Who helped you out when you were a newbie?

[Trillian]

Think back if you have to, who helped you out when you were just a beginner with linux.
Who was your oracle of wisdom, did you buy a whole load of books, used google al the time or did you just read the manual?



I got some slack cds from a friend, and that just went fine, it had a little book with some "how do I install slackware" text.
From that point I went to the library to get some books, a whole lot of magazines, and just started. That friend has been a very good oracle of wisdom ever since, and I've told him so a couple of times. His best advice was.. let's think.
RTFM. Nothing beats looking for the answer yourself.

[twistedcranium]

I will agree with you that the best knowledge is the knowledge that is gained by doing something by one's self.

The issue that I have with "RTFM" is that it is too often used by some for some really lame reasons. Sometimes I have seen and heard people use it just because they think that the knowledge that the requestor is seeking is sooooo basic that they 'obviously should have learned it had they read the manual'. And sometimes I've seen it used by some who are unaware that they consider themselves computer elite and beyond helping a beginner just because they had to learn things the hard way so why shouldn't the newbie.

I have found that often one doesn't need someone else 'to hold their hand' through a learning experience, they just need a push in the right direction. Telling someone to go read the manual often doesn't help if they have no idea which manual to read. Let me use an example: say I have a few years windows experience with no command line and only gui linux experience. I sit in front of a linux box and want to setup a program to run a 'virus scan' at regular intervals. What program can I use? Let's say that someone tells me to use F-Prot. Great, now I go to the F-Prot site and download the program. Now, after reading the help on the F-Prot site, lets suppose that it instructs me on installing it, but nothing regarding setting it up to run regularly. Now how do I do this? SOMEONE has to come along and give me a hint about a command line feature called CRON. Hmmm...CRON....Had I never heard of it before, how am I supposed to know that cron will be instrumental in setting this up. Great, now someone told me about cron, how do I work with it at the command line? In fact, how do I get to a command line? So I ask about cron and someone tells me to go read the manual. Ok, how do I do that? How the heck do I know about 'man cron'. Hmmmm...man....where did that come from. Someone needed to tell me that...right? Once I figure out how to read manuals at the command line with man, then I should be able to fudge my way through my first crontab file.

Throughout that whole process I NEEDED someone else to point me in the right direction. I needed someone to tell me about the man command in order for me to even read the documentation on the cron process. So, even if I had the power of Google in front of me, man and cron, were pieces of information that I didn't have to make my search start in the right direction.

So, yes you're right when you say that "Nothing beats looking for the answer yourself", but how many newbs could come up with "crontab instructions" right off the bat in their first linux project to use a search term in Google?

[twistedcranium]

And for a moment, I must put my moderator hat on to state that RTFM replies are not very welcome at CTH and more specifically the Linux Forums here. RTFM is ONLY acceptable when the information has been presented and the requestor refuses to take the next step.

By the way, for those that may not know what RTFM stands for: READ THE FRIGGIN MANUAL (insert other expletive for full effect)

[twistedcranium]

oh yeah, I forgot to answer your original question. *duh* LOL

I had a buddy at work that was really into linux. He gave me a copy of his old Mandrake disks and after a few questions from me to him, I was on my way down the linux path.

[Trillian]

Indeed, sometimes a rtfm just isn't gonna cut it. I always try to tell the person to use google more often, but always combine that with the answer, or a hint to his/her answer. Though, there is a time when they have to learn it themselves, the newbies of today will be helping out the newbies of next year, so being a good rolemodel is wise.


The second best time that friend wasa The Wise Oracle:
I clearly *ugh* remeber one time when I got home at about.. 5 'o clock a.m. and I was awfully stoned. I wanted to check my mail, so I booted up slackware, and got to the command prompt. At that point, I did manage to login, though I forgot the command "startx" or "X :0&disown&&icewm --display=:0".
I didn't really had a console based msn client installed, so I wanted to get into X, but those books made no sense of whatsoever at the time.
Called up the friend, and he was still awake. He understood a simple rtm would do no good at all, so he explained how I could start X.