Obviously, just got here, but there is a certain feel to Ubuntu that I like .. hard to describe .. clean, fresh, elegant, responsive. I would like to spend more time here.

I have been learning more about the UNIX (Linux) shell, so I figure this was a good time to upgrade.

And it seems the network connection problems I was having were due to my own inexperience with VMware, and not with Ubuntu.

The bottom line is .. does it work or not? And if thereś a problem, how much effort will it take to resolve?

Thanks for the help. I appreciate it. More than you might know.

I asked for help over at the Ubuntu forums, but didnt get much help there.

BTW I am getting a loud low-frequency beep when I hit/press the ' apostrophe key. But it didnot happen there .. but it DID happen when I tried to type the word > didnt  (there it happened).

Sup wit dat?

yeah, i get in terminal, too.

open the terminal and type "passwd"

Well, that's the first step.  It's about half the battle.  The second part is understanding environment variables, config files, and how input and output works.  But none of it is very hard, and your Linux confidence will soar as you get more comfortable with it.

You don't have to worry too much about memorizing switches.  As long as you know which command you need, you can always use the man pages to see the switches.