Just go ahead and ask away. If you're gonna ask something that seems stupid to most of us, just ask it anyway. We'll usually at least point you to a site that has that info if we don't go ahead and tell you. Either way, you'll probably leave here knowing what you asked for (or finding a better approach!). Nobody here will normally bash someone else for anything. That's part of being a rookie. It seems simple and mundane to those of us who have done it before, but those newbies who ask probably aren't any "smarter" than those who don't, but may just be braver, and they get the goods almost everytime without taking hardly any hate from anyone. However, if you just post a bye-bye Linux thread, you'll probably get a lot of venom spewed your way. (not that anyone who would post this cares, they're probably long gone anyway.)

Gee you installed three times? I am fixing to be on my 4th install. I keep leaving packages out. The default install to me is not a friend. Sooo. I am fixing to take the plunge and choose what to install. That should be so much fun.

I felt the same way when I switched from 2k to RH8. Every doc, FAQ and man page out there is built on assumed knowledge. There never seems to be a doc that says...type exactly this, or do exactly this. I was just as frustrated. But I stuck with it and thank goodness I did. I have an enterprise level IT solution in my home office; firewalls, web servers, mail servers, the whole works...all thanks to OSS and Linux. I couldn’t imagine doing it in windows, not to mention the price (or liability of piracy).

Jabber, I only hope you stick with it long enough to reap the rewards.

Dooood! Let the thread die already. Jabbermacy has been gone for months. 11000 views on a whiners thread about going back to Windows? What is happening here? This seems nuts. (Doh! Just realized I am furthering this mess with this post).

Attention: This post purely rhetorical. Please do not reply...

Let's all get back to enjoying Linux and not wasting time convincing someone who is already gone to stay. Aaaaaarrrrrggg!. Sorry needed that....

this i agree with!! i havent been in linux too long but i do see the power of linux. i still have issues with linux but overall i love it

The answer to your assumed knowledge problems.

http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/index.html

From the basics from what I've skimmed.

I disagree.

I will say, though, that you DO NOT want to use Windows XP. However, Windows 98 is proving very good for my platform, almost as good as Linux is.

I have slammed my keyboard with my clenched fists, I have increased my cigarette consumption by 500%, I have made 234 Google searches, I have been awake for 36 hours, I have a caffeine overdose, I have experienced grief and despair...

... but I will never give up.
And in the end...
I shall prevail.

BECAUSE I AM UBERNOOB!!! Bow before me MORTALS!

*Maniacal, lack-of-sleep induced laughter*

I am still hanging in there. However, even with "paid support" it is a struggle. I appreciate the help intended in these forums, but 99% of the time I don't understand it or it doesn't work and I'm too embarrassed to ask again. When it gets too bad I just reinstall and start over. I am, however, very disappointed at the "paid" support. P.S. Does "Kopete" really work?

I've installed MDk only a couple of days ago, I've had my share of problems. No video, no sound, no mouse. But through this forum i've been able to at least fix the video. With all this knowledge in one place you'd be stupid to give up. I say keep trying. I am.

raysr, if you don't get something, post that in the thread you originally asked in. Noone will mind
Once you get the basic principles down, everything else will be ok.

have to say that this board has been a truly enlightening experience to linux world. I've been installing and running linux for several occasions on different machines and always there has been some different trouble, not all due to the software, but some also due to the world around. A good example is the .doc support that many communities require. Anyway, the shere amount of replies to shis thread in a few hours has left me astonished :? and to see where the discussion has gone from the originial post. Seem to be, admitingly being a noob and everything, that as in all fields, people have to boost their own experience, well go on. In my view, linux rocks, and it will rise to compete ms in desktops aswell, thought it will remain to be seen when.

Merry cristmas to y'all.
pumpuli

Hello, I'm the guy that tried-- and succeeded after three days of hacking. I have Mandrake 9.2 installed; I assume it's not that much different from 9.1... I was having many problem with slooooowww framerates with the default "nv" driver and the latest nvidia "5328" drivers. I was finally, after much trial and error, able to get the "4496" drivers installed, and these work great. here's how I did it:

> Downloaded the kernel source file for my kernel version (used the link from one of the replies to this post) and placed it in the /tmp/ directory.
> Logged in as root, changed my /etc/inittab default runlevel to 3
> Tried to install the rpm (# rpm -Uvh filename.rpm), and I got a "failed dependencies" message, and it gave the names of the stuff that had to be installed, which were:
glibc-devel
ncurses-devel
gcc
> changed my /etc/inittab default runlevel to 5, rebooted
> Went to "rpmDrake" and managed to find and install the above (from CD's)
> Logged in as root, changed my /etc/inittab default runlevel to 3
> Installed the kernel rpm again, and got no dependencies error this time, and successfully installed the kernel source
> Ran my nvidia installer for 4496 again (NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4496-pkg2.run, and got the message that there was no precompiled kernel interface, so that the installer would have to build one. Since I had installed "glibc", etc., the installer successfully built the kernel interface and the installation completed successfully.
> Went to /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and changed the driver name "nv" to "nvidia" (using "emacs").
> Went to /etc/inittab and changed the default runlevel to 5 again.
> Rebooted, got the lovely nvidia logo at startup, and this time it actually worked!

So the moral of the story is: Nothing worthwhile is gonna be easy to do.

Randman

Never Give Up!

I bought a new modem 3 months ago guess what I finally got it working. The major problem thinking to complicated. The solution toooo simple. The damn initialization string had to be changed from ATZ to AT&F.

By the way I crashed epiphany about a week ago can't remember what I was doing to cause this anybody got any Ideas how to fix.

Only a newbie can do the impossible without trying. LOL

Uhh, remember what you did wrong and undo it? I will say this, that is part of being a rookie. You're gonna make some bad moves and end up paying for them. That's how you learn best (even if it is the hard way )

Sorry I couldn't give you anything better, but I gotz no idea what epiphany is.

Also, I have given up on Mandrake. Every version I tried has sucked really bad.