I just traded my windows xp tower for a linux system because my friend screwed it up and couldn't get past the login and I was like "hey, I've always wanted linux but always failed at burning installation CDs". Well, I looked it up and found out how to get a new password with "passwd username" and now it's mine. I've spent more than a day now transferring my 5 gigs of music with my flash drive just to learn that what came with Ubuntu, RythymBox, won't play any of my files.

Now, I don't have an internet connection at home and I was wondering how I could get something like VLC for Linux onto my desktop, yeah?

Can anybody halp? My flash drive is 2 gigs, for the record. Can I install the Hardy Heron on that and, if so, how? Furthermore, how would I then go about installing Linux apps and transferring them to my PC.

Thanks to anyone who responds helpfully.

Well you can simply download the correct package for the applications you want onto your flash drive, then copy it to your home PC and install it from there.

Hey, thanks for telling me that.

So it won't need to pull anything off the interwebs after that?

Someone who has internet connection can download what you want and put it on the CD or whatever and then you can install packages by adding a repository to /etc/apt/sources.list.This is howto install Ubuntu on the flash drive.To play many audio formats you'll need ubuntu-restricted-extras package.There are more packages for playing restricted formats and all are availabe for installation,on one way or the other.

Thank you, Alan. I don't entirely understand what you just said but I'm sure I will in time as I become acclimated to this OS and its ways.

And now I find that even when I bring my box here, it won't connect to the wireless, either because the bcm4212 won't support it or my 2wire adapter is shot (or not meant to work here). Guess I'll have to find an rj-45 and plug it into the source... on the ceiling of the basement...