Re: LINUX basics

"Ian W. Wright" wrote:

> From: "Ian W. Wright" <Ian@...>
>
> HI all,
>
> As a precursor to getting a full LINUX system up and running (still
> saving for a big enough hard disk for the spare computer) I have
> downloaded and set up the Dragon Linux 75 mini-system which fits in only
> about 20Mb on the normal PC. Having done this, and apparently getting it
> working OK, I am now stuck! All the documentation I have found so far on
> the web seems to assume a starting level of competence way ahead of me
> and I find that I can't even work out how to do simple things like get
> the program to tell me what is on a floppy disk or install a simple word
> processor.
> Does anyone know of idiot level starter documentation or have any
> experience with Dragon Linux. I appreciate that this cut-down version
> will have some limitations which will disappear when I can get my copy
> of Redhat 5.2 and Xwindows loaded but surely it should have the
> wherewithall to perform the simple basic operating tasks - if I can't
> master this, what chance am I going to have with EMC????! ;o)
>
> Best wishes
>
> Ian
>
> --
>
> Ian W. Wright LBHI
> Sheffield Branch Chairman of the British Horological Institute.
> Bandmaster and Euphonium player of the Hathersage Brass Band. UK.
> See our homepage at:- http://www.iw63.freeserve.co.uk or
> http://www.iw63.demon.co.uk/ or
> http://www.GeoCities.com/Hollywood/6067/index.html
>
> 'Music is the filling of regular time intervals with harmonious
> oscillations.'
>
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> bill,
> List Manager

Ian;

I know how you feel, but just stick with it and it will come, slowly though. I originally had
Redhat 6.0, before I knew I needed 5.2, and it was tough for an old DOS man. It took a couple
of weeks of messing with it before I started to get comfortable with it. I was using the KDE
desktop manager for X and found it was sort of MS windows 95 like, with a few quarks. Linux
is definitly not a threat to MS Windows yet. While it seems rock solid it is no where near as
user friendly. You need to be sort of a computer geek and have a lot of time to learn the
commands as even when running X, you must do alot command line typing to open the various
windows. Get a good book at the bookstore and spend some time with it. DO NOT buy the
book "USING LINUX", published by QUE, as it sucks.

I have not loaded 5.2 and EMC yet but I feel much better about trying it than I did 2 weeks ago.

Bill