Man, it's like pulling teeth!

[sinanju]

Nonetheless, I have achieved victory over the forces of Linux. In one small battle, anyhow. I've downloaded and installed a games archive for the KDE desktop environment. I may or may not actually play any of them, but that's not the point!

The point is that I figured out how to do it. I even--after much googling--discovered what the hell a *.run file format is. And, much more importantly, what to do with it. The Enemy Territory game file was in *.run format, and I've now successfully bashed it into installable shape and installed it.

It doesn't work, but that's another battle for another day. When I try to activate the game, the monitor screen goes dark for an instant, then the desktop pops up again. I have no idea what that means except that for some reason the program won't load. (On the other hand, my system doesn't crash or lockup--which is a hell of a lot better than I could usually expect under Windows, so I won't complain too much.)

So what have I learned over the weekend?

I know what a .tar or .tar.gz file format means and what to do about them.

I know what a .run file format means and what to do about it.

I know what an .rpm file format means etc.

I've found a couple of good online resources for documentation and instruction on Linux in general, and SuSE 9.0 and KDE in particular.

I've learned that just because you can download and start installing a program doesn't mean that you'll have all the necessary files to run it--or that you'll know what those files are or where to find them (or even if you should).

It feels like I'm learning a new language, one painful experience at a time. And I suppose that essentially I am learning a new language. And no doubt (I keep telling myself) it was just as frustrating and painful to learn how to find my way around in the Windows environment. But my experiences with learning Windows, like my experience learning English as a child, was a very long time ago. I don't remember the difficulties--I only know that using it now seems so much easier than bashing my head against the impenetrable mysteries of Linux.

That isn't true, of course. I want to learn to use Linux for good and sufficient reasons (namely, the suck-tacular way Windows screws up so often). But sometimes I don't want to spend an hour frantically thumbing thru my phrasebook with my legs crossed. I just want to ask someone, "Where's the damn bathroom!?" and get a quick, simple response.

Ah well. Enough of this. Time to put aside my Learning Experience (tm) for the night. I've got Justice League Unlimited and Venture Brothers on TiVo waiting on my convenience, and the time is now.

Comments

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Heee. The Venture Brothers kicked much ass.