls /tmp
This would show you the names of most of the files in the /tmp directory. You could use that to find the name of the Firefox installation file.

You can find out more about commands using the man utility. Man is short for manual, as in reference guide. You can enter the command "man" and the name of any other command and if it is in the man pages you will see what it has to say. Unfortunately the man pages are an ugly thing. They tend to confuse more than illuminate. Use the <Enter> key or the space key to move down, then use the arrow key to move up. You could enter the following command to learn more about the ls command.
man ls
Try these commands on the command line.
man tar
man man
man cp
man mv

Stress_Junkie,

I so appreciate your help in this. Have you ever considered writing a brief tutorial for the newcomers to Linux? I'm here to tell you that finding initial startup information is scarce. You're seemingly someone who has taught others for a long time. If not, you have a natural talent for being clear. Either way, a primer that could be made a sticky to help a newcomer would go a long way to helping that newcomer not feel repelled by Linux's intricacies and lack of clear initial documentation.

With that... On with the show:

Some success to report.this is what was originally suggested:

cd /home/download/firefox
gunzip firefox.installer.tar.gz
tar -xvf firefox.installer.tar
sux -
<enter root password>
cd /home/download/firefox/firefox-installer
./firefox-installer

After reading your addendum I did the following:

cd /tmp/firefox-1.5.tar.gz
gunzip firefox-1.5.tar.gz

(at this thime the .gz was deleted and the file became firefox-1.5.tar)

tar -xvf firefox-1.5.tar
sux -
<enter root password>
cd /tmp/firefox/firefox-installer

(at this point I got a file not found error so I went in the terminal cd /tmp/firefox and was in the folder. inside the folder I then issured the following command)

./firefox-installer

And voila in front of my eyes was the new Firefox 1.5

That's the good part.

But there was a problem...

The directory it pointed to was in the tmp/firefox file (I ascertained this by double clicking on the firefox file. The icon on the toolbar brought up the new FireFox 1.5 but there was nothing new in the OPT directory. I clicked on the original folder in that directory called "MozillaFirefox" and that contained the original Firefox 1.0.7 that Suise still has in their 10.0 distribution.

I tried moving the Firefox folder in the Tmp directory to the opt directory but I am not allowed to post anything in there. I found I can paste to the home directory under my computer name but not opt.

Perhaps if I would have downloaded into the opt directory & done things from there it would have been in the right place but untill I learn how to tell Suse that I am allowed to paste or trash a folder, the original installation file would have remained & that will someday add up to clutter.

I'm thinking of redoing the process in the home/computername folder but will wait to see what you suggest. At least something did get installed!

There's also another issue but I'll post that below

One step forward!!!

Disconnection from the internet & not being able to reconnect unless I reboot

I'm using a DSL modem and checksed the speeds on DSL reports and my up/dowwnload speeds are perfect. It seems though that after a short time in Linux and I can not attach to the internet. Looking at the ethernet connection it shows dsl0 as active but indeed firefox can not attach.

I get a firefox message with a triangular yellow sign with exclamation point inside saying www.novell.com could not be found. Please check the name and try again

If I click on "Connection information" in the ethernet connection tab I get an error message with a red dot with white slash through it saying
"Error displaying information:
SIOCGIFFLAGS failed on socket!"

This problem is not new since attempting to install the new firefox. It seems to be time dependent. If I walk away from the computer for awhile & I am connected to the internet, when I get back I have to log in but I have no connection yet as I mentioned above, the dsl0 shows active.

I set it to connect on boot-up.

While I was editing that above message to you I was unable to send. I ended up copying the text & making a text file on the desktop, rebooted & copied that text & then sent it out.

Any ideas?

Thanks again!!!