Q I'm 12 years old and have a reasonable computer in my room, which dual boots Mandrake 10.1 and XP. But the only computer with access to the internet is the family XP (I'm not allowed to install Linux or boot from a Live CD). My computer is unlikely to have the net for a while, and the two machines are a long way away from each other so sadly there is no network or shared connection. Now, if I try to download the source of a file and save it to a USB drive it sort of works, but when I come to extract it on Mandrake it says, 'Error this is not a .bz file' (or whatever type it was - the same happens for RPMs), however I try to extract it in a terminal or ark. I think Windows mucks it up when I download it but I'm not sure. Please help as there is only a limited amount on your DVDs.
A If you have the full disc set for Mandrake 10.1, there is loads of software available which you can install and play with. If you want to install software on Mandrake, I would suggest ensuring that you start out by downloading Mandrake RPMs and installing them on the system, as anything that is bz2-compressed is probably source code and can take some effort to compile. If you want lots of Linux apps, www.linuxemporium.co.uk is a great place to get Linux software cheaply. Trying a few different Linux distributions is a fun way to get open source experience without giving yourself too many headaches.