Re: BASIC HELP

[shaul@rakefet.debian.org]

Once you get the $ prompt you can do whatever you need to do. 
So, what you want to do ?
You mentioned trying to send email.
I think that the basic text command to send email is mail. Therefor, if you 
want to email yourself, you can try:
$ mail -s "$(date) - trying to email myself" $USER < /dev/null
And then you can type mail to activate the basic text mail reader (in it, ? 
will show you some help)
Hopefully, smail is configured well enough to do it. You can test it by 
issuing (from the $ prompt) /usr/sbin/smailtest --localonly. that is:
$ /usr/sbin/smailtest --localonly
and answer y to the question it will ask.

It seems to me that are missing Win 98 graphical enviorment. Linux has 
something like it (The X window system). But, I suggest that before you 
install it, you will learn more from the Linux books you have. Also, learn a 
bit about dselect' so that you'll be able to install some games and other 
applications that I believe you are curious about. Some of these doesn't 
necceseraly needs the graphical X enviorment, but you'll need to know more 
about dselect to be able to decide if this is the case for a particular 
program you are interested in.

> I am a NEW.  I have successfully installed Debian 2.0 from CD on my 
> computer with Win 98.  I have a 1,900 Mb Linux Native and 190 Mb Linux 
> Swap.  I am the only user on it; there is no connected network.
> 
> I log on and get the '$' prompt and except for a few things like vi and 
> emacs I can do nothing.  For example, I answered the queries for smail 
> yet from root or /usr/bin/ I get the error message saying bad command 
> when I enter 'smail'  I even can list smail, see it listed and get the 
> same error message when enter smail.  I list RXW permission I ls -l
> 
> I have 4 Linux books and none of them say what I should do once I get 
> the $ prompt!  Mounting a filesystem didn't seem to help but I may not 
> have done that right.  There is something VERY basic I am missing, the 
> books don't mention it.
> 
> Please tell me what to do, or where to go to find basic tutorial help.
>