[Cialug] Back to Linux Basics Series

[Matt Stanton]

After all the discussion I had something hit me, especially after the "muscle memory" knowledge comments, so I went back to look at the Google doc outline and didn't see the topic.

How about a presentation on "Getting Help"?  Obviously all Linux users are nuts, so I'm not talking about that, but there are a lot of different place that help can be found that a Windows user might not be used to.  Windows users can Google about anything and find it, but they don't have a "community", really, because Windows isn't a community-driven OS.

Linux has separate communities surrounding every aspect of it.  You can find help on Google, like everything else in the world, but a lot of people don't know about IRC.  There are also specific websites that many of us probably go for help on a variety of topics that might be better to check than just googling and hoping the answer is in the first few hits.  One such site for me is the Arch wiki.  Even if I'm trying to figure out how to do something on Ubuntu, I'll go to the Arch wiki for help because they cover all the stuff that is being done for you in the background by Ubuntu's package manager.  There are also forums for every FOSS project, and it might be best to go straight to the source if you want to find help.  Ubuntu's forums are very active if you need help with that distro and Google doesn't enlighten you.

Maybe it doesn't need a whole presentation, but maybe it does, too.  I wonder what the average Linux newb knows about where to go for help.  I search for forums and IRC channels by default, but is the same true for someone who has no experience with the community-driven aspect of Linux?

-- Matt (N0BOX)

Sent from my ASUS Transformer

-----Original Message-----
From: kristau <kristau at gmail.com>
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>
Sent: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 10:47 AM
Subject: [Cialug] Back to Linux Basics Series

Here's a little Google Doc I cooked up for this. Comments, criticisms,
cajolery are all welcome!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pAIg_SLojziUYyc8p52ozgiW34Jvv1__8UwQh4YpLhU/edit?usp=sharing


-- 
Tired programmer
Coding late into the night
The core dump follows
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