Obligatory "Oh, Lord, not another Newbie!" post
David Smith
dbsmith at atbbs.dyndns.org
Sun Aug 27 02:11:34 UTC 2006
Hello, all.
I joined this list after doing the ShipIt! thing and requesting 5 ??
Ubuntu CDs. Dunno why 5, but that was the default, and I may actually
have a use for 2, say, maybe 3. Can always pass them along to friends.
Or enemies, if I have too much trouble with Ubuntu. Or Mom, if I actually
can gain some Clue.
I've been tinkering with computers since the mid-70s, in high school. I'm
a reasonably knowledgable tinkerer, but never an expert (depending on
whether you ask my mom). I learned on BASIC-only machines, fiddled with
MS-DOS machines I got for $50 or less used, used Win 3.1 when I had to for
work, and didn't mess with Win95 and so on till I had to. I used to run a
DOS-based BBS called Maximus for five years or so. I currently run
Mercury mailserver and related stuff under Win98SE on my desktop machine.
I have tried installing Linux in various incarnations at various times,
with little or no practical results, because I just didn't get it. DOS, I
got, Linux was Different. Don't mind commandlines, do mind not having an
Effing Clue what I'm doing. But I'm not gonna do XP or Vista, and they
wouldn't work without me buying newer hardware I can't afford. So I'm
gonna try Ubuntu. Probably.
What am I definitely gonna like? What am I definitely gonna trip over?
Did that whole WINE business ever turn out to be anything? Didn't that
DOS emulator thingie they used to have actually turn out to work? Do I
get to keep playing with my decade-old DOS games, like F117A, Strike
Eagle, JNUG, Doom?
Is there a big three-inch-thick book that everybody gets but nobody thinks
to mention? I used to like them books.
What's the first thing you wish you'd known to do when you installed
Ubuntu that you didn't do cause you didn't know you should?
Would I be crazy to install Ubuntu on my laptop? Would it be likely to
recognize and handle my 32-bit NetGear wireless PCCard with no problems,
or do I end up with a laptop I can't use and can't fix cause I can't get
to the web?
I -really- don't want to have my life focused on getting my OS working
properly, rather than doing my email & such. (Been there, done that,
repeatedly.) I want this to Just Work.
My desktop, well, that's for Mercury, and I don't necessarily have to have
a mailserver. But I do need my laptop, I do need my mail, I do need my
webrowser to do my web-based Medical Transcription course. And I'd like
my games.
Maybe I should just do the desktop, and do the laptop only when I'm more
confident?
--
Pegasus Mail is free software, committed to the notion that
communication is as basic a right as free speech, since free speech
without a medium by which it may be heard is as loud as silence.
-- David Harris, author, Pegasus Mail <http://www.pmail.com>
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