I've mainly been playing oolite on my laptop recently. It's a little weird going back to keyboard keys after controlling speed and things like that on my d-pad on Ptitseb's pandora port, but at least my laptop doesn't have slightly gimped keys the way the pandora does. Unfortunately on my laptop sometimes the graphics spam out by drawing a connection to the top left (0,0 I guess), and it generally freezes then crashes out if I try to dock with a second station in a row, so I've learned to save and quit in the first station I meet after selling my produce and buying new then buying fuel and setting my destination.
I'm mostly just trading for now, and fleeing in my Cobra Mk3 from any pirates I meet. Now I've updated to an advanced compass, I can more easily fly towards the sun for a bit then fork towards the station. The new compass really helps in finding the station as well, so it's a well recommended upgrade for new players. I think I did buy a rear beam lazer for my ship beforehand, but really I should have saved up for the advanced compass first.