[Wine] Acer Aspire Photographer in need of expert help

[wastanierfrs]

Ladies and gentlemen

Can someone help me? I have just bought an AS One 120 gig+Linpus Linux as a photo storage device. It is a fabulous machine for the job as the screen is incredibly sharp and the whole deal is better than say the Epson P3000 device.
I use a pair of Canon 400D's and only shoot in Raw. The default image viewer (gThumb??) is fantastic as it does a slide show at the same time as it magnifies the image -A BRILLIANT combination for checking (and discarding) images in the field. The snag? It doesn't read the native Canon .CR2 RAW FILE FORMAT!! so I now have to shoot in JPEG which is a really dumb thing to do.

I have tried various sites to no avail, as I simply can't seem to get across my message that I am a COMPLETE novice with Linux. I can't understand the terminology. I have received advice and questions about "which file manager do you have?" "changing distros" "reloading with ubuntu" "joining a Linux forum " etc etc But I am a photographer not a computer expert. I didn’t even realise the machine was Linux not Windows XP!!!
Does anyone know of a SIMPLE way to view (slide show +magnification would be wonderful if possible) Canon .CR2 FILES.I do not need to edit or process them, as I do this "back at the ranch" with Photoshop. I realise I might need a bit more RAM and I am plucking up the courage to fit another Gig of memory. If I need to download something I can just about do that, but what and EXACTLY how do I install it? Can WINE help?

It's probably a big ask (and outside the remit of the forum?) but can anyone help please.

Thank you 
John Parker