openVPN & VPN Provider

[itsasunnyray]

Woohoo! A place for stupid people:-) Well seriously I might not be that stupid but I am really lost when I can't get apparent simple instructions from people to work. I've transitioned from Windows to Linux (Mint Maya gnome) for the last 6 months and love it. I had signed with a VPN provider named airVPN to secure my connection, privacy and get torrent files. In there instructions they asked to install openVPN, done. They ask to download their configuration file from a server of my choice, done. They asked to unzip it and put in a regular folder, done. Then comes the problem, they give me a command line that doesn't work at all, I tried to modify that command in many ways + after a dozen email exchanges they seem to not quite know what there doing as they give me different answers all the time, never the same. Here's their instructions https://airvpn.org/linux/ and here's a few attempts. The second and third are with the unzipped configuration file.

ray@ray-System ~ $ su
Password:
ray-System ray # openvpn air.ovpn
Options error: In [CMD-LINE]:1: Error opening configuration file: air.ovpn
Use --help for more information.
ray-System ray # openvpn airvpn
Options error: In [CMD-LINE]:1: Error opening configuration file: airvpn
Use --help for more information.
ray-System ray # openvpn air.airvpn
Options error: In [CMD-LINE]:1: Error opening configuration file: air.airvpn
Use --help for more information.
ray-System ray #

Now I tried to avoid asking people help whenever there is a problem and figure it out by myself but this has been going on for days and connection protocoles are an area where I am totally unfamiliar with so I appreciate any effort to guide me into it.

[xenopeek]

Their instructions list all the steps needed for Ubuntu, to use it with NetworkMaager (the program behind the network icon on your panel). Why don't you follow those instead? Your Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, so those steps should work.

[itsasunnyray]

Thanks Vincent, that was my first tried but got stucked with their instructions that didn't work so I asked for clarification and they told me not to use that 'cause it's for Ubuntu and went on with the whole charade of things that didn't work. I really wish I could use the network manager though. Maybe there is a problem with my install (or myself) as I can't even open a folder or what they call a directory by doing cd/home...ect. I'll keep reading and trying.

[itsasunnyray]

I knew it was something stupid, and of course it was my bad. They asked me to go into the directory but one of the folder (in the path) had a capital letter. Since everything else didn't I presumed it didn't need any so <cd /home/ray/Downloads/airvpn> worked and got me into it and the rest went well and I am now going through a secure openVPN connection. However I now have to figure out how to use the network manager instead of the command lines. I'll be doing research for other threads and that should do it. Sometime litle stupid things that everybody takes for granted can be a mountain of an obstacle for a newbie.