2009/3/5 Philip Stubbs <phi...@stuphi.co.uk>: > No. I guess my memory could be wrong, but I am certain I was using a > VAX VMS system running some form of X windowing system and it had the > xman program. I can picture myself at the machine I used, and in that > part of the office all the machines were VAX VMS based. The only other > machines were some state of the art 25 MHz 386's :-) and a couple of > IBM RS6000 boxes running AIX. It was a little while before they would > let me play with the IBM's as they were the new toys.
Oh, well, VAXen did indeed run X.11, AKA X windows... But on VMS, not on Unix. > >> Your general point - that reading man pages is a good way to learn - I >> entirely agree with, but your example is incorrect. > > Thanks for that. For some reason, I find it interesting to hear how > people tackle learning to use a computer or Linux for the first time. > As we have discovered, my memory may not be that great, and I can't > remember what I went through to learn some of the stuff that I now > take for granted. I find it really hard when people ask questions to > things that I think should be self evident. Having a complete newbie > document what they find, and how they struggle with and overcome > issues helps me to keep a fresh perspective. Also, it helps to make > clear what aspects are not as transparent as they could or should be. This is a very common thing, I find. Most people do not know how they learn stuff. I used to train people for a living, and it amazes me how little people know about what they need to know. Show me a 20-step operation, and my notes will have 25 or 30 steps, just in case. I *know* I will forget stuff. But I show people 20-step operations and they write down 3 or 4. And lo and behold, next week, they can't remember how to do it. I find it very hard to understand, but then, I find people hard to understand... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat, Yahoo & Skype: liamproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
