So I finally buckled under to the madness that some of you have espoused and installed Mandriva (KDE) on my desktop and laptop, and I'm stumbling around it like a drunk sailor on leave trying to figure out how to do anything. In general, I'm pretty pleased, so far none of the stuff I've done has broken it, but I haven't done anything seriously complicated yet because, quite frankly, I don't do much on my computer these days. It's an embarrassing admission, but the majority of my time on the computer is spent on (somewhat) serious tasks such as email and web browsing, and the occasional torrent download. No gaming, video editing, crazy graphic mods to the interface, nada. However, I do have a few minimum requirements not yet being met two weeks into my experiment, and when I can't find a way to do them I just bounce back out and into my dual-boot Windows, handle those tasks, and come back a day or so later. This is where I find Linux to be slightly lacking, although I'm betting that's just because I lack understanding, not that the OS or the community hasn't come up with answers to my problems.

This brings up the question- I'm delving in to downloading packages and compiling source and 'make' and 'sudo' and 'apt-get' commands, and I'm finding that those commands aren't there. I have to go and locate the packages that contain them, then install those packages, then i can compile and install the packages that made me want to use those commands in the first damn place. Not good. So this is where I seek some advice from those of you who've been there, done that- What am I doing here? Did I screw up the installation and leave those packages out, or is Mandriva set up to be so newbie-friendly that it doesn't include some of the more complex commands which might wind up breaking things? Or the third option, is this how all distributions of Linux are set up? Do you have to download all your commands before being able to do anything purposeful here?

Am I actually insane?

So I figured since I've been AWOL for ages, I'd reintroduce myself for the benefit of people who joined since I was last active.

Hi. I'm Phyre, otherwise known as Matt. I'm from HN, and I know Detta personally. I like cheesecake and viognier, not necessarily simultaneously. I enjoyed the latest Star Trek movie, but I've always been a fan, so my opinion shouldn't count. I like kayaking, swimming, reading, model making, computer science, and cooking breakfast. I'm a professional mechanic, so don't mind me if I only show up on the weekends- I work like a bitch during the week and have little time online.

I'm a nice guy. If you're nice too, we'll have plenty of fun together.

What just happened? Chris?

was poking around UF today and found this gem.