Does anyone know how to use an elliptical?

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I am trying one out at the gym cause I am thinking of buying, one cause I want to keep my cardio exercises up without having to jogging outside, since winter is coming. However, I don't get a cardio workout from it hardly at all. It works out my thighs a lot but it seems like it's more of leg exercise machine only and not cardio which is what I want.

A friend of mine told me that I must be using it wrong, but I keep trying it on different settings and only the legs are being worked out, every time, but not feeling much cardio. Am I doing something wrong?

Most Elliptical trainers or cross trainers have resistance settings, a setting that you can change in order to increase / decrease the amount of resistance the machine will give you when you use it.

Depending on the quality, some also have sophisticated programs that give you varying degrees of resistance.
Some of these programs may even include programs that simulate interval training, running across terrain etc.

The cheapest ones don't generally offer that many features and can be a bit light on the resistance.
The expensive ones can offer all sorts of features such as including a heart rate monitor, lots of fancy programs etc.

Oh okay. Well I tried the setting with the least resistance so I can move a lot faster and then get my heart going. The problem is, is that my legs wear out long before my heart gets enough exercise. So I'm tiring my legs out too fast, but the heart is just not getting that cardio.

Is this normal on an elliptical, even on the setting with the least resistance, to go faster?

No, it's not normal. Maybe your leg muscles are not used to the specific motions you make on the elliptical, but your leg muscles should be in shape if you've been jogging regularly. What is your jogging like? Is it closer to running or more like shuffling along or a fast walk? If you don't move your legs much while jogging, they may not be well-conditioned.

Also, if you are a small person, you may be stretching yourself to work out on the elliptical, and that can tire you out. If the machine you use has the arm attachments that move up and down, that may be slowing you down so that your heart rate doesn't rise much.

I normally run while jogging. It's just the elliptical seems to only work out the legs mostly, and I am not feeling much in my upper half, compared to the legs.