startx works just fine.

Does startx start the desktop directly or does it bring you back to the login screen again and the login screen just works then?

Desktop directly.

Interesting note about this run of startx is that the date and time has been set to midnight of February 1, 2015.

Okay. It sounds like gdm is broken or something is screwed up with the configuration for it. Are you planning on adding an internet connection to this machine or is it staying offline?

I am going to try to get an internet connection for it, but I do not know how to install the driver for my wireless thing. That's the next step.

Ah, I see. Is there a built in wireless card or is it a USB one?

Most of the time you shouldn't need to install drivers at all but wireless can be hit and miss

sourceforge.net/projects/zd1211/?source=typ_redirect

It's a USB one.

It doesn't have an official Linux driver release, but someone made one that I am going to try if I can figure out how to install it.

Alright. Well, once you do that you can try installing an alternate desktop manager (e.g. kdm or xdm) and then changing the configuration to boot that. You probably shouldn't just go with startx as the display manager does a bit more than just log you in. There's another program you can use to switch the display manager without needing to mess about with config files, let me see if I can find it. I was just using it a couple weeks ago.

Okay. Now would you know how to install drivers on Fedora?

I am going to use startx until I can get online to hopefully fix this.

It's been quite a while since I've done it. There will probably be some scripts in there. Unfortunately, you're almost certainly going to need the kernel headers to install it. I don't think they're included with a default install. And you don't have internet access to install them.

Though I guess you could download the packages in Windows and transfer them over via USB

Oh, looks like you might not need them after all

It just wants you to copy some files

Yeah, but I do not know to where.

lib/firmware

I cannot find the lib folder.

It's /lib/firmware not lib/firmware

I take it you're pretty new to Linux?

Very much so.

Okay. Quick explanation regarding file structure, it's different from Windows

As in the only real experience I have had with the operating system is right now.

File system starts at /. You don't have different drives (e.g. C:\ D:\ etc.) they get mounted underneath root (e.g. I have a USB hard drive mounted at /mnt/USBEncStorage)

The file structure at the base contains a few important sections including /etc where configuration files live (think like the registry on Windows) and most importantly here /lib which contains libraries

oh

so /lib/firmware is the firmware folder under the lib folder under the root (think like C:\Program Files) whereas lib/firmware would actually be the lib folder in the current directory, most likely home

I have it on my computer and I'm running Fedora 21. If you don't have it that is very, very, very bad. And your computer shouldn't be working at all anyway.

Did you find it?

Oh, you probably will need to either be root or use sudo from the command line to move those files because /lib is restricted to root

I learned that the hard way just now.

What is the file explorer thing called?

Nautilus?

Never mind, figured it out.

There are a few different ones but I think gnome uses nautilus by default

I was asking what the Linux equivalent was to Explorer.

The File Explorer is Nautilus. The internet explorer is Firefox by default in Fedora 21/Gnome but differs based on distribution.

I know that IE-Firefox thing.

Oh wait, I don't think it even is nautilus anymore

Well, the thing is it could also be a Firefox variant, Konqueror, Chromium, Epiphany or probably some other edge cases

Did you manager to get the files copied then?

I copied that driver files over. Restarting now. I don't know what, if anything, I expect will happen.

You might need to install the actual zd1211 driver as well, I'm not sure if it's included in the kernel. It could be they're just referencing the source to it for licensing reasons.

There were already some files in the folder they told me to copy to. I assume they were what you are talking about.

Files with the same name?

Yes, some.

It's possible they wanted you to overwrite those and you might want to try that if the driver doesn't work. Back up the folder first though.

Yeah, it did not work.

Okay. Do you need me to explain how to copy the files as root?

I used the root account to copy the files over. The problem is not that. The problem is that the driver does not work.

Ahh. You overwrote any necessary files and rebooted?

yes

Unfortunately, I have to go now, which a shame because of how helpful you have been. Thank you. I'll let you know how my adventures go.

Okay

Just so you know

I think you might need to install another driver related to those. I just tried to load the zd1211 driver and it's not found for me.

And I think those extend that driver. So you need the original

Oh.

The original drivers are for Windows.

There is no Linux version.

Yeah, I was just going to say that actually makes no sense because the libraries were there to copy over so scratch that

Okay. You can sometimes get wireless adapters that will work for as low as $10 or so if you don't mind a cheap one, just look up the chipset and make sure it works with Linux