what the....?
 

ok I just installed Mandrake onto a box, and started it up, it's come to this bit looks like DOS, asks for login and password, duly entered, now it says

[ben@localhost ben]$

what does that mean? what do i do now?

Thats your shell. It's where you type in commands if your not in X using the terminal. I have never used Mandrake, so Im not sure if all the commands are different, but here's a few for ya.
ls - displays files in whatever directory your in
startx - starts window manager
cd - change directory
cd .. - go back one directory
cd / - go to / directory
su root - allows regular user to install with roots permission (thats the best way I can think to explain it, sorry if it sucks)

On my computer, all the directories are in blue, all the untared files are in red, executable files are in green, all the white files are ones you can open and read or configure.
I hope this helps you a bit. Im pretty much a newbie myself. I've only been using Linux a year, but Im sure there are others on here that can better help you then I can. Welcome to Linux!
much love,
nikki

It means that you are logged in to a bash shell as the user ben.

You can do what ever you want to do. What would you like to do?

Re: what the....?
 

That means that you installed mandrake either without
X or set it up not to use it. You have just discovered
the true beauty of linux.

From there you start working, or continue installing/
configuring.



Cheers,
Tink

hmmm, tried startx and it failed, tried ls and am apparently in tmp, is very likely i completely ballsed up my partitions

i was expecting something that resembled a desktop, with buttons and stuff...i'm hopeless with DOS commands (except the one i used to use at school to hack the messaging system)

how do i finish installing? what is x?

X is a GUI that's commonly found on Linux/Unix
systems.

I suggest some major reading before asking a
million questions ;)

Browse through our excellent links section...

And as a direct recommendation:
Rute:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ion=jump&id=56

Intro to Linux:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html



Cheers,
Tink

EDIT: what was written here was purely frustration, so i deleted it, sorry if ne1 read it and was offended

Well ... not knowing whether you CHOSE not
to install X, or whether MDK failed you it's hard
to help you on since you're quite obviously
inexperienced ... trying to get you from an embryo
stage to a mature adult (figuratively speaking) would
certainly blow the capabilities of a thread, and
spreading out the efforts over several threads seems
a waste of energy.

The easiest thing to do would be re-install MDK. Btw,
knowing which version you're using would help, too.


Cheers,
Tink

I'm using Mandrake 9.2 or so I'm told.
I tried reading that online book you linked to, and got as far as creating files before it stopped doing what the book said it would (chap 2.8).

Yes I am actually worse than inexperienced, I'm a total novice, I know my way around applications etc but have been brought up in the brainwashed society of windows.
Am assuming that to reinstall, I just turn off the pc and turn it on with disc 1 in it?

That should do the trick :)

I hope your hardware isn't too new for MDK 9.2
being able to make sense of it....



Cheers,
Tink

i'm using a p2 but with a massive ard drive, have chosen to totally erase everything and install enough to run multimedia etc.

should this now load up as a graphical version? or will ctrl+f7 launch it when things come up?

thanks for your patience and help with this by the way, I'm so desperate to get rid of microsoft (have spent too much time trying to undo things etc), but it seems my computer knowledge may not be quite up to linux...

i think u can go with p2 and as u have the required harddisk
hope u have some reasonalbe ram too
128 will be OK!!!!!!!!!!
go for the gui mode
and u won't be requiring ctrl+F7 for gui mode since generally it starts in the gui mode untill something else has been specified

regards
gaurav

good stuff, except i saw no mention in the installation options of GUI... (have 256ram so am happy bunny there)


PS what window manager should i run?

Gnome and KDE are pretty nooby friendly, as is Window Maker. Thats the first one I used. And your usually given the option as to what window manager you wanna use towards the end of the setup/installation of Mandrake. Good luck!
much love,
nikki