[ale] Newbee needing help #1

[Bruce Jones]

Greetings,

Newbee, old DOS geek, CAD professional of 26 years, current Windows XP Pro user. Just wiped Win 2000 Pro off my Xeon dual processor machine and loaded the (purchased) install set for SUSE Linux 10. first load (with Gnome as the GUI) found my mouse, keyboard, printer, I was impressed :-), but, it wouldn't let me into the root :-(

Reloaded it, gace a different root username and password from the first user UN and PW and things changed (lost the printer) and still couldn't get to the root. Crossed my mind that 010101 might not be an acceptable root password.

Reloaded it a third time (new un and pwds all around) now I have access, keyboard, & mouse, semi-pleased :-|

I would appreciate any tidbits that you "superusers" are willing to share. I am a college instructor and it is my desire to set up a home network and eventually Moodle server for my students. 

I have several remaining issues which I will post separately to avoid confusion, #1

My printer is a HP Deskjet 1220C (I love it) I set up a new printer under Gnome using YaST/Hardware/Printer, got the printer back  !!YES!!. 

However, I have an HP scanjet 4400C scannern (nothing special, a "gett'rdone" device) and can't find an installable driver that I can make and sense of. Found some SANE "stuff" but I can't make any sense of what it is asking from me?

I "did" Fortran77 in the late '70's, several flavors of Basic and Autolisp in the 90's, but once I open the superuser "blank page with cursor in the upper left" I am lost in Linux, HELP? What beginners book do you suggest?