oh boy

[stormbringer000]

ok i will more than likely get kicked out for this but here it goes

first i have a dvd rom that is not playing dvds nor music
second i have a cd burner that will not burn nor play anything (it is showing up as a hdd
third i have a zip disk that is showing up as a hdd on the screen but is saying that it does not exist
my sound card works because i can here the sounds when i do something in the screens
ok here is the stupid part anfter i download something how do i install it and how do i tell linux where to put it. it sems that everything is ziped btw i use KDE i have mandrake 9.0 and you will have to be every layman because i am real dumb with these things

[stormbringer000]

oh and how do i install netscape and how do i play divx and all the other pirate movies that are out there

[Dolda2000]

Don't mind netscape, download mozilla from www.mozilla.org. Netscape is just closed source snapshots of mozilla.
To play divx, install mplayer from www.mplayerhq.hu.
The CD burner needs to be installed as a pseudo-SCSI device to burn anything. See the CD-Writing-HOWTO at www.tldp.org/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO.html.
How do mean exactly that the DVD doesn't play? What happens?
What kind of Zip drive is it? Is it external/internal, usb/parallell, etc.?
How you install something is different depending on the packaging. If you download an RPM package, run "rpm -i filename", and it will install automatically. If it's a source tarball (tarball = .tar.gz file), you'll first need to untar it. To do this, run "tar -xvzf filename". Then go to the directory, type "./configure", and then "make install". You'll need to be root to install anything. Usually, in a UNIX system (such as linux), you will not want to tell specifically where to install things, since the installers will automatically install files in the appropriate places in the file system.

[freak132]

how exactly on the command line do you use the ./configure and make install commands? anything special i need to know ? this is a seperate question

[Dolda2000]

Nah, you just type them.

[stormbringer000]

ok my zip is iomega 100 and it is internal it shows up as scsi
and as for istalling with the command lines cool but how do i get to root and how do i get to directory boy i know i sound dumb by now do i just use the run command button in kde or what
thanks in advance for putting up with me

[wassy121]

You use something called a "command line" it should be KTerm or XTerm or rxvt in the program menu. From there you can type all that stuff that Dolda said. Change directories with `cd`. Like : `cd /home/sams` will change my directory to /home/sams. `cd stuff` will change from /home/sams to /home/sams/stuff. Notice the lack of a / on the second command. ./configure will configure a package with the default configuration.

[Dolda2000]

If the ZIP drive is SCSI, it should be /dev/sda, I guess.
Try running (as root) "mount /dev/sda /mnt/floppy" and see what happens.
If you don't how to become root in the shell, run "su -" and it will do the trick for you.