missing programs, books for beginners?

[Chris Mohler]

On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Sharon Ruck<ruckster at curlewagape.com> wrote:

> I can not get the system to recognize my airlink 101 usb adapter for
> internet, so I am using windows to do research and Linux to just
> figure it out.  I barely understand the command/shell/root type
> system, but I'm a fast learner.

Hi there - welcome!

Try this: open a terminal and type:
tail -f /var/log/messages

then plug in the USB adapter.  'tail' is a program that looks at the
end of things, '-f' tells it to follow the file, and /var/log/messages
is the system log.  You should see a few lines appear in the terminal
when you plug in the adapter.

Also, with the adapter plugged in, you can type:
sudo lsusb

then provide your password.  This should spit out some more info on
the adapter.  'sudo lsusb -v' shows even more info.

If you paste the info from the above commands, I'm sure someone can
give you some advice...

Chris