Obligatory "Oh, Lord, not another Newbie!" post

[David Smith]

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 
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without a medium by which it may  be heard is as loud as silence.
   -- David Harris, author, Pegasus Mail <http://www.pmail.com>