Hey umm I am a long time windows fan first time linux user. I know a lot about computers but I dont' have a damn clue what is up with this linux thing at all :'( If there is anyone that has half and Idea what they are doing please give me an im on aim sns = Randy1134, Shiggidibug, and mp3nb. I was thiking when I took the dip into linux it would be different, I had a better time going to mac OS X. But yeah I have an athlon 1700+ pro with 256ddrsdram and an elitegroup k7s5a mobo, a pctv video tv tunner, a 2 meg crappy vga card(using), a kryo II with svideo out(want to use), an ati radeon 7000 pic (also want to use), a 10 gb hd and built in sound.

I have figured out how to install wine. But the programs I try to run under wine run for a second but a debugger comes up with a promt and its just blinking in my face and I am all wtf and its all shut up crash program.

I really don't want to go back to windows. So if anyone can help me please im me or email me, PLEASE

sorry to double post, I don't have a clue how to install the drivers for linux also. I have to learn the os on my own and well its just a pain that way so please give me a clue on something

Your best bet is to either post specific questions here, or if you prefer chat based tech support to forums based, use IRC. Sorry trickykid

I don't know of any people who do one to one adopt-a-newbie style tech support.

Wine is still alpha software. You can get good results out of it, but it takes some experience to setup correctly. Even then, not all apps work with it, it's a complete reimplementation of the API parts of Windows, and as such is very big and complex. It's best to either stick to apps that are known to work well in Wine, or better yet use native apps.

If you're having hardware issues, please post specific info. Driver installation should not be something you need do on a decent distro, Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake will all do the majority of driver legwork for you if the hardware is supported. The exceptions to this are the nVidia drivers and some modems.

I would be glad to help as much as I can. You might try VMware if you want to run windows apps fluently. www.vmware.com