Hello

I am a windows user personally, but my daughter has got a Elonex Onet+ machine, which I understand uses Linux. I have tried googling this information but I am really struggling.
Apparently it is either debian or mipsel (2 different webpages say two different things) and as I am not familiar with Linux at all I don't know how to find out from the machine itself.

The problem I am having is needing to update pidgin, the pre installed version will not connect to MSN, something regarding protocol, so I downloaded the most recent version of pidgin (2.7.3) from the site but cannot figure out how to install it (I am only used to windows machines)

Please can someone help in very basic terms for a complete novice?

Hi clair37,

Welcome to LQ !!

Please let us know the distribution you are using. You can use following command to know your distribution.

Do this
[QUOTE]
Download Pidgin latest version here

Thanks for the replies
As I mentioned before I am a complete novice on linux, so where do I enter "# cat /etc/issue" When the machine switches on I get a loading screen with the Elonex logo, then a desktop appears with icons for internet, games etc on.

I have downloaded the update for pidgin but it is simply sitting in the downloads file. I have unzipped it, and lots of icons appear with question marks, so I really do not know where to go from here.

The link supplied does not work.

Hi there!

Commands such as those shown in posts #2 and #3 are entered in a "terminal" or "console" application. This application looks basically like an empty window, with a "prompt" in it, where you type stuff. My console prompt looks like this:
or:
It usually has some combination of your username, machine or linux distribution name, maybe the date, or the path to the directory you are currently in.

You should have some sort of menu system or menu structure on this Linux of yours? Where you can select applications, games, browser, etc.? In that menu system somewhere, there ought to be a "terminal" or "konsole" or "shell" - something along these lines, will be your terminal program.

Please note: the information from the command in post #2 may help us; however, before proceeding with the stuff in post #3, we should figure out if you have some kind of "update manager" or "package manager". Using this would be the best way to install or upgrade an application - because if you do it the way described in post #3 (which should work fine, by the way) then it is more difficult to cleanly remove, upgrade, or re-install the package later.

So, if you can locate your terminal program, and try the command given in post #2, as well as trying the below command:
..then we can begin trying to figure out precisely what Linux you have here, and what would be the best way to upgrade your Pidgin.

By the way, what makes you believe that upgrading the Pidgin will solve the problem? Can you point us to where you learned this? And please point us to one or more of the links where you were reading that it might be "Debian" or "mipsel" on this machine - again, the more information we have to work with, the better, to make sure we try to go about this the best way.

Cheers!

Hi,

Link works now!!!

More info:

It appears that Debian Linux comes on that machine, and the architecture (the CPU inside it) is a MIPS or Mipsel unit (I've never heard of the latter one). Here's a couple threads to peruse:
http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/blog...87/elonex-onet
http://www.laptopreviews.org.uk/elon...-onet-netbook/
Interesting thread - note the links in post #2: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=39043

And here's a look at the Debian package repositories, specifically the Pidgin department:
http://packages.debian.org/search?ke...le&section=all

Now, someone said in that thread I linked above, that you "can't install anything", but they may or may not know what they're talking about. Chances are pretty good that you can install and/or upgrade stuff (no guarantees though) and the way to do it would be to use the package manager, if you have one in there. Once again, cruise around in the menu system, looking for "Package Manager", or "Add/Remove Software", or "Check Software Updates", something like that. If you can find such a tool, that would be the best way to upgrade Pidgin.

Keep us posted how you're making out.

1. Press Alt+F2.
2. Key in xterm in the dialog box that appears.
3. Press OK.
4. Key in cat /etc/issue in the small window that popped up and press Enter.
5. Copy the exact output and paste it here.

The "supplied link" is a tar ball which may have a lot of dependencies which your system may or may not be able to fulfill currently.

I suggest that you follow post number 9 and then we will be able to tell you whether you should use:
1. Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Yast
3. Yum
4. .rpm
5. .deb

and if none of the above work, then a tar ball.

alt +f2 did not do anything. I tried from point of switch on and also after the desktop loaded.

You pressed Alt with F2 only on your GUI desktop and nothing happened ??

Check this out for opening the terminal:
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome...tarted.html.en

<Alt>+F2 is the short cut used in most of the distributions to open run window, where you can type xterm or any other application name to run.

You need to find a way to open the konsole or Terminal from the Menu's availabe in the top of your distribution.

If you can open the terminal then fire the command cat /etc/issue and let us know the distribution. So that you can use Package manager accordinly to install Pidgin which will be available in most of the software repositaries.

Warm Regards,

There is an icon called software installer, which upon opening leads to a small list of installed items, pidgin is not listed there. The only items listed are the pre installed games.

This is really frustrating for me