I would have to agree, I don't think anyone learned Windows in a week. Most anyone who feels comfortable with Windows probably learned it over a period of many months or possibly years. Looking back a few years, if someone had dropped Windows XP on my desk back in 1996, I would have been feeling about like you are now. A little overwhelmed. But I was introduced to Windows a little bit at a time, or one upgrade at a time and became familiar with it.

The same holds true for Linux, if you just take it one step at a time, starting out with the simple stuff first, then eventually you will be doing it without even realizing it.

So many points to respond to,

jdc2048 - I did not learn Windows in a week, BUT the Que "soft-cover" manuals had one operation on each page and looking up a specific procedure was easy.

The Linux manuals I have bought have such a "broad approach" that I do the examples one time but can't retain them.

Example: There was an op using the Up & Down cursor arrows that worked great ! But I have already forgotten what it was for or how to do it ! [I think it changed the prompt].

Right now, there are some many new Linux terms "samba" "bash" "alias" etc... I read them but can't retain them. "bash" has something to do with a shell. BUT, what is a shell ??

My latest "stumbling block" is the floppy drive. I'm trying to copy something onto a floppy or take bookmarks off of a floppy and bring them into Mozilla.

And I can't even locate the floppy drive. I suspect the problem is in this "mounting devices". Why is mounting devices even necessary ? It appears to me that devices can become "unmounted" between boot-ups. There is a floppy icon on the KDE desktop that does "nothing".

I'm rambling again, more later.

Have you ever used a dos shell in Windows? Essentially it is a command line intepreter, just as is dos, but with tons more power and ease of use to boot.

From bash Introduction to BASH

Bash is the shell, or command language interpreter, that will appear in the GNU operating system. Bash is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh). It is intended to conform to the IEEE POSIX P1003.2/ISO 9945.2 Shell and Tools standard. It offers functional improvements over sh for both programming and interactive use. In addition, most sh scripts can be run by Bash without modification.

The improvements offered by BASH include:

* Command line editing
* Unlimited size command history
* Job Control
* Shell Functions and Aliases
* Indexed arrays of unlimited size
* Integer arithmetic in any base from two to sixty-four

Online Manual is available at www.gnu.org/manual/bash/index.html

LNAG: Accessing my drives
Rute: Device Mounting

It isn't a good idea for the drives to be mounted/dismounted randomly by users on networked computers. Another user on another machine may be using it and that would tend to tee that person off.

Sometimes Mandrake has problems with the "supermount" that is supposed to make mounting drives easier. If this turns out to be your problem check the Mandrake FAQ, but check other things first.
Devices do not really "become unmounted between bootups". Whatever is configured as default mounts is how your system boots unless you change it. You normally do not want floppy or CD drives to default to mounted at boot as they need to be mounted or unmounted with media changes. Thus you would first insert the media (floppy or CD) then mount it. You would unmount it before you removed the media.
Have you tried right clicking on your desktop floppy icon? There is often a mount or unmount choice you can click.