not sure what the problem was, probably brain fade, but I shut everything down and restarted and it seems to work OK.

Is there a way to change the first post title to show it is solved?Edit - found the edit button for first post so is now marked solved.

I have gone through the install procedure given in the mining forum. Confirmed that ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf contains When I run I get the error message wrong username or password. I have tried changing the un and pass in the file and the command line with the same results.

I am obviously doing something stupid, could someone give me nudge in the right direction.

I have not found any of the links there that actually do anything like giving something for nothing, not that I am expecting something for nothing 

 
The Bitcoin Faucet site has apparently be displaying for some time and many of the other links require that you have some small amount to gamble with before you can try to win more. But I will persist.

Not being able to post in other fora sections is also very limiting, but that is another story.

Thanks for the replies.

As I am totally against anything that any government does that is one good reason to hope this works out. I am certainly not looking to get rich quick, or even to get rich slowly, all I ever want is to be able to do what I want when I want completely independent of any sort of government. What I will be looking for is to earn enough to satisfy my simple needs.

I would like to think not but I am not sure.

Just how do you get anything to start with? There are links to places to get free handouts but I have not found anything that pays anything, at least so far. There is mining though the consensus seems to be that for solitary miners there is almost no return and it may soon be not worthwhile trying, I have yet to find out how it all works myself so I cannot really comment on that yet, I'm still trying to get my head around the jargon.

So it seems that maybe the only way to get bitcoins is to buy them using real (as in what is defined by governments) money which leaves me with the idea of scam in the back of the head.

I do see a lot of beggars asking for free handouts, I pretty sure not of lot of them are successful any more than the ones I see on the streets in real life.