You have KDE desktop. That's good. if you click in the upper right corner on the icon there you can "unlock" widgets, which basically opens your desktop to just about any visible changes. The startmenu you are using is called "kickoff".

I don't know it very well. I use the classic KDE start menu. You can also change that, or use both menues by adding the widgets by pressing the icon on the right side of your "panel". By default you can add "kickoff" and the classic KDE menu. Perpahs you will like it better. There you can right click to add. I thin with kickoff you have to right click the "star" icon and select menu editor.

With normal binaries in your "path", you should be able to right click them and add them to the menu.

When you install Firefox manually like you did, it is not in your path, it is simply a folder with a binary and all the necessary files to run it.
Since it is not in your "path" they dont work like normal programs, and they dont utilise the normal Linux libraries in an efficient way.

To properly run a slackware source package, several steps are required: (in command line)
1. tar -zxvf (or perhaps tar -xvf)
2. you need to enter the new folder and run ./configure
3. If ./configure runs fine you can install the program with step 4
4. "make"
5. "make install"

Once this successfully installs Firefox will use the full resources of the system. and be run as a binary from the /usr/bin location which is the preferred and normal place to run user programs from. It should then also place itself in the startmenu automatically.

If Firefox is installed correctly, Flash also needs to be installed correctly, and the flash plugin need to be put in the appropriate folder for Firefox. That can be somewhat confusing.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ectory-521490/

Anyways, forget to run anything as admin, you shouldnt do that, especially not for internet related things, EVER!



Slackware is a great distro if you really want to understand and learn GNU/Linux and have the time and patience to do that. If you are a new user and simply want a running system to perform certain tasks and dont want to put any effort into it, another distribution would be more suitable.

Personally I would strongly recommend the Slackware route if you have the time and patience and if you are prepared for a steep learning curve(steep does not mean difficult).


Good luck!

Right click on the desktop, go down to bottom target "default desktop settings "click" That will bring up a menu, at the top
under "Layout" open and click, Choose "Folder view" Then choose the desktop wallpaper you want and click "apply" then Ok


Go to the menu button that you used to open that menu! Right click on it and change that to "switch to classic menu".
Now bring up the classic menu and look at whatever you want, right click it to desktop or wherever you want it.

You have what you need to run flash it is just in the wrong place. Go to terminal as Root, cd to /home/vidya/Installers
When you get there do a "ls" and make sure it is in that directory. Now copy the libflashplayer.so to where it needs to be.
cp libflashplayer.so /home/vidya/.mozilla/plugins/ Now flash should work!

I have to agree with every word that zeebra posted in #10, MS, though they have controlled the market for years, with UEFI & Windows 8, has tighened the noose more. But here's the problem. Most Windows 8 users hates the OS & many have downgraded to Windows 7 and/or explored Linux options. As for myself, I've been using Linux Mint since the summer of '09, it was named Gloria then. My first attempt was Ubuntu via Wubi, that was a disaster. Tried the standalone Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS & a couple of others before sticking with Mint. It's a great OS, well funded & supported by other means & has an excellent community. And as stated in my avatar, Mint 15 (Mate) is my primary OS.

When MS introduced their latest crap (& I do indeed mean another word beginning with "s", but crap will do on an open forum), they literally shot themselves in the foot. This is the real reason that Steve Ballmer is leaving, he thought that he could create an Apple copycat & has failed. No matter what becomes of Windows 8, it's going down as a failure (worse than Vista) & MS is now at a crossroads as to their future. Fortunately for the OEM's, they're allowed to still distribute Windows 7 computers & they're still selling well. Dell has actually played with Ubuntu distribution, but with little success. Other OEM's, seeing the light, has also started distributing other OS's, in particular, Google. I don't know much about the OS, but do know that it's not freely available for download.

Like zeebra stated, if nothing else, build your own. I am considering it myself, though my issue is, from a hardware standpoint of view, am a Intel/Nvidia fan, which some Linux OS's doesn't always play well with the latest Nvidia GPU's (I recall Linus giving the Nvidia rep the middle finger). So I'm at a crossroads here myself. I refuse to buy a Windows 8 desktop, though I can get the same make/model (Dell XPS 8700) with the latest i7 that has a 1 GB AMD Radeon™ HD 7570 GDDR5 (some models has a NVIDIA equivalent). Here's the model I'm looking at, but still unsure of build or buy. Lots of recent, top notch hardware for the money. That CPU alone costs $349 @ Newegg.

http://www.costco.com/Dell-XPS-8700-...100054130.html

This, I believe is the AMD GPU in this unit, as the AMD Radeon 7570 is GDDR3, the Dell OEM variant is GDDR5, as advertised in the above link.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/b693/dell-hd-7570.html

Still, for $799 + 30 shipping + sales tax, it's a good buy, lots of hardware for the money & being a Costco Warehouse member, the 1 year warranty is doubled to 2 years.

I'm going to find it hard to build that much machine for the money. So does AMD support Linux better than Nvidia?

I'll be dual booting with Linux Mint myself on the computer. The main reason that I need Windows is because my granddaughter has a hard time with any Linux OS (even the kids ones). She's only 7 years old & likes to play her games that are written primarily for Windows.

And the reason that I truly need so much under the hood is that I like to run virtual machines that can perform as well as a native install. Wimpy computers doesn't run VM's so well. BTW, as soon as that PC is ordered (assuming that I do), 16GB of RAM will be ordered on the same day, to give me 24GB total. That will allow me to run 64 bit VM's with 6GB RAM each.

My concern is also in line with this thread, or I wouldn't have brought it up. Even with Windows 7 preinstalled, it still will have the UEFI BIOS (don't know if Secure Boot is a Windows 8 only feature). Hopefully Mint will run good on a modern machine.

Am also glad that the OP is enjoying initial success, hopefully I can do as well.

Cat