How do i unzip a .zip file
How do i open a .exe file
How do i open a .pl file
does madrake come with a installing program like windows (ie..install wizard)

There are no .exe files. You just type the command's name at the command line or click on an icon just like DOS/Win. The thing that tells you they are executable is the 'x' symbols in an 'ls -a' listing, or the output of 'file appname' - not the extension.

Zip files I think are compatible with 'gzip' but it's more usual to find tar.gz files on Linux systems, which are extracted most simply with 'tar xzvf foo.tar.gz'. A .pl file? A perl script? Run just like a batch file or shell script or whatever. Little distinction is made between types of commands. A comand's a command whether binary or text as long as it's executable.

Yes it do - a very good one, if you mean the OS instalation program. If you mean for individual apps, that would be 'rpm', I believe. I don't know the details but 'man rpm' will tell you all about it.

thanks

how do you open .ini

Sure.

What do you mean? Open? You mean to edit? There actually are some .ini files here and there but most files comparable to that end with rc, like 'xinitrc', though some have no special designation. Many are .conf, like 'lilo.conf'. Most configuration files, whatever their extension or lack thereof will be in /etc. To view them you can do 'less filename' or use a text editor. To edit, naturally, it's a text editor like any other system. You're pretty much guaranteed to have 'vi' or something symlinked to it, so you could try that but vi is a little weird to people who aren't familiar with it. You can try 'mcedit' or 'nano' or 'pico' or something like that instead. And, if you're in X, you'll have several like gedit or kwrite that are easy to use.

Best thing I can say is to read lots of 'man' pages or 'info' pages, starting with 'man man' and 'info info', along with any help system in your IDE if you use one, along with reading stuff here a lot and surfing a lot. That'll answer a lot of your basic questions.

Just curious... Why do people assosiate hacking with linux constantly? If you can use linux that must mean you are a hacker? I don't know if anyone else here gets it but I do...

Gets it? What it?

Linux was built by a guy for fun and interest who then got help from hackers all over the world, rather than a corporation for end-users and profit and, for a long time, the only people who could get it running were hackers and it still takes more 'hacking' than most systems. It's just a hackers' OS although its evolved to the point where idiots like me can almost make it work. *g*

-- Well, and most fundamentally, rather than historically, the source code is available to all so anyone who wants to *can* hack it. So that's one of the major things.

so lets recap:

do "ls -l". if it has an X in the permissoins its executable.

you can run it by going "./filename"

to make something exectuable go "chmod +x filename"

to edit something in command line, i use the command "vi filename". vi is a little weird and defenitly takes getting used to, but once you use it alot it becomes second nature. don't shy away from it, sometimes you find yourself with only vi on a system

major vi commands:

press "i" to insert text. press "esc :w" to save. press "esc :q" to quit. or "esc :wq!" to save and quit. there is "insert mode" which is what happens when you press i, and "command mode" which is why you press the escape key. that took me longer than i should admit to figure out

file extensions don't really mean crap in linux.

to unzip something mandrake has unzip. just go "unzip filename". easy.

as for software installers...mandrake is really easy with that too. if you download an RPM, thats basically like "setup.exe" file in windows. just right click and do "software setup".

pretty self explanatory