angeoco

So, we should turn up our noses at boxes, but if we don't get one we should make one (which is just what I do)? /me scratches head

For shapes, make them yourself - right-click your avatar, select Appearance, Edit Shape, adjust the sliders to your taste, then click Save, or Save As if you want to keep the old shape.

You can certainly find a good mesh head for a reasonable price, as others have pointed out here, but what you really need is a head that suits your style. If you expect it to last a few years then you have to be really happy with it and price becomes not so important in the long run. A head that you stop wearing after a few months because it no longer feels like you or doesn't do what you want is a wasted investment of time, money and emotions. So demo all the quality (i.e. Bento + Omega) heads that you like the look of, and narrow it down to a shortlist. And don't rule out the option of sticking with your system head, which can often be made really nice with good choices of shape/skin/hair/makeup. Then decide what suits you best. In case you're interested, in my profile picture here I'm wearing my Normie head from Utilizator, costing 500 L$. I have never spent any money on a shape, since it is so easy to create them ourselves.

First the Slink feet. You need to wear the alpha layer that comes with the feet. That will hide your system feet. With an appearance budget of 5,000 L$, a mesh body is a natural first step. It will do for your body what the Slink feet do for your feet. Chic has mentioned some very good free options, but you will most likely want a fully-featured body in the long term. Popular options include Maitreya Lara (the current market leader), Slink, Belleza, as well as the full EBody and Altamura bodies among others. Get demos of all the bodies that interest you before making a decision. You will also want quality skin, hair, clothes, shoes, etc., which could make a serious dent in the rest of your budget. A mesh body (typically) covers everything from the neck down, so after settling into their mesh body many people then turn their attention to a mesh head, which is a separate purchase which could cost anything between 500 and 5,000 L$ for a quality head. For a house, keep an eye on the property sections of this forum; they all provide links to the spot where you can go and visit it before deciding anything. Your budget of 600 L$ a week should get you a nice little place.

Current Lumae skins seem to include system skins too.

Skin creators tend to no longer release system skins, but make old ones available as freebies/cheapies. You could have a look at the lucky boards and group gifts at the 7 Deadly Skins shop, and I think Wow Skins sell a big package of their old skins for very cheap.

What sort of help? If you can let us know of any particular problems or what you are trying to achieve, it would make it easier for people to help.

You will get the biggest choice and compatibility with Omega applier skins. Omega is a system to allow you apply compatible skins/makeup/clothes to any Omega-friendly body or head, which is most of them. For Maitreya, you will need to have the Omega relay for Maitreya (cheaper at the Omega inworld shop if you join the Omega Obsession group), and maybe also one for whatever head you choose, though some bodies/heads have Omega built-in so you don't need the relay. There are dozens of quality mesh heads on the market, and each one has its own distinctive look (adjustable within limits), so it's really a matter of taste which one you go for. Just make sure to DEMO any head that interests you, and make sure it is Bento-enabled (for adjustment and animation) and Omega-compatible (for skin/makeup choice).

The Ubuntu wiki recommends the proprietary NVidia driver rather than the Ubuntu package: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia

Are these mesh garments, system layer garments (for the system body), or applier garments (for a mesh body)? If they are mesh, then what you can probably do is to wear one of them in a fitmesh size and the other in a fixed size, then adjust your shape (which the fitmesh garment will follow, but not the fixed one) until it looks right, including when you move. If they are system layer garments, then follow Orwar's advice. If they are applier garments, then use your mesh body's HUD and/or the applier HUD to apply them to different layers. You might need to enable "mask mode" in the HUD to get it looking right.

The item should be delivered into your "received items" folder in your inventory. Maybe just try again.

(never mind, I misunderstood)

And if the rezzed item is a HUD, you probably won't see it if you're looking at it from behind. So if you can't see your rezzed item, cam around to the other side to check if it is actually there.

Getting clothes to fit is not usually a big problem. Clothes are usually supplied with an alpha layer, which blanks out the body beneath the clothes, to prevent it poking through. Also look out for Fitmesh garments, which adjust to your shape. However, most people who care about their appearance eventually move on to mesh bodies, and often to mesh heads as well. A mesh body is basically a covering for the system body from the neck down, to add smoothness and extra detail, so you get much nicer feet, hands, breasts, etc. Its shape can be adjusted in the same way as the system body, and it can be combined with the system head. They have a lot more settings, which can be controlled via a HUD, which is a control panel on the screen. A mesh head is the same idea, but from the neck up. All mesh bodies/heads have demo versions available, so you can play with them and find out which ones suit you best. Be sure that any body/head you decide on is both Bento- and Omega-compatible, for better versatility.

That looks like bake fail. See here: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_bake_fail

Wow, talk about keeping your options open! It would be nice for us to have some sort of starting point.

The avatar you get when you join SL can be customised to an enormous extent, by editing your shape (right-click, appearance, edit shape), wearing a different skin/hair/makeup ,and of course clothes. You can go quite a distance with this, but eventually people who care about their appearance start comparing themselves to others and notice that most others are wearing mesh bodies (up to the neck) and maybe mesh heads, which do look a lot better. Mesh body parts are worn over the system body in the same way as you wear clothes, to give a smoother, more detailed look. Others here have already provided good recommendations for mesh body parts, so the choice is yours whether you want to go that route right now, or wait a while until you get your system body looking the way you want. If money is not a huge concern then a big-name mesh body would be an excellent investment. The system head can be made look much nicer than the system body below the neck, so maybe you could wait a while before thinking about a mesh head. If you are going for a mesh body, then the most important thing is to get demo versions of all the ones that interest you (making sure they are Omega-compatible as that gives you a bigger choice of skins etc.), try them on and make sure you can customise them to get the look you want, by editing your shape, setting options in the mesh body's HUD, and applying skins and makeup that you like (though you might need a separate 50L$ Omega adaptor to make that work). If your tastes are fairly conventional then any of the big names mentioned above should work for you. I wear Maitreya Lara as it seemed the safest choice at the time, and it still is. With mesh heads it is even more important to take your time and demo extensively. There is no clear market leader and there are (maybe) hundreds of quality models available, each with its own distinctive appearance which can only be customised within limits. The first thing you should do is only test heads that are Bento-compatible as they can be customised by editing your body shape as well as animated, and Omega-compatible as these have a much bigger choice of skins and makeup. After that it is really a matter of taste. I wear a Utilizator Normie which cost 500L$, not so much because of its price, but because it was the only one I really liked the look of, and its shortage of built-in features is more than compensated by the variety of generic third-party add-ons available and its modify permissions (which lets you make internal modifications if you have the technical skill). So, you have a lot to go on here. It's a lot of fun, a lot of learning, but need not be a lot of money if you take your time, keep an eye out for bargains, and as is often repeated here, DEMO DEMO DEMO. You are welcome to contact me in-world if you need any help there.

I just sent you an eyes and an eye+head alpha!

According to the first screenshot, you are wearing the Maitreya hands and feet, but not the body. Find the body and wear it.

An applier is a HUD for applying a texture to a mesh body, and will not work on a classic/system body. It's used for skins, tattoos, makeup, and tight-fitting clothes like stockings and underwear. It's equivalent to the layer clothes that you can wear on system bodies, and often you will find appliers and system layers packaged together for sale.

Fitmesh clothes often only work over a limited size range, which is why alphas are often supplied and you often see different sizes like "Fitmesh S", "Fitmesh M", etc. I have never examined it, but I imagine true "one-size fits all" mesh clothes would probably be compromised in some way, like textures being badly stretched/compressed at extreme shapes or the shading looking wrong.

To make a link, (1) find the item you want to link to, right-click it and select "copy", then (2) go to the folder where you want to paste the link, right-click and select "paste as link".

You can use your inventory for that. Create a folder and paste in links to all the items you want quick access to, and keep a little inventory window open all the time. I have a root folder called "ACTIVITIES" and sub-folders for "dancing", "boating", etc. with links to all the stuff I regularly need for those activities. Or you can include links to HUDs etc. in your outfits, so that whenever you wear a particular outfit, the HUDs will attach as well.

As Claireschen said, use your Maitreya HUD to set your feet to High (the highest of the 3 heel heights).

The applier layers are always a small distance apart, with the skin innermost, then the tattoo, underwear, and outerwear layers. Probably the best thing to do is always use the innermost unused layer.