OK, so I installed Mandrake Linux on my Win 2k machine today. This is the first time I have ever used Linux before and so far, its not bad. I will have to get used to it! Anyways, I was on the Linksys website and tried to use their Java Chat tech support and it said I didn't have Java, so I go to sun's website and download Java for Linux (not RPM linux) and follow their instructions on how to install it through the terminal. Well, I got it installed ok, but noticed that the path it installed to is my desktop. So now, I have a protected folder on my desktop. I then found out that Java is included in Konqueror, so I didn't need the newly installed program - just Linksys's website didn't pick it up for some reason. So, how can I uninstall this program and get the folder off my desktop?

Since you installed the BIN file,
become root and delete the directory. That's it.

can you give me more of a step-by-step?

I am guessing:
open Terminal
type su
enter password
go to desktop directory

then what?

type 'su'
enter root password hit enter

deleted icon from desktop by changing into desktop folder and deleting it

'cd /home/username/desktop'
'ls'
'rm nameoffile'

if you mean menu go to /opt/kde/share/ and find any folders and del the icons

*note* all this can be done graphically and some without root access. You can always enter root in kde also...

just right click kde start and edit menu, etc

Follow the step provided by name_in_use450.
However, if you want to delete a directory and all of its contents (files and sub-directories), type:

thanks. yes it is an entire folder that I need to delete. So it looks like that terminal works similarly to DOS. Is there a cheat sheet somewhere that gives a quick and dirty list of popular commands?

here is a site i use. http://www.ss64.com/bash/

you can also look at the man pages by typing man <command> in the terminal. for example the man page for the rm command is displayed when you type man rm. you can do this for any command you need help with.

OK, I tried it this morning and nothing happened. Here is what I typed:


[name@localhost name]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost name]# cd /home/name/desktop
bash: cd: /home/name/desktop: No such file or directory
[root@localhost name]# cd
[root@localhost root]# cd /home/name/Desktop
[root@localhost Desktop]# ls
Home.desktop j2re1.4.2_04/ Trash/ Welcome.desktop
[root@localhost Desktop]# rm -rf j2rel.4.2_04
[root@localhost Desktop]#

I went to the desktop and the folder is still there with it's contents and subfolders

by the way, if it helps, the folder has a padlock on the icon that I see on the desktop. so I guess the real problem is how do I unprotect this folder and it's contents?

Don't know if this'll help, but for me at least i have to do this to get to the desktop folder:

cd /home/name/.gnome-desktop

where name is your username

well, what I did gets me to my desktop because when I type ls, it shows the folder that I want to delete.

You should try this to find out what your permissions on the file are:
ls j2rel.4.2_04 -l

[root@localhost home]# ls j2re1.4.2_04 -l
ls: j2re1.4.2_04: No such file or directory
[root@localhost home]# ls /j2re1.4.2_04 -l
ls: /j2re1.4.2_04: No such file or directory
[root@localhost home]# cd /home/name/Desktop/j2re1.4.2_04
[root@localhost j2re1.4.2_04]# ls
bin/ COPYRIGHT LICENSE README
CHANGES javaws/ man/ THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME.txt
ControlPanel.html lib/ plugin/ Welcome.html
[root@localhost j2re1.4.2_04]# ls CHANGES -l
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1098 Feb 24 10:46 CHANGES
[root@localhost j2re1.4.2_04]#

OK, so I had a little problems getting the permissions settings on the folder, but one of the files inside the folder that I can't delete has the above permissions.

You only have read rights on the file.

In a terminal type:
su
password:
chmode 777 CHANGES

rm -rf j2re1.4.2_04]

Here is good site for beginner's :
http://www.unixguide.net/linux/linuxshortcuts.shtml

FINALLY!

hehe, I new it was a permissions problem, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I found the permissions tab in the properties by right clicking the folder, but I couldn't change anything from there. Apparently I am not given the administrator privilages when I log on at startup. If there any way to fix it so I don't have to chmod stuff every time I want to delete it?