That's my raspberry pi, top right, and, foreground, its wifi dongle that so far doesn't work.

All sorts of people think I'm technically-minded.  People ask me technical questions and believe my answers.  Yesterday I went for an awayday with a writers' group I've belonged to for years.  They think I'm a techie.  They worry about what would happen if I'm not there to voluntarily keep up the website.

Little do they know how technically incompetent I am, that I can't even make a wifi dongle on a raspberry pi work.

It seems to be a software problem.  As far as the hardware goes, the little thing lights up, flashes, looks like it's busy communicating with somewhere.  But it doesn't communicate with my router, and therefore, the rest of the world.  I've scoured the internet for solutions, which are all written in variations on linux, the open-source operating system that runs raspberry pis.  I don't know my way round linux and now I wish I did.

My desperation is such, I've posted a question on two forums, confessing my ignorance but trying to sound a tiny bit more knowledgeable than I am, in the hope of help from patient nerds around the globe.

Now I'm looking for something to fill in the time till Professor Someone answers.  Maybe a game of online bridge.  Or a call to my brother, who thinks I already have enough computery devices.  Or a wistful song on the piano.