I never thought it would be so hard to install stuff in Linux... I am running both Mandrake 7.1 and Red Hat Linux on Vmware through Windows 2000... I thought I would give Linux a try... Well the screen is in 640 X 480 and in 256 colours and I can's see a damn thing because I can't install the package that contains thet drivers... Damn it pisses me off... but anyways, there is a file called install with a ./pl extension or something. It says to 'run' the install, but what the heck do you run it in????????? HELP! this sucks... I exttracted the file to my desktop and called it Vm. I am logged on as root. I open up the console and type in ./root/Desktop/Vm/install.pl It responds: permission denied what gives?? I will give you the instructions for the file. "unpack it tar xzf vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz Go to the vmware-linux-tools directory: cd vmware-linux-tools Become root: su run the install script ./install.pl"

you cd to the directory that it tels you, and then literally type in "./install.pl" you will have to have perl installed, looks like by the extention. NOTE: those instructions are ment to be installed from a linux shell, not dos.

XF86Setup is run from a Linux prompt. This will guide you through the setup of your display, etc. As an X-Windows fanatic, I can appreciate your frustration up front. You'll need to get familiar with the installation protocols which you can do by always reading various readmes that come with the packages. Once you get the drift of it all, you'll love it and so will your 'puter. Say goodbye to crashes for good!!!! :-)

Why does Linux have to be so hard......don't the programmers know how to make installing a simple program something less than a monumental task. It seems the Linux community wants Linux to be a main stream OS, but they refuse to make Linux straight forward to use. People including myself want to double click on a file to start a install routine. Is that to much to ask.....apparently it is. As long as Linux is so ridiculously difficult it will never go mainstream. You will never overcome MS......if you continue to force people to compile software just to use it. I would advise anyone who doesnt want to invest several months learning Linux to skip it.......what you will end up with will be less than satisfying and probably very frustrating.

Unfortunatly, the frustration that is posted in this section is well based. In real estate the phrase "location, location, location" is paramount. Linux will eventually find that for the operating systems, people do not want to fool around with anything that is difficult...they have other things that they are using thier computers for. They must be productive. The paradigm for Linux should be "easy, easy, easy". That can push Linux to the forefront.

I've been foolin' around on the computer for about 10 years. That's taken me through DOS, Win3.0, Win3.1, Win95, WinNT Server 4.0. If ya wanna talk about frustrating...I've never trashed so many installations, had so many core dumps, lost so much valuable work, and experienced so much poor performance. I'm tellin' ya, relatively speaking, Windows blows. Of course, it's a matter of perspective. If ya wanna just sit down at your computer and work with a middle-of-the road OS that'll be guaranteed to blow itself away at some point, Windows is your answer. In doing so, however, one sacrifices performance, reliability, security, and a highly configurable GUI. It's quite simple. If you put in a little effort, you'll end up with a system that's far superior. I'm speaking from experience and as someone who's been a MS supporter for many years; I have no axe to grind. So, all I can say in response to your anti-Linux rhetoric is you are demonstrating your ignorance to all participants in this forum. Why don't you hang out in the Windows forum and try helping someone rather than coming in here and spewing nonsense? Just a thought.

ok guys, we're getting a little off topic here... All I want is to get this program installed... That xf86 setup won't work because the drivers aren't installed yet... damn it.