On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 13:31, Charlie M. wrote: > [...snip] > > If you don't want to answer questions then don't. That's simple enough. Just > don't try to discourage others from freely sharing what they've learned. > Please. > > But before someone can realistically expect a total newbie to be able to > search the available data sources someone must, first, teach them _how_ to > ask what so many deem as 'intelligent questions.' As well as how to find > intelligible answer from those so beloved data sources. > > RTFM and STFW are about as helpful from one that has knowledge as; "My monitor > doesn't have a picture, just a few lines of text, why?" from a newbie. > > I for one am not averse to a little "hand holding" since that level of > patience was once extended to me by someone knowledgeable that had apparently > reasoned the situation out as I do now. YMMV >
Hi Charlie. I emailed you offlist to apologize but it bounced; I hope you don't mind me taking this opportunity to do it publicly. [for those that missed it, or came in late, I sent a rather hasty reply to one of Charlie's answers - I wasn't pi**ed off as I wrote it, but on re-reading it in the archives I could easily see how it could have been taken that way.] So, sorry once again Charlie. In my case, I've had Mandrake on this machine for a while [and I wouldn't have been able to get it installed without this list] but I haven't actually tried to do anything with it until recently. I got connected using Linux [again, with help from this list] a few weeks back, but when I really think about the actual amount of "contact time" in front of the computer I think it would really only total about 30 hours tops. So maybe I'm impatient and possibly have unrealistic expectations. Typical newbie? Maybe it all comes down to expectations. The newbie just expects the basics to be the same and is caught out when they're not. Kind of like moving to a different country [as I've done several times] - it's not the things you get told about that catch you out - it's the little things you don't expect that get you. [F1 doesn't mean "help", for example]. Maybe the helpful answerers expect things too. Someone suggested [I'm sorry, I don't know who - Evolution is acting up again: emails open up with blank windows - but that's a topic for another thread] that I try "locate", but when I do, all I get is "command not found". And "man locate" gets me "No manual entry for locate". All I'm saying is, clearly the answerer in that case expected I would have "locate" installed already... And like whoever suggested the RUTE pdf - I got several "page not found" results before I finally found somewhere I successfully downloaded it from. At 660 pages it's going to take me quite a while to get through, and in the meantime what do I do about problems that I encounter day by day? I've just begun reading it, and really, I think it will take months to get through. Especially if I follow the advice in the introduction: "Any system reference will require you to read it at least three times before you get a reasonable picture of what to do"... For me, for now, at least, it's just the same as me trying to read anything more complicated than a menu board in Thai - first I've got to figure out the characters, then work out what the individual words mean, and only then try to work out the meaning of the sentence. I'd venture to point out that most windoze users have never heard of "grep" or "urpmi" or "invoke" or that there's a difference between "l" and "|". I've just scanned quickly through the first couple of chapters and it seems to jump immediately into the command line stuff, like password management and wildcards and expressions and so on. I don't know how often the typical user would ever have to bother with such things, unless he/she is a programmer already. All I'm saying is, from the newbie's perspective, a lot of this stuff is hard work. And to truly understand it will take a LOT of time investment, which is something not everyone can afford. I wonder, is there a more basic guide available which would cover the real basics - in plain English - the essential things you need to know about what's different? Thanks to all those who give freely of their time and expertise on this list, and also, sorry once again to Charlie... :) -- Merlin Zener Piano, Synthesizer Thailand.
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