newbie help

I thought this was worth starting a new thread on, mostly because I can still remember being a newbie myself, and also because I can see people getting frustrated by this Linux thing.

It can be hard getting your head around Linux for the first time. It's very different to Windows, and even doing "simple" tasks is sometimes hard if the GUI tools don't work quite right or the installer forgets to set something up, etc.

One of the first things to figure out is where to get help. IME, the best places to find answers are usually google, the online docs, the user groups eg Mandrake, and the mailing lists of the specific app that's giving you grief. Generally, if you have a problem someone else has had it too, somewhere in the world.

Occasionally the "official" places don't work - anyone ever tried getting help on IRC? I've occasionally wondered if my chat client was broken due to the deafening silence. But in reality, it was just that nobody knew the answer to my questions. Got to not take it personally...

Yep, it's RedHat. But some folks don't know about the documentation that's available out there. Just like many Windows people aren't aware of the huge resources for MS products like the Technet site. RedHat (and the other distros) are all great at providing their docs freely, so why not use 'em?

Basically, I'm saying that if things are going wrong, don't panic, just get online and start a search to track down what's going on. Post a question or two by all means - maybe someone does have a ready answer, but keep in mind that often we learn best by figuring it out ourselves - "Teach a man to fish..."

<i>Poking the Grim Reaper with a stick and then running away -- PB</i>