[ILUG] Linux Newbies

[David Golden]

On Thursday 27 September 2001 11:54, silvan delaney wrote:
> thank you david.
> silvan
> .................
>

One more I didn't mention, perhaps the most helpful :

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/index.html

provides "newbie-ized help files" (NHFs) on various topics - similar
to Linux HOWTOs, but with a more introductory tone.

For example,
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/commands/index.html
gives a short quick reference to linux commands and their 
ms-dos equivalents.


Other sources of help, likely to be installed locally on your machine:

(1) man/info pages:

To my mind, directing newbies toward man pages isn't necessarily the best 
idea -  man pages tend to be terse, and intended for quick reference 
when you already know roughly what you want (there are exceptions, such as 
the perl manuals, which are quite comprehensive and include tutorials).

It is important that newbies are aware of the existence of man pages though,
and also the evil "info" pages on most GNU systems. Info pages are 
largely similar to man pages, but hyperlinked a bit like web pages,
and, until recently, much less convenient to read unless you were perverse 
enough to like the emacs-style command-line reader called "info".

The most friendly way to access man and info pages these days is
by opeining up the KDE browser and typing man: or info: into the URL line. 

(2)  /usr/share/doc/* and/or /usr/doc/* on linux RPM/Deb systems

Usually, pre-packaged linux software sticks reams of application-specific 
documentation into subdirectories of /usr/share/doc/ - these range from
html versions of man pages to 500-page postscript print-it-yourself manuals
and tutorials. 

Again, not necessarily helpful for the complete newbie, but important to know 
about.

(3)  Linux HOWTOs -

Provide application-specific walkthroughs for various tasks, such as 
setting up a web server.  Often installed locally with most linux distros
somewhere in /usr/share/doc/HTML or /usr/share/doc/HOWTO,
and covering quite an esoteric range of possible things to do with a
linux box.

(4) Distro-specific documentation:

Distributions all have their own documentaion repositories for
distro-specific issues, usually knocking around on the CDs, in printed
manuals, and on-line.  In the case of Mandrake and Redhat, I know that
this includes complete never-seen-a-computer-before beginner's guides,
and windows migration hints.