Alice E. Peters wrote:
I'm still not sure about the distro --- or flavor. Someone mentioned Mandrake and that sounds familiar; however, maybe Gnome is what you're looking for. That's what runs my programs, I think. I use Mozilla for a browser, and Open Office for a word processor.
Steve, what is a "console session?" (See, I really am a newby!)
Russell, is your suggestion to be typed into a browser search, or ???
How do I find a Mandrake box? I think I only see that name when I reboot.
Welcome, newbie! Having been one myself, at one time, I recognize some of your confusion. A lot of jargon has developed in the computer world in general, and the Linux branch of that world certainly has its share. So, my apologies for repeating things you may have already learned, but here are a number of terms that I've seen in this thread that appear to be strange to you:
distro:
Distribution. Linux is an operating system that is "distributed" by many different organizations. Red Hat, SuSE, Fedora, Debian, Gentoo, and Slackware, are just some of the distributors I'm aware of. Each of those groups have their own unique way of distributing the software, and that is what the other folks on this list are trying to find out. Where you got the computer may help them figure that out. For example, if you got it through FreeGeek, you are probably running a Mandrake distribution. Of course, if you do see the name Mandrake when you reboot, this also indicates that you are running the Mandrake distribution.
box:
Computer. I'm not sure where this bit of slang came from, but as near as I can tell, it means the computer. I'm guessing that it describes the case that holds the motherboard, disk drives, etc., and that the term means the case and its contents. Sometimes, when someone has multiple machines, they will refer to their Gentoo box, or their Debian box, or maybe their Intel box, or their AMD box.
console session:
As the other folks have said, this is a way to interact with your computer's operating system without using icons, but just typing in commands and getting text responses to them. Since you're using Gnome, you should have an icon that looks something like a footprint, and when you click on that icon, you get a list of programs, or other lists. Search though those lists until you find something like Applications > System Tools > Terminal. When you click on terminal, a window will open with a prompt at the top. The exact form of the prompt varies, but it will look something like this:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ _
where the "_" is the cursor. This is where you type the commands the other folks have been suggesting. So, for uname -a, it would look something like this:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ uname -a Linux micron-1 2.2.20 #1 Sat Apr 20 11:45:28 EST 2002 i686 GNU/Linux [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ _
Hope these help a little. Feel free to ask about any other terms that don't make sense to you and one day, you'll be able to share what you've learned with newer newbies!
-- Regards,
Dick Steffens http://home.comcast.net/~rsteff/
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