New to Ubuntu - Need help.

Hello all! I installed Ubunto (5.04) on my laptop yesterday. It's my first time using an operating system other than MS.

Anyways, I think it is obvious that i'm running through some problems. For one, i know nothing about Linux and Ubuntu. I was hoping if i get some links to some good tutorials or books. The real problem however is that i don't know how to configure my ethernet on Linux (i'm still using XP :-| ). In device manager, i see that the network cards are identified, but when i press Network, the window doesn't appear.

Is there any information i should give so that i can get proper help?

Well, since Ubuntu is Debian-based, the official Debian docs are always handy: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-gateway.en.html

Of course, there's always TLDP (Linux Documentation Project) with it's howto: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/NET3-4-HOWTO.html

It also has an overview of networking on Linux: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Networking-Overview-HOWTO.html

Also, if you feel a little adventurous, you can just go with the raw docs - 'man':

$ man ifconfig

I hope that's a good starting point. If not, there's always Google!

Also if you can give the output of 'ifconfig', that'd be handy.

There are some programmes that i can't run. I click on them, the processor works, but they never open. One of them is the Root Terminal. I'll make a list of what's not working, and post it in a while. Thanks for all the help so far.