Very old newbie (solved)

[BobDownUnder]

Hi My name is Bob

I played a little with Linux back in the late 90s, then slipped back into that other OS after the millennium bug didn't kill it and destroy the world at the same time.
I've just replaced my old laptop and thought, " what the heck, I've wanted to dump the other OS for a long time and this new version (#10), is even worse than the previous ones, so why not now".
First thing i found out was that the new BIOS is a big pain, but hey, perseverance paid off and I'm now a Linux user again.
Bear with me cause this won't be easy.

[WharfRat]

Hello Bob

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Linux Mint forum

[catweazel]

Welcome, young Bob!

I'm 84

[Pierre]

welcome to our Forum


Do Take the Time to Read the LinuxMint Users Guide that came with the installation.

and catweazel will be most happy, to have another old fellow, that his skills can help out.

[jimallyn]

Welcome aboard, Bob! You will probably find it easier than you think.

[catweazel]

and catweazel will be most happy, to have another old fellow, that his skills can help out.

I sent you a PM.

[Moem]

First thing i found out was that the new BIOS is a big pain, but hey, perseverance paid off and I'm now a Linux user again.
Bear with me cause this won't be easy.

No worries, you've jumped through the first hoop, which many folks find the hardest! Extra points for elegance. Welcome to the forum!

[JerryF]

Welcome!

[Jim Hauser]

How old?

I just turned 60 and I thought I was old (I could be a parent or a grandparent to a lot of these kids.) But it turns out that there are a lot people older than me on here.

Best of luck to you with Mint!

[BobDownUnder]

How old? 59, I expected that to be well into old age around here. Sorry, my mistake.

Catweasel, if you sent a pm I didn't get it.

As has been said, I will probably find it easier than expected. The new GUI is a heck of a lot different to what was around 17 years ago.
I did try to write a basic c program, you know the one, it says "hello", and I immediately found out I need to learn lots more.
I'll need help sorting out what to download, but I'll post a thread in the correct forum for that.

Thanks for the welcome folks.

[Jim Hauser]

Don,t worry Bob. These people really took care of me 4 years ago. A lot of the younger people have bailed me out plenty of times... and the older ones are right up my alley! I have not had any big problems in quite a while so have not posted many questions lately. Still, I try to at least read as many new posts as I can every day. If nothing else it gives me something to build on.

Best of luck on your Mint adventure!

[austin.texas]

I'll need help sorting out what to download...

Linux is different from Windows, in that you don't generally need to search for programs like "shareware" or "freeware". Mint (and other linux distributions) have "repositories" (servers) with thousands of programs. You will rarely need any program that is not in the repository.
You can access those for installation in various ways - with the Software Manager, Synaptic, the Update Manager, or the command line (terminal).


Bob,
Welcome to Mint and to the forum !


(Original artwork by hexdef101)

1. Getting Started for Newbies - by karlchen
2. A guide on how to post on the Linux Mint forums
3. Linux Linx 2017
4. Ubuntu Help wiki
5. Linux Search Engine
6. SuperGrub2 - a tool everyone should have!

[Mick-Cork]

How old? 59, I expected that to be well into old age around here.

Unless you're dyslexic I'd say you're a bit of a forum spring chicken!

And welcome, from another 59er

[Rocky Bennett]

I'm a happy 60 year old newbie!!!!

[BobDownUnder]

Thanks austin.texas, I'm already aware of the repository system.
I've used it once already.
My problem is working out what to get, not so much where to get it.
I had to find build essentials to write the "hello" program, because my system didn't have stdio.h pre-installed. I got that answer from the chat room.
Chat room seems to attract some peanuts among the good guys. Not sure if thats normal or just me picking a bad day to log in there.
The next one will be a replacement for "graphics.h" which I understand went out of fashion about 20 years ago. I'll need to work out what to down load and then how to address it in the include line on an old tetris program that I found the source code for.
Considering the sort of information I'm chasing, should I be continuing on with this thread, or should I address my needs in another section of the forum?

[austin.texas]

Considering the sort of information I'm chasing, should I be continuing on with this thread, or should I address my needs in another section of the forum?

Yes. Generally, you would want any support q & a to be in the proper forum.