NOOB introductions!!

[Iowa_Nate]

hi this thread is for refugees from windozes to introduce them selves.
I'll start!
years on windoze: 1995-2005
time on tiny core: 2 weeks
things I need help with: pulse_audio, gnupg, terminal commands, openvpn, after i erased the hard drive using DBAN the system wont recognize it lol
primary use of system: simple web browsing, youtube, playing cd's, possibly old dos games, transfering music to sdcard, tor web browsing. its really just a old dinosaur of a lap top that i can learn on. i figure if i cant do resource heavy things i will be less distracted and i can just simply learn how to really utilize linux

system stats: as i said its just a laptop i can learn on
dell inspiron b130
cpu: intel celeron single core 1.5mhz currently waiting on a intel 765 2.1mhz in the mail
hdd: N/A 37gb
OS drive: USB 32gb
Video: standard onboard from dell
Sounds: onboard
optical drive cd/dvd cdr
ram: currently one GB, I have another on the way

yeah i know its mega old and super slow. i don't need to be told that. I figure $30 is a small price to pay to learn new skills. once i'm proficient in Linux then ill buy a expensive system. whats the point in spending lots of money on something that i don't know how to use???

[chattrhand]

Hi Iowa_Nate,
for an old box tinycore is probably the best solution. You will need the 32bit version.

1 GB RAM should be sufficient. I've installed it on a DELL Inspi 7500 with 512 MB RAM, it is rather lame and not much fun to surf even with a Chromium browser.

You should be able to download  CorePlus-11.1.iso  and burn it to CD/DVD (important: must be bootable!)

When booting from optical drive you may select one of 7 desktops, the most comfortable is IceWM.
You may try out the onboard-progs, you may use the Apps browser to download some progs via net, but there is no way to save progs or data, so you should first create a frugal tce installation.

The best way is, to prepare a bootable USB-Stick > 2 GB using the tc-install prog on the DVD. This includes a frugal installation and it boots much faster than a CD/DVD.

You should find out how to boot from this USBStick.

Up from now your settings / data / downloaded progs are saved at rundown and are ready to use after next booting.

The very first step with the newly created stick is to install your soundcard. Using the Apps Browser you should download
alsa-config.tcz
alsa.tcz
pulseaudio.tcz
fluff.tcz
flit.tcz
in this sequence, and for now. 

On the Terminal start

$ alsamixer

this opens the sound mixer; the master volume should just be at about 40 %. If not, then something may be wrong.

close the mixer using the  esc key  and type in this command:

$ speaker-test -c2 -t wav -l1

Now you hear a voice: "front-left - front-right"

In the terminal type in:

$ sudo alsactl store

to save this state. Then edit the bootlocal.sh:

$ sudo editor /opt/bootlocal.sh

and add the command:

sudo alsactl restore

and close the editor saving the contents

You may compare this with the info that is given to every program (extension) in the AppsBrowser.
Hope it will help you to find the next steps.

[Iowa_Nate]

hey thanx so much for responding with simple step by step instructions.
its like im learning to walk after having a stroke or learning how to drive a stick shift car for the first time.
hopefully more windows refugees post. it will be fun to see how others came to linux and how they go thru learning a different OS