So I have found linux not very multi media friendly.
Multimedia is packed with proprietary formats and is dominated by the Windows and Mac platforms. Linux lags behind a bit in this respect because some companies don't provide Linux support for their products and protocols (Microsoft being the obvious one) and others push the other platforms and only get around to Linux as an afterthought. Things like DVD movie playing have arrived but the legal people are trying to put a stop to it. Linux is not a great multimedia platform; sad but true. But it's getting there...
I then started to use the Netscape browser instead. Arrgghhh !!!! some webb sites the text is displayed so small you cant read the information. I have tried increasing the font size but to no avail.
Netscape is a piece of crap. You're hardly the only one to suffer with that! Ironically, the problem you hightlight - small fonts - is actually not a Netscape fault. It's due to some web site designers designing only for Windows clients. You can get a set of fonts which look and scale just like the default ones used by IE5; installing those makes Netscape much more usable. My suggestion: dump Netscape and upgrade your KDE-2.0.1 from the SuSE-7.1 disrto to KDE-2.1.2 from the SuSE ftp site. Konqueror from 2.1.2 is all you'll need for 95% of your browsing needs.
If I click on an image to display it with the browser I get an error saying that without xv it can't be displayed ??????
Install the xv package from the pay series.
I have been unable to connect to chat rooms. I would like to use ICQ but have been unable to get it to work.
Not sure what you mean by chat rooms. I use IRC and ICQ all the time. Post some details of the problems.
So not to be deterred I thought I would try and install some work related software. The first thing I tried was to install IBM's DB2 for linux. I followed the installation process exaclty. Guess what it didn't work. No DB2 very bad.
DB2 isn't my thing, so I can't help. It's known to work very efficiently when you do get it going though.
We do alot of REXX programming here so I thought I would install REXX from the ibm site. Even had the help of a Unix body who knows linux well. We performed the install steps. Guess what - we could'nt get it to work. As an alternative I was given oracle on a cd. Ran the program to perform the install. Guess what it didn't work.
Dunno about REXX installation but several people use it around here on Linux. For Oracle help you should join the SuSE Oracle list. Very knowledgable folks hang out there.
Bought a Linux magazine because it contained Sun Forte for Java. I follow the easy install steps as instructed by the magazine. Ran the executable that was supposed to start the program. All that happened was after pressing enter I saw the prompt again. So guess what it didn't work.
I downloaded Forte for Java and it worked straight "out of the box". Sounds like the magazine distribution of it is screwed up. Also, it could be your Java installation - that might explain the Oracle problem too, because that has a Java based installer.
Sorry for such a long winded vent. I know people here think linux is great, but this has not been my experience. I hope I dont get flamed too much for this email.
This is the most reaonably worded vent I've seen on this list for a long time! I normally just hit delete, but I thought I'd take the trouble to respond to yours. There's no doubt that installing complex Linux applications still isn't as easy as it is for Windows, but believe me, it's much easier than it was 3 years ago. Progress is being made. Your problem is quite obvious: you're trying to run before you can walk. You need to get into the Linux community a bit more and learn where the people are who can help you. How many people have you asked? How many mailing lists have you joined? Which newsgroups have you posted to? It does kind of bug me that often the first the Linux community hears about a newbie having problems is when that newbie throws up their hands and says "I'm giving up!". You need to focus on a single problem and get some help sorting it out. One thing at a time. So, pick one of your problems and ask on this list. suse-e is one of the best places for getting help that I know of.