New and Overwhelmed Linux N00b

[LittleZeasel]

... Heya all...

I'm LittleZeasel and - since the world is tiny - those who play(ed) NWN online may even have encountered me in many other online platforms...
That being said, I thought myself pretty computer savvy ... compared to other 30year old females out there... There was a time, where I could rattle DOS commands by heart up and down and use them sensibly, too ... but that's ... a good 15 years ago or so...

Working through all Windows instances and lately win7, and having 'heard of Linux', I finally decided to make the jump.
I have a computer savvy hubby, but I am one of those: I kinda like to figure things out a bit on my own, before having everything done for me...

Well as said,... I am nearly 30, originally I am from Germany, speak a conversational level of Spanish, okay English and am capable of ordering Dinner in Italian, French and Greek ... I like photography (I have Photoshop CS 4 and hope I can make it work for Linux as well), and sometimes am drawing and scetching a bit, though I am anything but adapt in it ... I love RPGs (D&D anyone ), Computer Games (NWN, Anno 1602, and find and click puzzle adventures).

Other than that, I volunteer for the National Park Service and am at the moment a housewife (with a love for cooking and a hate for cleaning )... I used to live in Austria and learned to be a tourist guide for this small country. Other than that, I am now in the USA.

Well... I finally made the jump to Linux and just installed CentOS - and realized then, it didn't recognize my wireless card (Realtek) - and thus, my laptop is offline.
Since "Right Click - Device Manager" doesn't exist here, I realized, I need a total Dummy Course for Linux.

Like... learning the commands for the terminal... Finding out where the Terminal is in first place (did that now :P ) ... etc.
My little Mini Notepad here, with which I am typing runs Ubuntu, and was set up by a friend. I use the Firefox there - and that's pretty much all I use it for Sooo... I have NO clue about Linux and am basically looking at it like a kid that sees a flower for the very first time and just thinks it can eat it ... I hope over time to learn more about Linux with the help of this community, and maybe, one day in the future another new Linuxer will come along, and then it may be me being able to help out with advice....

Edit: Tried to get some help on the Linux Freenode Chat in IRC and am failing to understand the super high tech talk they apply there and have to grudgingly admit, that what was savvy 15 years ago, doesn't count as savvy nowadays anymore.... Thus: treat me as if I had never even SEEN a computer in my entire life = Super DAU / Noob ... (DAU = Dümmster Anzunehmender User = Most Stupid User Ever ... Those are the guys who call that a computer isn't working and don't know it needs electricity to do so :P )

PS: I'm a Smilie Monster and just found out I am limited to 4 ... The SHOCK ... :cP

[nujinini]

Hello & Welcome!

Wireless can be pretty hard to run on CentOS. Some people would suggest that CentOS be used with an internet cable. That being said, you can always give it a try if you like to play around. You can boot into you CentOS, plug the internet cable and post the outputs of commands asked here.

As for a linux course, you might want to check this out for starters.

If you are comfortable with Ubuntu you can continue to use it as your main OS and if you have the time, try also other linux flavors. Either by multi booting you system or installing several OSes using virtualbox hosted by ubuntu.

Hope you enjoy linux and learn as much as you can, regards,

nujinini

[Jonathan183]

Welcome to the forums LittleZeasel

Try pressing the tab key a few times in the terminal ... you will find the terminal in Linux does a lot more than DOS

You might want to try something like Linux Mint ... you may find everything just works.

[LittleZeasel]

Thank you all for your nice welcomes and warm replies.
Thank you also, nujinini ... I am trying the links out as we speak.
The wireless set up from this forum was the first thing I tried and came out with a lot of "command not found" messages ...

My small laptop here, with Ubuntu on it ... I am just as much N00b on Ubuntu, as I am on CentOS. I don't know how to use any Linux (yet) - so the "What next" guide seems like a golden start for me, thanks for that... And googling finds, that my Realtek Card isn't standard supported on Ubuntu either - so, the same problem persists for me

Well .. in time, let's hope, I understand things here, including the lingo (as of yet, most things I understand are about as comprehensive to me as signs on a chinese train station) ... I'll give it time

Thanks all and wish me luck

[MASONTX]

Greetings! Welcome to the forum. As a couple of others have said, you might find Ubuntu, Mint, or Lubuntu more newbie friendly.

[nujinini]

... (as of yet, most things I understand are about as comprehensive to me as signs on a chinese train station)

Hahaha!

I can relate to what your mean sister...

[PrinceSharma]

Welcome Welcome, we need more and more feminine touch to Linux .
Wish you luck.

Two cents for trying Linux Mint, you won't be disappointed.

[LittleZeasel]

You may be losing the female touch sooner, rather than later as my Laptop refuses with every single step accepting Linux as its OS ... I am starting to grasp at straws ...

CentOS doesn't seem to have any support for the Kernels needed in order to get my wireless card working...

Ubuntu 10.10 won't even install

Ubuntu 11.04 fails at just plainly downloading it ...

Fedora14 seems to have the same problem as CentOS and applying ndiswrapper doesn't work because it doesn't let me install it, telling me I use wrong kernels all the time (and updating kernels, changing links, to point at the right ones, etc. doesn't seem to work either) ...

Keep in mind: I am just observing what my beloved tells me to do and enter into the command lines. He works with that stuff professionally and we have spent the last 3 days trying to get any Linux working on my computer ... So far, without any success.

Also, googling my laptop and Linux, I haven't found a single report of it actually working ... Just tons and tons over reports on stuff NOT working ...

If we actually DO get anything to work, I'll write a step by step guide for those having that machine as well... But I have to admit, my hopes are growing slim. Hubby will be going on a business trip in an hour, which means, I will be without a working computer (and have to use my mini pad here for bare essentialss) until most likely the weekend - I am not looking forward to that, I have to say....

Tell me more about Linux Mint ... ? Maybe I'll give that a try?

[PrinceSharma]

Tell me more about Linux Mint ... ? Maybe I'll give that a try?

I can understand your suffering to get everything to work. Because it's the same thing I have felt when I first started using Fedora 11 as my main Laptop OS, nothing worked that time but now things have improved much.

And about Linux Mint, it's been initially called 'Ubuntu on steroids' but then it emerged as a beautiful community Linux distro with a wide range of h/w support and pre-installed codecs for multimedia and wireless for some selected cards, like in my case Broad-com. They have some of their own built applications that make your computing experience easier. You may check and read a lot about it in :

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

It's been in top 3 most used Linux OS since years I guess and it's now being termed as most n00b friendly Linux *even over Ubuntu. So my suggestion would be to download and install Linux Mint 10-Gnome (It's the latest version / Keep in mind it's the one which is based on Ubuntu, not Debian edition ) and report back if it worked in your case or not. There's no harm in trying one more time for the right thing .

Good luck.

[LittleZeasel]

Thanks, PrinceSharma - before downloading and burning yet another ISO CD (I have now ... 8 CentOS CDs, 1 Fedora, 2 Ubuntu), I went to the Linux Mint Forums and searched for my laptop model, etc.

Conclusion: Linux Mint doesn't seem to work on my laptop either ... (It's the Toshiba Satellite a505-S6033) and there seems to be a general issue with the Realtek RTL8191SE Wireless Card, and the Nividia GeForce 310M and Linux, rendering the combination of this specific laptop & any kind of Linux utterly useless ....

I am afraid, it means, I am stuck with Windows even though I really am not a fan of the windows chain - especially not Vista/Win7 and stuff :/ ...
I hope, one day there will be a Linux out there supporting my laptop (though by then, the laptop will probably be too old :P ) ...