The trials of trying to install Linux distros while being not very technical

[triskellian]

This evening I spurned a very tempting social invitation to stay home and install a new OS on my eeee. Oh how I wish I hadn't...

Comments

One more, xkcd knows of what it speaks:

[lanfykins]

Re: One more, xkcd knows of what it speaks:

[triskellian]

I'm not talking to XKCD this morning. Stoopid Rick Astley earworm :-(

[uitlander]

To move files:

mv [source file] [destination path/desired filename]

To copy files:

cp [source file] [destination path/desired filename]

To delete files:

rm [file to be deleted]

[uitlander]

oh and these may be useful as well...

WTF am I in this file structure?: pwd

WTF is that file I, I know it's somewhere?: locate [filename]

WTF is that file, it was called, um, something like?: locate *[bit of filename]*

I need to stick this lot in a new directory: mkdir [new directory name] followed by cp or mv.

Is this a permissions thing? What permissions do I have on this lot?: ls -alx

OK, so I need to change the permissions (very, very carefully): chmod [numeric value for permissions] [filename]

[triskellian]

Thank you :-) I remembered some of those, and found some others in my wanderings, but there are several I hadn't yet encountered.

[smiorgan]

To use locate you need to issue

updatedb

as root, I think. That takes a snapshot of the filesystem.

[bateleur]

It's possible I'm not cut out for this :-(

What you're doing is what Linux geeks do all the time (see XKCD above). The only difference is that some of them enjoy it.

Incidentally, I do recommend doing everything with command line tools where possible. There are two main reasons:

1) If anything ever complains about permissions you can easily sudo it or log in as root.

2) If when something goes wrong you get to read the error message.

Also, I do recommend you get over your wariness of tech forums. I've been on the question-answering end and can assure you that people like you are exactly the ones everyone wants to help. That is: non-specialists who are trying to do something which ought to be easy, but isn't.

[triskellian]

Yes, I was aware of all this as a risk when I started, sigh. And it is sort of fun - like solving a big problem in little pieces. Little, always-just-one-more-to-go, pieces...

It's not really that I'm scared of tech forums, I just don't want to be the noob who needs to JFGI. I'm still getting somewhere from JFGingI, so I'm doing that and whinging at you lot in the meantime. If I get to a stage where that doesn't help, I'll either quit or venture into tech forum territory, depending on how much I've turned into that XKCD character by then ;-)

[undyingking]

And just think, you might have it all to do again in a few weeks time, if it busts like secretrebel's ones have.

[al_fruitbat]

I'd say that was more due to the Carphone Warehouse recycling dodgy / older laptops than the Eee itself. Mine's survived many miles, flights, buses and countries. It fell off a couch (with me) and crashed to the floor so the battery came out (thanks to the boat tipping in a force 11 gale). It's still working fine.

All that said, I have occasionally considered installing an alternative OS and the threads on how to do that on the Eee user forums simply repel me. I spend all week debugging errant software, I don't really want to do it in my spare time too ;-)

[onebyone]

hjalfi might be a good person to ask about this, he has eeeeees and he does linux, and he does linux on eeeeeeees.

You may have encountered him at a hattedparty, but I expect you don't know him. If you want a referral, I'll mail you both to tell him I sent you.