VeeDubb Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Reading posts from this springs influx of new mandrake users, I have noticed a few things that I have forgotten since my noob days. there's a number of VERY unhelpful things that we almost all do, and i think we should all stop. I'll list the two that come immediately to mind as being a big deal, if you think of others, just add them. The first thing we do is say things like "su to root." Of course you and I know what that means without blinking, but not everyone does. When I was trying Lycoris a couple years back (my first linux experience) someone told me to "su to root" and I had to go back and explain that I didn't know what su OR root meant and could they please explain. Ive seen the same response form other new people here. What i'm getting to is that when talking to new users, we shouldn't use the sort of loose linux slang that is so common. It's not helpful, and can actualy make things worse. The other thing we do is give terminal cmmands with no explanation fo what they mean or how they work. Example, recently DeanGreen (a friend of mine) needed help because a re-install messed up the permissions in his home directory. He and I asked for help and immediatly were told to enter "chown -R dean.dean /home/dean" which solved the problem. Now it wasn't a big deal because I could figure it out, and I explained it to him. But nobody mentioned how the chown command works. We should use these things a opportunities to share a litle knowledge with new users, not just a chance to fix their computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Sounds like good FAQ material... you volunteering ? (IF not already there.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technonoid Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Good idea, I'd to see something like : http://www.linuxforum.com/linux-dictionary.php But more basic. Just the stuff a new user needs and maybe some good links as well. Just an idea... Tech Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted April 27, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Sounds like good FAQ material... you volunteering ? (IF not already there.) I'd be happy to do a tutorial. Do you want definitions for N00bs or things we should do to help n00bs better? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Man, it's true. I remember complaining about our cryptic language (windex has it too!) and now I look at my posts to help people, and I have journeyed into obscurity!!! Help!!!! It's always about the acronyms. I do it to RadioEar, but he looks at me real funny and says "What are you saying?" So, a list of the 50 most used acronyms would be helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plati Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 I think it would be a great idea for something like this. It wasnt that long ago I was a total n00b at linux, and I remember how confusing it can be to receive commands like this and not know what you are actually doing. Ill just take this moment to thank iphitus for all the phone calls Ive made to him while setting up linux on different systems :D The dictionary would be awesome, sort of like a n00bs guide to the commands, arguments, compiling (i know we already have an FAQ on that, which I still read frequently) and so on so forth. plati Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 <<snip>> So, a list of the 50 most used acronyms would be helpful. I have a link to an internet acronym dictionary in my sig. Feel free to use it. :D Also, a link to an FAQ about obscure terminology in my sig would also be used if we had one. I, personally, wouldn't mind doing that myself, since I pride myself in having newbie-friendly language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted April 27, 2004 Report Share Posted April 27, 2004 Steve and VeeDubb: What you are both proposing sounds excellent to me. If you would like to write up an FAQ about it I would definitely put it in our FAQ Forum (I don't think I'm the only one who would like to do this, either). We need something that we can have for people who are new to Linux to reference when we talk about things and give them advice in their posts. Many of us already have a link to the FAQs in our signatures and I, for one, would love to link that specific FAQ in my signature if it was done. If either (or both) of you are interested in doing something like this, please let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgutty Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 This is a very interesting thread. I was talking to a young engineer at work just today; the subject was Linux (I mention it every chance I get). After demonstrating the PCLinuxOS run-time CD...the question was, "What is the down-side?". Thinking back to MDK 8.1....my 1st venture into Linux, I told him to be sure to only play around with Linux on a system that is not critical, and therefore he can be free to experiment. Be prepared to loose the whole system.....then he can rebuild it, having learned something in the process. I feel that most windoze-oriented people do not tend to experiment with their PC. That is too bad. This is the process most people learned about computers and their software years ago. I loved DOS 3.1. It was a hobbyist environment, and users were not afraid to try new things. With windoze, their new users don't even know what a file extension in windoze is! It is a steady "dumbing-down" of the windoze computer user community. I am glad I found Linux...I hope to live long enough to learn all its innards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 The most important thing: this newbie starter-page-must-read must be short. This will be the difficult part, if not, it will just be too long to read to pay any attention. Anything that can be cut out or referred to with a link to the standard FAQs should just be a link, imho. I know that when I started my site it was nice and small, but it has already gotten too large.. then people started asking for a google searchbox... So maybe we can start on this One Page Primer For Newbies here, just discuss what should go in there and what shouldn't...? Possibly, every subforum could have a sticky message at the top, to instruct on what kind of messages to post in that particular subforum, and some standard stuff, including either the one page primer or a link to it...? One forum I visit (dutch) has a message at the top of each subforum, to explain the rules (they very often put locks on threads, don't want any o/t talk to have an effective search engine/database) and FAQ for that subforum. It could be interesting to have one or several of the following at the top of each subforum, in one or several posts/threads, each not allowing replies (except by moderators) : - Before posting, read this [forum rules, explanation - people new to forums often don't know how things work, how to reply, how to subscribe to a topic etc; also, they should get informed about what kind of questions to post there and what kind of questions to post in some other subforum - and how to use the search and read the manual...) - Frequently Asked Questions related to [subforum name] - Hints and tips for troubleshooting [subforum related problems] What do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technonoid Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 Your on track aRTee, about not being too big. So maybe we need to discuss what are the top 10 (just a figure) things a new user would most likely need to know how to do. One problem though, is a lot of times more than one way to do something exisits.... A newbie needs to know what a terminal is, what root is for and why it exisits. How to locate files that may need to be edited with vi, mc, gedit, ect.. How to install new programs that are RPM, or need to be compiled and to extract those files, ect.. Just some thoughts... TECH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 Ok, agree on your 'top' list. I think it would be good to have one sticky short message per subforum, that can not be replied to - so moderators must 'maintain' it. For instance: On the hardware forum, there should be info on how to find out if your hardware is properly supported, with some mention of exceptions (sblive5.1 on Dell machines that just don't work). links to: www.linuxprinting.org for printers http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/ for usb devices http://www.mostang.com/sane/sane-supported...ed-devices.html for scanners etcetc. On the software subforum, explanation about urpmi with the appropriate links: http://www.urpmi.org/easyurpmi/ http://www.zebulon.org.uk/ICML0.HTML some command line stuff, root and normal user stuff, why root, quick primer on vi and console stuff (needed for nvidia drivers installation for instance, that info should also be on the hardware one-page) Some links to some articles in the FAQ. With the passing of time, we can keep track what pops up the most per forum, and that should then be added if the repetition rate is high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitor Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 I just updated my signature (see below) with links to the sites that have helped me a lot to get everything running (or that I found out about too late). That might help as well. Maybe not very sexy as a signature, but I hope efficient for the newbies. Ciao, Sitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkelve Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 (edited) ! I want to help, but not sure with what. So I think I'm going to update that tutorial I made for tuning Mandrake/KDE applied to Mandrake 10 (or make an extra one, but I don't think that will be necesarry). I think I will add a little background information about what parts a desktop consists of and how the process of creating a window on your desktop works. What do you think? Darkelve Edited April 28, 2004 by Darkelve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted April 28, 2004 Report Share Posted April 28, 2004 Background stuff is fine, but not necessarily for the real newbie who just wants to get going, more for the interested newbie who's got his machine sorted but wants to know what is really going on. Sitor, like your sig ;) Anyway, where are the mods when you need them? I would like to know if they agree with the idea to put a sticky at the top of each subforum that explains the first things about that particular subforum, and that has a FAQ for that subforum integrated. Sitor, Darkelve, to see what I mean have a look here (Dutch): http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_topics/23 Note: that is a Dutch subforum where newbie questions get locked immediately, so it's much less friendly to the beginner, but some people really know linux inside out, very interesting stuff. Just check out that and some other forums, at the top of each subforum they have the FAQ and must read info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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