I'm new to linux but have worked with mac and pc since 1984
 

I hope I'm at the right place I have tried to get to the newbie thread but keep ending up here.

I'm George ver 74.6. I'm a retired university lecturer in the area of teacher education.

I Live in Australia and have been working with Linux for about 5 days now I'm slowly getting the hang of things but the major stumbling block to the whole thing is the fact that the instructions for installing applications seems to have been written for programmers.

Many of the instructions seem to have steps or important details left out or are just plain confusing.

It took me 5 try's to get the Linux mint installed. I am however starting to get the hang of it.

I have done some writing of software user guides from the viewpoint of step by step insulation of software and basic set-up for use and would be interested in assisting in the writing of user guides.

If any one has any interest in using my skills drop me a line and we can see if we could work things out.

What applications are you in need to install, There are different way to get application installed in to your computer under any linux distribution. So perhaps we both can benefit from each other experiences.

Good luck to you.

Hi George, Welcome to LQ!

Although I don't use Linux Mint every day, I do have it installed on an other small system.

The community support for mint is quite enthusiastic, as with most distributions, in my opinion.

You may check the LQ wiki to see what's needed here, and you can make your blog a place for tutorials.

I've done a few, they look appalling now. Live and learn.

Cheers and regards Glenn

Are you saying you are 74 years old?

If you are having trouble with today's linux, you would have had some real issues 20 some odd years ago. You had to find a dial up to a bulletin board and download a few floppies for a week or so. Mostly at long distance rates. That only got you source code. You had to use the bulletin boards to get ideas on how to build your OS. After a month or so you were rewarded with a simple shell and no apps.

Hi,

Perhaps you could let us know what Linux distribution you are using?

When I was a newbie, installing software is one of the areas that made Linux super easy compared to Windows. If you are using Ubuntu/Linux Mint, simply open the software centre or synaptic package manager, choose the software you want installed and get working!

He says Mint in the OP, so apt-get or synaptic is an option. I think they have synaptic on Mint. I've never used it personally.

Thanks for the offers to help out
 

At the moment I'm in in the process of transferring from My XP OS as I'm not happy about the Idea of using M$ OS 8. I have installed wine and am looking to transfer some of my major apps over to Linux so at the moment that's where my focus is.

Yes jefro, 74 and then some. Yes in the early 80's it was hell trying to use the old IBM data base etc. as I had no idea what so ever was going on. However in 84 Apple came out with the Mac and it was a god send And then the internet boy was that ever fun.

Then there was HyperCard,I learned how to do the programming with that so I did get into a little bit of programming via that. I went on to start a Phd in online education during that time my research extended into developing and running a website. Now it seems that I'll look at learning Perl so I can function in Lenux.

Thanks for the advice DeeGee Have been there and had a look around it's just going to take a little time to get around to it.

Thanks TroN-0074 all that stuff you mentioned is Greek to me I know the mac and a no brand PC. Have worked with a mac from the get go and used ever OS from 1 -10 and windows from the very start up to XP.

I'm from old school If it works don't mess with it

Any way thank all of you for your imput and I'll get back to you when ever I have any questions

To answer your question flyinggeorge Im using Linux Mint ver 15

Thanks G

Just a couple of minor things I have learned when doing searches on the internet. With Mint and Linux in particular, with a problem for Mint go first to a reliable web site (like this) or to the Mint site. When you find instructions, read the whole thing and pay particular attention to what it is directed at. For example, instructions on how to use/install some software on Linux Mint 7 may not be applicable to a later version. Another thing that really annoys me is the number of sites which don't have dates so we thing we've found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and it's 5-10 year old info.

When I first started using Linux, there was a lot of frustration although not as much as other users as I hadn't used windows or other operating systems, less to unlearn. I realized that millions were using Linux successfully and they couldn't all be smatter than me. Also realizing the money I save using it helps.

Good luck with Linux.