I agree with Wayne that we should encourage newbies to ask questions. The book suggestion, however, has some merits. One approach could be to have a Linux basics section for, say, 15 minutes where some basic topic is covered. Then have the main presentation.
What book? I'll check the bookstores soon and see what has a good format. One of the Linux magazines has a nice newbies column that might work better. After all, we don't need to do the newbie/review stuff in any sequence. Some newbie items could be: "How do reset my video screen?" (As I am setting up a RH 7.2 system on a really old PC here at work, I ran in the challenge of the video settings for resolution. By the RH installer, only standard VGA would work but that created a problem with utilities such as the Red Hat Network Update Agent. It's screens don't fit. Xconfigurator took care of the problem by allowing me to set for Super VGA resolution. A newbie might be really stuck here because the Gnome or KDE menus don't have any easily visible option for doing such changes to X-Windows. "How do I set up a printer?" "How do I get a Palm Pilot link going?" "I couldn't get a program for my Linux. They had only the source code. What do I do?" "I forgot my password. Do I have to reinstall my Linux and software?" (One tech support horror story for a corporation had a tech support person wipe out the OS and reinstall the software because the password was forgotten.<g>) Once we get the Web site going with some more interactive stuff, we could have a Question & Answer section online. Of course, it would have a disclaimer that we are not obligated to give answers for every question, especially for sight unseen system. But this may provide hints for topics to cover at the meetings as well as drawn in new members. By the way, I'll be posting the January meeting minutes tonight. J.D. Abolins Meyda Online -- Infosec & Privacy Studies New Website: http://www.MeydaOnline.com
