Linux Newbie help

Hey I installed Linux, went with Mandrake 10.0, thats the one I had on me.

Got some questions though probably stupid ones but I’ll ask any way

does anyone know of any good sites explaining the very basics of this OS

how do you install programs? are rpms the same as exe’s or zip’s?

what is the equivelent to drivers in linux?
(my ATI 9800 doesnt seem to be accelerating blender in linux?)

Is thier a device manager in linux

when I download blender official release, is there a kind of installer?

where do installed programs go?

any help would be appreciated thanks

all things linux http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/

rpm is a package management system ( makes it easy to install stuff)

for drivers goto your vendors site / I use nvidia and the latest linux drivers for my card are available there

to run blender just download to your home directory / unzip it and click the blender icon

where things go depends on your distro / could be in /usr/bin

if your not sure try the following

open a shell / switch to root / updatedb

then from any shell you can enter locate name_of what_I’m looking for

good luck