a beginner to linux

[MICHAEL WEAVER]

Could anyone possibly help me getting started with Linux, pointers which 
might help me get going?
I have been trying to use Ubuntu with Gnopernicus but have been having 
problems getting it going after login?
A chap from one of the LUGs (Linux User Groups I attend managed to vaguely 
get Gnopernicus running on my Laptop with Ubuntu but it is configuring it 
for speech during Login which seems to be a problem at the moment.
I haven't posted to this group for a while as someone upset me when I 
enquired about trying to trace my LUG saying that everyone would be upset 
that I posted such a question on this group yet a LUG is a group for 
supporting people wishing to learn about Linux so he was the only one 
griping about it.  Not everyone has a sighted person nearby to turn to like 
a partner and my family not only live a few miles away but are also less 
computer savvy than me.
If I had the choice I would have a partner which as regards getting started 
with Linux would make my job as a newby easier only the people running the 
age range I fit into, I am 28 by the way, have been very heavy both verbally 
and physically as regards me seeing someone, some might call it peer 
pressure but I think bullying is more an apt term. Whatever the harrassment 
myself and my potential partners is called it turned one of my potential 
partners into a Heroin addict in one case and her parents took sides with 
her dealers because the eldest sister who has a family of her own who 
claimed to have supported me through her sister who is nearer to her in age 
who ended up on the Heroin after telling me I would be the first person she 
would consider as a boyfriend told me her youngest sister who I could have 
dated instead was told by their parents to disconnect the phone on me in 
order to create a fake fault on the line despite the claim that their whole 
family was backing me over the bullying I was getting at Blind Schools and 
Colleges including by at least one person who got a job working for the BBC 
despite his reputation at supposedly the best Blind School in England where 
staff in senior management knew of his extreme views some of which were even 
racist and he even had a hold over this girl who went along with this stuff 
despite his racial abuse although someone I spoke to since admitted this 
person had control and said the girls at this School were not indipendent 
and very easily lead and this person was a younger male student which was a 
change because men about my age have generally refused to accept the fact 
that men can be victims of bullies and not just the perpotrators. The person 
who had a go at me knows nothing about my life which has made me not even 
rule out the possibility of police involvement to stop the harrassment which 
has caused me to so far live a single life instead of enjoying going out 
with ladies who I could have been close to, something enjoyed by most men my 
age.