yay for linux! (newbie help)

[basa]

A long while ago I played with a CD version of Knoppix (I think). I too got a load of grief trying to start it .. after a load of messing with graphics driver I did get to a page of sorts but never managed to get to a recognisable GUI and gave up.

I got a load of grief too from installing GIMP on a win9x machine which resulted in a re-install of Win.

So I'm a little sus of open source stuff atm.

(Although I do now have GIMP working successfully on my XP m/c together with OpenOffice which is superb )

[Cobbydaler]

Originally Posted by Kuragari

okay, well, i'm back, i burned the iso of xubuntu onto a cd using cdburner pro xp3 to burn it as an iso image, then i put it into my other computer, shut it off and turned it back on so it would start when i started the computer, well, apparently something happened, i just don't know what, a bunch of things came up on a black screen (dos) and i kept seeing the word "caldera" in it, and then it just came down to an A: prompt and i had no idea what to do and it didn't tell me what to do either, so yeah, that's why i'm stuck

oh, and the whole reason i'm destroying windows on that computer is because it just basically sucks, i can't get the drivers for my monitor to work b/c it's stupid, and basically nothing works, it won't recognize a flash drive and even though it'll connect to the internet, i can't use microsoft update or something like that b/c i can't register b/c it searches for a modem and tells me i don't have one even though i have a USB/Ethernet adapter and i can use the internet which is useless anyways because the monitor doesn't work right b/c i can't get.....blah blah blah!!! i hate windows!!! haha

ignore that last paragraph, i was just demonstrating why i hate windows and i want linux ^.^ lol, i don't want fixes for my problems with windows, i just want linux, haha, so yeah, i've decided on Xubuntu b/c it's supposedly the "lighter" of the three ubuntus, and i figure my computer could handle it the easiest, but i'm stuck on that A: prompt, so, yeah, thanks for the help again! ^.^

Have you tried typing startx at the prompt?

[Gareth]

This is what you should have seen... it's screenshots of the entire installation process.

http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/sl...06+screenshots

[popper]

i didnt see you post the spec of that machine?, ram, cd or dvd (is it bootable from the bios), hd size, usb1 or usb2 ports, gfx card installed etc.

as has already been said, you takes your choice and try it, but for an absolute beginner you cant do better than ubuntu today for beginner forums and simple copy&past tutorials on many threads , start here http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

slax is also a very good self contained package in that you can just download the apps you want to try and have them just work , you can easly make your own livecd as you wish and even create them from inside your windows OS if you so wish.
http://www.slax.org/
http://www.slax.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12744
http://www.slax.org/forum/faq.php

myslax creator for making your custom slax livecd from windows OS
http://myslax.bonsonno.org/screenshots.php

simply download the ready made modules you want from here
http://www.slax.org/modules.php
place them in the right dirs and make your livecd, burn&boot, or load into vmware or the windows compile of qemu.
http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~qemu-win/

great for the beginner in *nix but good with windows OS.

the other option for people that have fast windows boxs with lots of drive space and ram is installing VMWare player and grabbing any No. of ready made and runnable *nix drive images to see what suits your needs/wants.

http://www.vmware.com/
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/d...ols_linux.html
http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa

heres a vast amount of pre-made images that you can load into the player and just learn/use and play without worrying about destroying real harddrives.
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/index.html

if you intend to use the shell/cli a lot then this cribsheet might be useful
http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html

http://www.suseblog.com/?p=141
"Linux Rants

[Tips, tricks, how-tos, opinions, and news regarding SUSE
July 31, 2006

The Easiest Linux Guide You’ll Ever Read - an introduction to Linux for Windows users” - a book by Scott Morris"

whatever your choice i'd advise you install 2 very useful filemanager apps , mc for the shell, and worker for the GUI.
both of these are available in ubuntu after you edit the apt-get file and uncomment the universe entrys and run
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mc
sudo apt-get install worker