Linux is not new.  In fact, I, myself, have been attempting (off and on) to get Linux set up on my computer for about eight years now, and it was not new when I first started.  Further, with the passage of time, and growing frustration with Microsoft, there has been more and more talk of making Linux accessible for the average computer user.  One would think, then, that by now someone would have come up with a sane method of connecting to the internet.  They haven’t.  Currently, the process begins something like this.  (I can’t tell you how it ends because I’ve not managed to make it that far.)

STEP 1: Visit linmodems.org and navigate the poorly-organized website to locate ScanModem (This is a small program.) and the accompanying instructions.  Write down the instructions.  Download ScanModem and copy it to some portable medium (like a flash drive).

STEP 2: Go to other computer, or reboot out of Windows installation, and get into Linux.  Run ScanModem.  (Hope the directions work as written, the first time.)  Copy the contents of the newly-created file back to a portable disk/drive.

STEP 3: Go to other computer, or reboot out of Linux installation and get into Windows.  Connect to the internet.  Ask someone who has a clue, what the heck the contents of the newly-created file actually mean. Understand just enough to go on to step 4.

STEP 4: Find the file to download.  Download file.  Copy it to portable disk/drive.  Go to other computer or reboot out of Windows.  Get back into Linux.  Figure out how to extract the file you just downloaded.  (For some reason, I can’t get it to do this from the command line.  It just acts as if I never told it anything.  Thankfully, in Ubuntu, right-clicking it gives me the option to extract it.)

STEP 5: Read the four or so text files that are extracted.  Feel like you’re reading Russian.  (‘Cause if it were Greek, I would understand more of it.)  Wonder what the executable files are that were extracted. Wonder if you can run them by double-clicking.  Try it, and discover that you can’t.  Know that you probably can’t get them to run from the command line, because so far nothing else has worked from the command line.  Go to other computer or reboot out of Linux.  Get back into Windows.  Connect to the internet. Find someone who has a clue (wondering all along how it is that there is anyone who actually got far enough to have a clue).

STEP 6: ???