New Linux user with installation woes

MrNoodle · Post by **MrNoodle** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:31 pm

My apologies if this has cropped up before, but a search and a look at the FAQ hasn't given me much.

I'm a total newbie with the whole Linux thing. I've currently got a dual boot Ubuntu/Windows XP setup with a wireless adaptor as my means of internet. The driver that comes with the adaptor only talks Windows, and so it won't appear to work when I boot in Ubuntu. The only way I gather I can realistically get Wine to install with my knowledge is to copy and paste an address into an Ubuntu installer (please correct me if I'm wrong in any way) and it downloads what's needed. Since I can't get my adaptor to work, I can't connect to the internet to download anything.

I've tried opening the readme file and opening the file it tells me to but I'm faced with a code in notepad (or Ubuntu equivalent) and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it.

Does anyone have any guidance and advice for a clueless individual who's thrown himself into a relatively shallowish deep end in an attempt to learn something about an operating system he's curious about?

Thanks in advance for any help

Post by **dimesio** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:08 pm

MrNoodle wrote:My apologies if this has cropped up before, but a search and a look at the FAQ hasn't given me much.

I'm a total newbie with the whole Linux thing. I've currently got a dual boot Ubuntu/Windows XP setup with a wireless adaptor as my means of internet. The driver that comes with the adaptor only talks Windows, and so it won't appear to work when I boot in Ubuntu. The only way I gather I can realistically get Wine to install with my knowledge is to copy and paste an address into an Ubuntu installer (please correct me if I'm wrong in any way) and it downloads what's needed. Since I can't get my adaptor to work, I can't connect to the internet to download anything.

I've tried opening the readme file and opening the file it tells me to but I'm faced with a code in notepad (or Ubuntu equivalent) and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it.

Does anyone have any guidance and advice for a clueless individual who's thrown himself into a relatively shallowish deep end in an attempt to learn something about an operating system he's curious about?

Thanks in advance for any help

You should be able to download the package to your hard drive while in Windows, then install it from there after booting into Ubuntu. As to how to point Ubuntu's package manager to the downloaded file, it may be as simple as double clicking the file, but I don't use Ubuntu myself, so I can't say for sure. Check Ubuntu's documentation.

James McKenzie · Post by **James McKenzie** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:56 pm

MrNoodle wrote:

My apologies if this has cropped up before, but a search and a look at the FAQ hasn't given me much.

I'm a total newbie with the whole Linux thing. I've currently got a dual boot Ubuntu/Windows XP setup with a wireless adaptor as my means of internet.

This device, unless it appears in Linux, is not supported in Wine.

A suggestion is to Google for this device and see if someone has been
able to make it work in Linux.

James McKenzie

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:32 pm

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:31 PM, MrNoodle<[email protected]> wrote:

My apologies if this has cropped up before, but a search and a look at the FAQ hasn't given me much.

I'm a total newbie with the whole Linux thing. I've currently got a dual boot Ubuntu/Windows XP setup with a wireless adaptor as my means of internet. The driver that comes with the adaptor only talks Windows, and so it won't appear to work when I boot in Ubuntu. The only way I gather I can realistically get Wine to install with my knowledge is to copy and paste an address into an Ubuntu installer (please correct me if I'm wrong in any way) and it downloads what's needed. Since I can't get my adaptor to work, I can't connect to the internet to download anything.

I've tried opening the readme file and opening the file it tells me to but I'm faced with a code in notepad (or Ubuntu equivalent) and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it.

Does anyone have any guidance and advice for a clueless individual who's thrown himself into a relatively shallowish deep end in an attempt to learn something about an operating system he's curious about?

Thanks in advance for any help

Download:
http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive ... 1_i386.deb
or if on 64-bit:
http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive ... _amd64.deb

then in ubuntu, use:
$ sudo dpkg -i wine_*.deb

--
-Austin

walt · Post by **walt** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:56 am

On 07/23/2009 03:31 PM, MrNoodle wrote:

...I'm a total newbie with the whole Linux thing...

Welcome! But be prepared for frustration, because MicroSoft wants it that
way.

I've currently got a dual boot Ubuntu/Windows XP setup with a wireless
adaptor as my means of internet. The driver that comes with the adaptor
only talks Windows, and so it won't appear to work when I boot in Ubuntu...

As others have already posted, wine uses the linux network to connect to
the internet, so your first step is to get linux connected to the internet.

I know that ubuntu has a large and helpful group of people ready to help
you do that on their user forums, mailing lists, IRC, etc. so that's the
place to start. Once your linux connects to the internet, then this is
the place to come back to.

Good luck, and be patient -- it's worth it.

MrNoodle · Post by **MrNoodle** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:14 am

Well, I've finally managed to install Wine without internet, only to discover that I can't actually use it to get my wireless adaptor. James was right. Thanks for your help.

Looks like it's time for a new adaptor...