What we need is a FAQ

[hazel]

I could have added this to the thread started by Manchunian but I thought I'd start a new one because I have a suggestion to make.

When people keep asking the same questions, the usual solution is to write and publish a FAQ list. We already have one for site use and I found it very useful when I was starting out (believe it or not I'd never posted in a forum before I started posting in this one). But most of our novices are familiar with forums, they know how to make an avatar and all that stuff. What they don't know about is Linux. There is a Linux FAQ available from the Linux Documentation Project but it's more for people who want to know what Linux is; it doesn't deal so much with the sort of practical problems we get here.

So here's my suggestion (and feel free to shoot it down): if someone could supply a list of the most commonly asked questions, I'd be happy to write answers to those I actually know the answers of, and perhaps others could fill in the gaps caused by my ignorance. I know I'm still officially a newbie but I do like writing and I think I'm reasonably good at it.

A FAQ could kill two birds with one stone: we'd all get shot of the repetitive questions, and the shyer newbies who are afraid of asking "silly questions" and getting flamed would have somewhere to look first.

[minthaka]

I have the same thoughts as you. It's surprising, that only a small bunch of problems could hinder people from using Linux.
My topics:
1. Using terminal as regular user and as root
2. Configuring the display
3. Going online
4. File permissions
5. Managing the packages
6. Understanding the man pages
I'll try to write my own too!

[bucky]

I would like to read a good hands on faq's for the terminal...I mostly use the gui but know that many tasks are a few clicks away in the terminal if I knew what to type without fear. many pages list long extensive variables but if I just installed and all I get is a prompt as the xorg config needs some tweaks..How do I do that? or it loads x but it's all messed up? what is at my disposal..I do not need all the complex stuff just some really good always usefull commands..Terminal & keyboard commands for newbies. like ctrl+alt+backspace, vim usage

just a thought

[hazel]

My topics:
1. Using terminal as regular user and as root
2. Configuring the display
3. Going online
4. File permissions
5. Managing the packages
6. Understanding the man pages

OK. I can do 1, 4, 6 and probably 5.

I would like to read a good hands on faq's for the terminal.

Yeah, I could do a quick guide on the commonest commands. In fact I did one once for the Harrow Computer Club and I could pm it to you if you're interested. I don't think it belongs in a faq though. I'm not sure if it's worth writing anything about vim; it has a pretty good online manual.

[Jonathan183]

Just thinking aloud but ... I'm not so sure an FAQ is the answer ... lots of questions are asked which can be cured using information in the tutorial and howto's forum. Maybe what we need is better search facilities, or enter symptoms and find solutions sort of approach.

Providing this sort of structure may also get better questions with the relevant information to get things resolved quickly. Another possibility is to collect some basic data for particular types of problem ... (like the output of fdisk -l, cat /etc/fstab or whatever else is likely to be relevant to deal with a particular issue) so these can be part of the original post.

[bucky]

Hazel.. Yes..I understand

Thanks.. I would be very grateful for anything newbie friendly you are willing to offer via pm as I want to get a start but get mind boggled reading long cli docs. I will seek the vim online guide also thanks

My gentoo project awaits my new found knowledge