I am new to Linux but learned unix around 8 years back . I have a faint recollection of shell scripts and sco unix. It was fun.

I never thought linux would be the OS for a common user but after looking at mandrake my thoughts changed. I think it is very user friendly and most of the things I could setup by myself or by googling it.

Till now I have the following done.

1. Connect 2 internet using PPPoe (ADSL) .
2. Install the ATI Radeon Drivers
3. Install Ut2004 and Play ( FPS is low averages to around 40 -45 )
4. Yahoo Messenger.
5. Digital Camera
6. DVD movie playback
7. Browse and surf the web
6. Create shortcuts to applications. (What are the executeable equivalents of linux)
7. Tried out a few shell commands.
8. Mp3 and viewing pictures.

I am working on the below and would appriciate any help.
Also if you need any help on the above items I can assist.
1. Networking a windows XP mc and Mandrake.
2. Yahoo Toolbar
3. Firewall
4. Anti virus
5. more

nat2k4us; pointing you in the right direction (hope nb too) http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX find devices and your needs in each section from table of contents. And of course I have not forgotten BSD's help site aic7xxx@freebsd.org? during hiatus what were you using?

just curious and nosy. Sorry apologies

[EDIT] edited to point the url to the correct place and to tidy up the syntax. [/EDIT]

OMG! pengiun4 is a spammer. The link he posted opened 6 popup ads. Good for me I have a popup blocker..

hah. Typos can be a spammer/scammer's best friend.

That was probably supposed to be http://tldp.org instead of the other "reversed" letters. penguin4, can you edit your misspelled url so that someone in windows doesn't have that activeX program installed on their system?

sry!
and thanks.. but u need to correct that link..

nat2k4us:
1. You will need to look into Samba

2. I don't think there is a Yahoo toolbar (or a Google one) for Linux

3. If you need a gui firewall, try Firebuilder or GuardDog. But Linux has a great inbuilt firewall called iptables. You will need to edit it by hand (the 2 guis are less powerful frontends to doing this). In my sig block is a link to RUTE this may be a good place to start. In the Security forum, UnSpawn has sticky threads with links to many security sites and to iptables configuration how tos.

4. There are a few antivirus programs out there. Linux has very few viruses and they tend to be proof of concept viruses. If you are sharing documents between Windows and Linux it is probably a good idea to have one. 2 I know of are ClamAV and F-Prot (F-Prot also has a gui available).

5. In a console type in man more

nat2k4us; did not do it. that was that 2nd site i recommended my apology. it was not intentional at all!

<------ makes typos too

No problem. Thanks for the link (corrected).

There is Yahoo Toolbar for mozilla ( but did not work for me ). I installed firefox (latest version) and it does not like it.
http://companion.mozdev.org/

They provide a 52.xpi and I don't know how to install it. If I click on the install link on that page it installs it but does not showup any toolbar.

I tried LinNeighbourhood but after installing I did now get any options or links in the menu to the application
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/demo...nneighborhood/

still gonna try this weekend.

nat2k4us; ok u did it! great, that is why highly recommend using all the howto,s and man pages + any reference,s . reading them with comprehension and carefully initiate.

I like MDK too. There is a great Linux distribution, with some amazing tools.

One of the I most like is Webmin that comes with mdk and can help you to become more confident with Linux. With webmin y'll can caonfigure Network, SAMBA, Firewal, Disk, Squid(cahe and proxy) and several other services and devices.

If you cannot find Webmin on the distro CD's you can download it at www.webmin.com. After install webmin, you will acess it from your web browser pointing to your machine name or IP plus :10000 ie: 192.168.0.1:10000 . Yes, you can cofigure your machine from another PC in a netwark! Of course, if the permission is seting on!

For the first connection use root as user and create anothe webmin user just after that.

Good Luck!

Eduardo