whatever window environment you're using, you'll certainly find some icon of some sort or SOMETHING you can click on that will bring up a 'Terminal', which is a command line interface that sorta looks like DOS.

'cd' is the same on linux as it is in dos. Do a 'cd /' and hit enter, then do 'ls' which is the linux equiv of dos's 'dir'.

The list you see are all of the directories under the root directory (/), which is the top of the directory tree. From there you can 'cd' and 'ls' to your heart's content.

You really should get a good intro to linux book or something to use to get you started on simple stuff like this. 'Mastering Redhat Visually' is a great book if you've never seen Linux before. It'll take you through all of the basics, and some not quite basic stuff. Once you got that, the other stuff will come much more quickly, and you'll get a lot more out of places like this.

open source software is bad buisness

look at linux is the perfict example its buggy hard to use and not even a replacement for Microsoft Products

but for some reson everyone thinks its great and sence I am a tech I have to deal with fixing it wich is great becuse I make more money

http://www.opera.com

Acording to that site you have to look at adds if you get the free ver

my ISM is slow I get like 22K out here so that would slow me down way to much

The "ads" appear in a small box on the tool bar. You can customize the category of the advertisement and you'll only receive ads from that category. I chose computer tech and the same ad has been up there for over five hours.

I dont think you've used Linux long enough to make such a rash statement-listen to what the others have said:the common point here is"patience".
lynch

Vdub, you have to realize that when you make such statements on a Linux help board where lots of people are interested and volunteering time, you will get a few people to bristle.
I would not call Linux buggy. I have yet to run across what I would call a true bug. It may not do things exactly the way I'd want, but I'm not so egocentric as to think that the programmers should have read my mind.
Linux is hard to use - if all you ever use is Windows. If you have never worked with another GUI, or another OS, then yes it is. So is Unix, the Amiga, Mac, DOS, the Apple II, Atari, and the many other OS's that are or have been out there, that aren't Microsoft Windows 95+. Even Win 3.11 is "hard" compared to Win95.
Hard is using NT Server on a workstation (not a DNS), on a non-domain based network, and trying to let other machines view its files.
Hard is having to reboot because one program crashed and gave me a blue screen.
Hard is having a tape drive on a dual boot machine that only NT can see, so I can't back up under Win 95.
Hard is having different software require different versions of the same MFC42.dll, so that I have to move and rename in order to run the programs sequentially, and they can never run together.
Hard is having legacy software that works great, but will no longer run on the newest OS - and not having the money to upgrade (Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop are not cheap).

Try Linux for a while and then judge.
/js

I have tryed it and I have no reson to quit with it

but I just want to learn it to have the know how It will never replace my Windows systems

I can doo 500 times more with my windows systems in half the time

anything from Dos 3.0 all the way up to Windows 2000 Server I know how to use and its all easy to a degree

Linux even installing a simple pice of software no one has bin able to tell me

Thats what I call hard

I respect everyones right to choose and if you like Linux its fine but in my opinon the only reson linux is populer isnt becuse of how it works

its every ones love to hate bill gates the rich guy atitude

I love Linux not to hate Bill, it does everything I need it to do, its free since I don't like forking out hundreds of dollars for software, its more stable than any Windows platform and has never given my any problems.
Its just like Windows though, once you learn it, its just second nature to you.
I have known Mac people that couldn't work with Windows and only MacOS, Windows seemed difficult and hard to understand to them. So until you start any complaints, get to know it, then complain about it.
Its the same with people, first impressions aren't really how they really are at times.

Hi All,
I can't recall when I have seen so many posts asking so many questions on one thread. I agree with Trickykids last post, but I would add again...you need to sit down and do some reading. Read the man pages, read the how-to's and when you are done, read them again. You should also pick up at least O'Reilly's Running Linux and read it as well.
Secondly, we all know how sometimes learning something new is frustrating. Linux ain't windows, you just can't through it on you system and start pointing and clicking all over the place. It is far more complex and takes much more time to learn (forget about "mastering").
Secondly, I think though all of us here have had some difficulties with linux at one time or another we resent statments such as referring to it as "buggy" and such. Nothing personally makes me feel less inclined to be sympathetic to someone, even if they are having problems, than to see them lashing out at what I feel to be the best OS there ever was. You personify the reason I personally loathe windows, once you leave an enviorment where the OS does eveything for you, you are completely lost. You can spend years pointing and clicking and still not have learned anything. In linux, we are in command of our own systems. It does what we want it to, not the other way around. Yes, I know some of the members here use windows as well...but only since their printers or something else aren't yet supported under linux.
To conclude, do some reading and learn how to use linux...soon you will be among those talking about how wonderful it is.
Dallam

You can download Opera for Linux at http://www.opera.com

It's not bad/

As a newbie to Linux myself, I have to agree with you that it is definitely not as easy to use as Windows. My opinion is that Linux is _almost_ ready for the desktop (having seen Mandrake 8.0) ... but not quite. Like you (I think) I am an experienced IT professional with 14 years or so of experiences with a number of OS's. It took me a bit of effort and a little churning of the 'little grey cells' to get my system as I wanted it. I can't imagine how a non-technical person would handle it.

Today I installed an ethernet card and connected to a cable modem. Windows version: insert card, boot, the system tells you what to do, it works. Linux version: insert card, modify modules.conf, ask for help, end up typing rpm -i dhcpcd somethingorother, then dhcpcd something else, then it works.

This on the surface seems to say that Linux is harder to use than Windows. On the flip side, we must remember that everyone _expects_ everyone to run Windows, therefore of _course_ installation is going to be easy. The manufacturer of my ethernet card probably spent weeks user testing their installation process on Windows. They probably never even tried it with Linux. So ease-of-use here is not necessarily the fault of the OS.

It's like the browser argument: IE works with virtually all websites, so it must be a good browser? No: 80% of web-surfers use IE, therefore all website designers test their sites against IE, so of course it works with all web sites. Almost no-one tests their websites against (say) Opera or Konqueror, so it's quite an achievement to write browsers like this that view even 95% of web sites correctly.

So why do you want to use Linux? Pure interest? Your employer asking you to? Personally, I am investigating it because I am really sick of Windows crashing. I know it's an old rant, but honestly, it's true. I have used Windows at home and at work, on several manufacturers' hardware, and I am so frustrated with all the reboots I have to do I'm seeking an alternative.

Example: if I scan in 20 or so photographs on my 128MB, 40GB system, Windows runs out of memory. Fair enough, I think, bad coding in graphics/scanning program - memory leak - so I shut all the programs down. But that _still_ doesn't reclaim the memory. What has Windows done with that memory? The applications that were using it have been shut down, so even if they didn't free the memory from the heap, Windows should be able to identify that the memory was used by an application that has closed, and reclaim it.

My options were to buy Windows 2000, or give Linux a go for free. I'm giving Linux a go. So far it's proved to be rock solid, fast and reliable - if you'll excuse the enthusiastic tautology. It lacks a good .doc compatible wordprocessor, and anything approaching a website tool like Dreamweaver. But I'm still giving it a go. And so far, I like it. It just really needs some more good applications.

Finally, how does my 20-photographs-scan test stand up on Linux? Er... I'll let you know when I find a driver for my HP Scanjet 4200C scanner....

With my Windows System I can scan all day without rebooting

but its also a 900Mhz Duron With 448Mb of ram and 50Gb of hard drive space

the coolest part is it has a Matrox G-450 Dual head video card in it so I can scan on one monitor and surf on the other

You are missing the point entirely. It's not whether you can scan, it's Windows' memory management. Try leaving your system on for a month without rebooting and see how slow it gets. It's the "system resources" brain dead concept, with that small memory segment getting eaten up and never doing a proper garbage collection.

I'm faster with Windows too ... now. I plan to be faster with Linux, and expect that I can do more with half the horsepower.

We're getting way off the "installing software" topic, what problem can we help you with regarding installing Linux software?
/js