I am trying to open a terminal so I can move files around on my Acer. I have done alt/F2, and a one-line window opens. I typed in gnome-terminal and a terminal opens up, but the small block in the upper left corner of the window doesn't blink and I can't enter anything into the now large window.

Could you take a screenshot for us? This seems quite odd....

I saved the screenshot to my computer's picture folder. How do I get it to show here?

Click on reply, not the quick reply, and upload it.....

How do I upload it?

Add attachments? It's there, trust me...

1 members found this post helpful.

Ok, you were right. I didn't recognize that sqwibble as a paper clip.
Here's the screenshot.

The cursor should be ready for input after bash had read the configuration files /$HOME/.bashrc or /etc/profile .

There may be a corrupt compiled emulator also .

There are several terminals that you could use , too , like xterm , (u)rxvt , terminator , konsole instead of gnome-terminal , which should be accessible by the menu , too .

The one-liner you mentioned could be gexec .

The Xserver (Xorg or Xvesa) should have an error-log-file , which could be shown by htop , top or ps .

I think i had such also once and was able to repair it by fsck -ing the partition or after i installed newer or older libaries somewhere in /lib or /usr/lib to enable the chrome browser and after restoring the original libs everything was fine again .

Is there some way for me to do this? I don't know what bash is, or what configuration files are and where and how I would use them.

I am quite inexperienced in linux, you know. I understand there is no documentation for my distro, so there is no way for me to read about all these things comprehensively so that I can become independently knowledgeable even to a small degree, except for what I pick up from generous posters here, like yourself.

Just noticed your profile says Linpus: according to most (all ?) of the posts I've seen here at LQ (try the Search facility at top of this page), its pretty crap. Usual advice is to replace with a proper distro; try Mint or Ubuntu.
www.distrowatch.com.

Welcome to LQ

1 members found this post helpful.

Besides using Linpus, it almost seems like you don't have a proper shell configured. Could you check this by logging into a real terminal (Control + Alt + F2) and seeing what happens, along with posting the results of the following command?

Control + Alt + F2 gets nothing--no window or any other effect of any kind. I did Alt + F2 instead, got that one line window. I typed in the above code into that window, hit enter, and the window vanished and nothing else happened.

Now about changing my operating system.

I would love to and it all depends on getting someone whose advice I can follow and who knows what has to be done. I know nothing about either Mint or Ubuntu so I would need advice on which to get.

I'm terribly afraid of making a mistake--something that is a danger when I don't know exactly to do with an instruction--and leaving myself with a bigger problem than I started out with.

If your model is a Aspire One 110 (with 8GB SSD), I have had older versions of Ubuntu (9.04 and 9.10; both no longer supported) and lubuntu 11.04 running on it. Currently running Crunchbang Statler on it. I only use it for skype and web browsing and those things work (skype needs to be installed the 'difficult way').

lubuntu might be the better choice for you (from the above ones)

Download a distro of your choice. Assuming you don't have a CD drive in the system (the 110 does not have an internal one), you need to make a bootable usb stick from the downloaded iso; I use an Ubuntu desktop for that but it can done in Windows and possibly in Linpus as well. The ubuntu download site has instructions how to make a bootable usb using windows; the instructions more than likely apply to lubuntu as well.

Once you have a bootable USB stick, insert it and boot your Acer. Most distros (including the above ones) have the option to try them out first. Once you've found one that you like, you can install it; make sure that you have a backup of important data because the install will (generally) wipe the hard disk.

If you just google "how to install Ubuntu/Mint" you will get numerous sites with detailed instructions including some with video images for each step of the way. If you decide to do that, it would be a good idea to read through or watch several times to familiarize yourself with the information. If Linpus is the only operating system, it shouldn't be that difficult. If you have data that is important to you, obviously back it up some where before beginning.

Ultimately, I discovered that xterm was what I needed, and I got there by typing alt+F2, typing xterm in the single line window that appeared, and then two windows appeared, one was something called an "emulator" (I don't know anything about that), and the other was a real terminal, the one I now use regularly.