LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Russell, Richard (DEH) <rrussell@deh.sa.gov.au>
  To  : ">"'michaeld@senet.com.au'" , David Lloyd , linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:34:07 +0930

RE: DocBook Presentation (perhaps)

> BUT, does LinuxSA want to do some newbie thing for _next_ 
> month considering
> it'll be a couple of days after the installfest?  Just a 
> thought, otherwise
> DocBook would be cool!

I'd like to suggest that from now onwards, we should be expecting an influx
of newbies to the list and to meetings. In particular, the next meeting is
likely to have quite a few newbies with problems. Maybe it would be worth
someone doing a newbie talk -- something about common newbie problems.
Covering:

How to get help
	man pages
	info pages
	ldp
	linuxsa
	Initiative and mailing list etiquette (RTFM!)
	etc

Compiling the kernel
	what's a kernel?
	kernel numbering
	source patches
	configuring
	compiling

Filesystem
	What's a filesystem?
	basics that were skipped last night...

X
	X?
	
installing and upgrading software
	RPMs
	debs
	tarballs
	source

other stuff...

basically, if we could talk about common problems and how to go about fixing
them, we can also mix in a bit of explanation about how things work, and
hopefully people will benefit from this. I would suggest that we try not to
give solutions for all the problems, but instead try to show people how to
find their own solutions...

comments?

rr

PS of course, the other point I wanted to make was that we are going to get
a lot of dumb questions on this list in the coming months. Maybe someone
could put together an FAQ (perhaps plagiarise someone else's) that tells
people how to use the list, and some of the material mentioned above...
Either way, we all need to recognise that these dumb questions are ones that
need to be answered without saying "You #$%$ing moron, RTFM!" or something
like that. Basically, either provide a useful, polite answer, or don't
answer. Whatever you do, don't flame someone for asking the dumb
questions... We are Linux's PR, we are the Helpdesk. Only difference is, we
don't get paid...

PPS And another thing, while I'm in the typing mood... The number of people
who come to InstallFest depends primarily on us as individuals, rather than
any formal publicity. Grab that ASCII add, and send it around your
workplace, other mailing lists, to your friends, etc. Talk to people,
encourage them to register... There's 400 people on this list, and each
person will have some sort of contact with somewhere between 10 and 10,000
people in Adelaide. The impact of talking to someone about InstallFest will
be much greater than letting them hear about it accientally, so get out
there and start recruiting...

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