Settings and Preferences labyrinth
 

(Thanks to those who answered my last question)

Still a newb to Linux, I am messing around with Linux for the forth time in my life. (Other times I gave up because they ran to slow because I used heavy distros on weak/dead machines)

Anyway, I've messed with several versions of Windows and Mac OSX. The main difference I see with Linux, which I believe ultimately is the biggest burden in Linux, is I cannot find a way to set preferences or settings for internet. It seems for an internet connection, I am allowed to set Proxys and "Connect directly to the internet" but I cannot choose exactly HOW I want to connect. In my case, it's through a USB wireless adaptor (D-link USB Wireless G)

None of my USB peripherals work as well. When I go into settings for things like "Mouse" or "Keyboard" it only allows you to alter it's performance and not actually try to detect a USB device. It's be nice to get some files off my USB flash memory drive.

Eitherway, I'm assuming these things must be set somewhere away from the GUI. As far as I can guess, you have to edit the "Kernal" and the "Terminal" (DOS Prompt-looking program) is the way to do it.

Perhaps if I can have a little direction, I can figure some of these things out. Until then, I'm wondering blindly through the GUI menus cold-turkey. Thank you.

BTW: It appears most versions of Linux function the same way so it does not really matter what version I have. I have KDE GUI. I believe it is Wolvix.

Wolvix? I've never heard of that one before. Looking at their website, it's based on SLAX, which is based on Slackware. Slackware is notorious for being one of the most "command line oriented" distribution of Linux. If you don't thrive on in depth manual configuration and troubleshooting, then Slackware isn't for you!

Wireless networking hardware in general has spotty support for Linux. The best thing is for you to use a different Linux distribution which detects and uses your hardware the easiest. Mepis is reportedly pretty good at this; another popular option is Ubuntu.

I know that Mepis has a GUI configuration thing for getting wireless internet connection working. I don't know how well it works first hand, since I don't have any wireless networking hardware (every time I see how well it "works" at my friends's places, I remember why I stick with wired networking).