Steve Friis wrote:
> Thad Floryan wrote:
[snip]
>> More people should read:
>>
>> <http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
>>
>> so that relevant info is in the first post for help (thus not requiring
>> eleventy-seven back-and-forths to simply determine which distro and
>> hardware in involved).
>>
>> :-)
>>
> That would be great for you geeks :-) Who have been using Linux for
> years. For some of us, this is a whole new world. Where do we begin?
> Even the names were changed to confuse us innocent. I wish I had a
> command of just the language you people use.
>

I think the names have been around since 1969 or so. I've been using
Linux since 1995 and find Wikipedia extremely helpful, but I still
embarrass myself. I'm just an old man that likes to own the things
he breaks -- far from a geek.

> I am what you would call a feeble desktop exploiter. I use Linux because
> I hate the way Windows treated me when I had to reload it and couldn't
> find the correct license. At the time, we had 5 Windows XP computers.
> Now we have none.
>

You takes the King's shillings, you live by the King's rules.

> I am willing to put up with a lot, but there are a great many here who
> you guys scare off because you demand us to start with the correct
> terminology.

No one has ever flamed me for using the wrong word, though I've been
gently corrected now and then. If you are having severe problems
with terminology, read the RUTE like I did. Look up the HOW_TOs that
come with your distro with Wikipedia open in another window. Take
the time to google the specs on your machine if you can't open the
case and copy down numbers off of chips.

I had a problem setting up my home network. I knew nothing about
networking. Still know very little. But, before coming to the list,
I started with a google on "home network" and branched out. I was
still pretty ignorant, but the list was kind and helpful. At least
I knew some of the basics when they answered.

Would you go to a restaurant in a foreign land and complain because
their menus weren't in your native tongue and they demanded you
order your meal in theirs?

Had you read the referenced link thoroughly, you would have known
not to insult the experts you depend on with your first paragraph,
and realized that the second paragraph (though nice to know) is
irrelevant. The third paragraph, you would have re-worded to read
I've tried to read "this" and "that" but there are too many
words that I don't understand, such as ...list... Can
someone point me to a newbie's introduction?
Then I would have replied
RUTE at http://members.toast.net/art.ross/rute/
Intro at http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/intro-linux.html
and may have taken the time to Google a few more.

I believe the first thing any newbie has to realize is that
Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Slackware, SuSE, and others are quite
different from each other. From what I've recently read, one
version of Fedora is just as different from another as it is
from Slackware. Though I can read minds, I'm very new at it and
my distance is limited to just a few inches. I need the common
words used by the geeks to understand the questions, if I'm to
offer anything useful. And, the more detail about your machine,
distro, and symptoms, the better I can answer.

/herbc