God I really hate Linux. I've had nothing but trouble. I'm a complete newbie to Linux and am seriously thinking of staying with the dreaded windows xp. I first installed Slackware,tried 3 times,couldnt get it installed so installed Windows again. I then downloaded Mandrake 10.0 it installed fine and looked great then the problems began. Firstly It detected my Speedtouch modem with no problems. I also had the microcode on a floppy and inserted it when requested. Of course it didnt find the microcode. I then thought I'l use dial up to go on then net to find answers,then problem number 2. It didnt detect my dial up modem. Its a winsoft modem on com 3 ,so i then had to foramt my harddrive again and install xp as I dont have a clue about partitions. I then downloaded Linux mephis and installed it to harddrive,I must say it does look impressive,I then went to go on the net it didnt detect my speedtouch modem or my winsoft modem,after 3 hrs of perserverance I gave up,reformatted and am back to XP. Is there any guides for a complete Linux newbie to get up and running??

err... you really need to either partition or use a live cd. Even if you do get everything running in linux there are probably things you will want windows for. Try knoppix or slax or some other live cd and see if it autoconfigures your modem for you.

the winsoft is probably a winmodem, there is a reason there is a win in the name, head over to linmodems.org if you want to see if it's supported ( I haven't used the linmodem drivers for about 3 years, but back then they were not the most user friendly drivers in the world.)

You simply can't expect to be understanding linux the day after you've tried it for the first time.
It takes time. Keep trying and you'll get the hang of it.

And for information on how to get things up and running, google has supplied enough information for me to
take my first linux steps

Now i'm proudly running it for some time and i absolutely don't want to be told how to use my computer by Bill Gates
So, keep trying

You'll manage

dj9928:

Don't give up man! As Gero said, it takes time and patients. But once you've got it somewhat down, the benefits of Linux outweight the headaches of Windows. Just remember, Google is your friend. There's also www.google.com/linux to search for Linux specific stuff.

I'm currently running Mepis 3.3 and absolutly LOVE it. Imo, the support and help that I get from the IRC rooms are top notch and the most friendly around.

Sorry I can't help you out with the modem problem. I'd have to agree with __J in saying that it has the name win in it for a reason. Along with linmodems and www.google.com/linux, I'd check the support and/or forums on the distro's website.

efanning

I hope you mean patience

(sorry)

to the OP: I hope you stay with linux. Summing it up, linux is only hard to install, it's not hard to use. Which is why there's installation manuals and forums (like here). I hope you have used them in your installation attemps and troubleshooting.

--Jonas

Uhm, yeah, that's what I said. You just read it wrong.

LoL, Thanks for the catch, I knew it didn't look right, just not sure why.

efanning

Or i think the easier option,which i was thinking of doing before this whole Linux fiasco is get a Mac mini and OS X 10.4 Tiger. Now that is an operating systems. I just really hate Windows!!

dj*: well, if you like the OS, go ahead. It sounds like it's The Right Thing for you. I just hope you won't speak excessively bad about linux, just because you had a bad experience. For many people, Linux is The Right Thing for them.

also, in another thread, I read that if you want to use linux, just because you hate M$/w32, go with mac instead; you'll figure them out. But if you are ready to devote a little time to learn things, Linux is the way to go.

I tend to agree: using linux has been a highly rewarding experience for me; not only because I've gotten rid of w32, or because stuff actually works, but (mostly) because I've had the chance to learn and I took it. Because I wanted to.

You realise that with Mac OS X they took a fantastic base for the OS (BSD) and totally screwed it up so it crashes almost as often as Windows?