HOWTO's For The Newbie

[Ross <nospam [at] virgin.net>]

>But back to your point.  Who's going to write those HOWTOs?  
>You don't want newbies writing HOWTOs ... 

why? please bear in mind that most newbies are only new to 'linux' and are
not fools. once they gain enough insight into the world of linux, there is no
reason why they should not share that experiance with others.(granted, it must
be monitored by peer's prior to publication)

>I, for example, am working on a couple of HOWTOs related to
>internationalization.  But surely you don't expect me to hose my book
>royalties by targeting my HOWTO at people I don't know, will never
>meet as peers, and who will never contribute anything except revenue
>to any projects I care deeply about?

don't be so quick to judge others by your own morral standards! i admit i am
making as much use of 'sheflug' as i can to get my pc configured the way i want
but, that does not mean i do not intend to make any meaningful contribution in
return. you may well find that most newbies do not contribute because they were
unable to get sufficient help in the early stages(even if it's only being
pointed in the direction of a man page or howto) and so become disenchanted
with the whole idea of 'linux'

>sure, I'm an arrogant arse; that was pointed out by my 10th-gradeEnglish
>teacher.   But I'm also willing to answer questions on Sheflug,
>and a couple of other LUGs, because I know the people here, because
>some of you have answered my questions, and because I like the company
>anyway, even if I can't smell the curry from over here.  What I'm not
>willing to do is take those specific answers and turn them into a FAQ,
>let alone a HOWTO, for people I don't know and whose main concerns
>often leave me completely cold.  I'm mostly concerned about admin
>types, and working on free stuff for them doesn't leave me a lot of
>free time.

fair comment....just hope you keep it up :-)

>It's not clear that having high expectations of "newbies" when they 
>are using an industrial strength OS is unreasonable, any more
>than having higher expectations for lorry drivers than for bicyclists
>is unreasonable.

i think you may be missing one major point here....... linux needs to be used
by the masses to continue to increase it's rate of development. because of this, 
newbies must not be tolerated, but welcomed and encouraged as much as 
possible.

>Certainly, there will be a few dedicated people like yourself writingHOWTOs f
>or the new newbie.  But are you sure that your effort wouldn't
>be better put into putting that knowledge into a script that only Perl
>would ever read?  The Home Users, as you describe them, don't _want_
>to read HOWTOs.  They want things to "just work".

i for one, appreciate the efforts of anyone prepared to make the effort to help
the new linux users. i also believe that they have the forsight to see that the
demand for linux is only going to increase. as it does, more howto's will be
written.... more users will change to linux...... linux will become more
commercial (i wouldn't flinch if i had to part with £100 for a linux distro
.. not that i'm suggesting prices should be increased, i'm only using this
as an example of the quality) the more commercial it becomes, the more people
will be paid to write howto's..........

by the way Martin, the howto's aren't bad at all. just a little daunting for
the first time user i suspect!
  -- 



Thanks,
        Ross
____________________________________________________________________________
                               ros.h [at] virgin.net
                                  Linux rule's
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