I have been battling with Linux for months and I am no closer to success than I was when I started.
I have Mandrake 9, RedHat 7, and Lycoris and the only one I have had any sort of success with is Mandrake. These are not all on the same drive though... I swap drives depending on which OS I want to use.

I find that I never have the right permissions and no matter what I do I can never achieve ownership of anything. One OS will recognise my printer and the other won't. One will let me format a floppy and the other won't. One will let me look at the contents of a CD and the other won't. I can get a CD burn programme to work on one and yet the identical programme will not work on the other. Conversely it will work on the third but I don't have any ownership and it won't let me do anything.

I have clicked on install programmes and watched my drive light flickering like mad and I can never find the programme. I have no idea where it has gone or it tells me that some other file is needed first. A meaningless name and I have no idea where to find it. I am perfectly familiar with DOS but I am afraid the syntax and tree construction in Linux has me tossed.

The help from this forum is fantastic but more often than not the helper assumes that poster has some modicum of knowledge and most times the help provided is useless because it can't be applied because I can't understand it. I have books from the library and even an 'Idiot's' guide but all to no avail.

It may be a fantastic system and I have no doubt it is but until it is as easy to use and understand as Windows I'll continue to use Windows... it becomes downright disheartening at times but I haven't given up yet!

These problems you are having are going to need to be worked out one at a time.

Mounting drives and cdroms are controlled from /etc/fstab. Most systems are setup so that root owns them.

cd burning can be done by anyone, but you will need to set it up first so that users have access to the binaries that do the recording.


I recommend you get on one distro and work out each thing one at a time, using different threads for each one. When you are finished setting up that distro you will know how to do them all.

Do yourself a favour and get yourself a good book like Running Linux.You need something to give you some background and theory on how a unix box works. You also need a way to look up all these frustrating (but usually very simple to solve) problems that are cropping up. Then you can keep it as a quick reference after you're a guru.

Ewen;
I understand exactly where you're coming from dude!!! Man, I am completely frustrated at this point as I can't get into my cd drive...the only thing I can say is keep using Windows for now but keep working on Linux...I get mad and want to wack it off my system because I can't understand it, but then I've given in...so whenever I've settled down again I'll work on it until I'm ticked again...

let me explain this

cat is showing me the contents of /etc/fstab and grep is filtering the output so I see the line in the file that contains my cdrom

with these settings any user can mount and read a cdrom

you could also put auto in the place of iso9660 if you need to

Give this a look. It's helped me more than any other reference.
http://wwwacs.gantep.edu.tr/linux/rute/

don't worry about it. have a nice cup of coffee, sleep over it for a while, get up and try again. meanwhile, don't get rid of windows so that u can do the stuff u need to. and just remember that you're in it for the fun of it. the minute it's not fun anymore, just switch back. when u get over your frustration, get right back into it

just read some books about it and be willing to experiment. just remember, it's just for fun...

Only through harshest conditions can become a user more brilliant, more aware and more powerful.
Enjoy those difficult obstacles coz you'll laugh at them not far from now.

http://wwwacs.gantep.edu.tr/linux/rute/


hey that's a good link

Yeah thats a good link I had went there before and downloaded everything in my HDD for my future reference. And Ewen do you know how I learn Linux? I wipe off the whole "Winbugs" from my HDD and install Linux in it. In this way I force myself to setup the box and use it daily and no more "Winbugs" in my house now. Now I cant live without it.

For the problem you face I guess if you were to try one distro at a time and post your qns here one at a time I guess like what membrax said you will laught at them no far from now.

Although that's a good idea in theory (and that's how I live now...) I don't think it's the best idea for a newbie. Speaking from experience, when I first installed Linux my networking didn't work (my fault, not Linuxs' as always) so I couldn't get online. I didn't have a good book at the time either...

If I didn't have windows I would not have been able to get to the online docs to troubleshoot. Wouldn't have been able to get to this site either

if you only have one machine it can be a bad situation.

Thank you all for your suggestions, particularly the links. I'll tackle each one and I'll get there yet!

Regards (and I'll post back with progress)

Some things in linux are conceptually different than windows.

For example, when you access a CD, windows has you think of the CD drive only as a device. In linux, you are mounting a file system. That's why, for example, you can't take out the CD just by pushing the open button on the drive; you need to unmount the file system and then you can open the physical drive.

In other words, to "get" linux you might have to unlearn some things you're used to, and see things in a new light.