first, thanks a bunch, this helps alot. there were a few things still that i had to play around with before i finaly figured out what i was supposed to be doing (the "oohhhhhhhh" kinds of moments such as trying to figure out why hyperterminal didnt seem to be doing anything......then i pressed "Q")

still having problems though. when i:

empeg:/lib# mkdir /usr/local/bin

i get

mkdir: cannot create directory `/usr/local/bin': No such file or directory

but everything up to that point, once id played with it a bunch, seems to have gone ok