[SWLUG] Newbie alert!

[steve at nexusuk.org]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005, Plod wrote:

> into Linux.  The difficulty is that I have absolutely no computer literacy
> beyond my status as a user.  Probably 70% of the postings on here sail right

I for one would be very interested to hear, from the "know nothing" point 
of view, what problems you had - those of us who have been using Linux for 
some time don't really notice the potential problems that a newbie would 
have and usually see the modern GUI tools as pretty intuitive so I think 
the views of someone who is not computer literate, but has had to work 
through the current tools, would be enlightening.

> over my head.  I have read and reread loads of how to Linux books, googled
> until I am blue in the face, and still am bamboozled.

Google is a strange one - some times the answer you're looking for pops 
right up immediately and other times you can google for hours (and then 
someone else will come along and type in a slightly different phrase into 
google and the answer is right there :)

> Would the group consider a "tutored installation and set up" day somewhere.

I think if you're going to do a "tutored install" day you want to know 
_what_ you want to set up in advance (i.e. what distributions you want to 
install, what you want to use them for, what services you want to 
configure, etc.).  Also, from a learning perspective, you learn more if 
you do the install and setup yourself with the experts there to lend a 
hand if/when it all goes wrong :).

> not even know how to "explore" my folders and files, ( a la Windows
> Explorer.)

I'm afraid I can't help you there - I've always found the command-line far 
quicker and easier than a graphical file manager.

> For some reason my machine calls itself "cpc2-cdif6-4-0-cust... Etc"  How do

Not sure what to do in the GUI, but the host name is stored in 
the "HOSTNAME" variable in /etc/sysconfig/network under Fedora (and so 
probably the same under Mandrake) - sounds like you don't have one set so 
it's using DNS to set one itself.

> I change that?  Also I have to reboot the machine every morning as I wake to
> find that all of the RAM is in use, apparently by Nautilus, but when I try
> and run Nautilus nothing happens.  ER?

Don't get me started on Nautilus - it seemed quite memory hungry when I 
last looked (but I gather it has improved now).  That said, how are you 
checking that "all the RAM is in use"?  If you're just looking at the free 
memory in "top" or something then that would explain it since Linux will 
use your free memory to speed things up (by caching data) so most will 
always appear to be in use - the kernel relinquishes such memory as other 
programs ask for it so nothing to worry about.

Also, you need to be careful at determining how much memory a process it 
using.  In "top" there are 2 columns - RSS and SIZE.  RSS is the amount of 
real memory in use, SIZE is the amount of virtual memory.  The thing to be 
careful of is that both RSS and SIZE will include memory that's being 
shared with other processes and more importantly, SIZE can include the 
contents of open files on the disk, etc.  so often, when you're looking at 
the amount of memory a process is using, you're often including things 
which you wouldn't necessarilly usually consider "memory".

> there to give the lessons.  Bottom line is that I want to use Linux for more
> than I do at present but I lack the basic knowledge and confidence to start
> messing with it.  When I started in windows I had a couple of friends that

If you have a spare computer, so you're not using it as your main machine, 
this is beneficial - because you can use it as a "disposable" system. 
I.e. not fear destroying it because if you break it you just have to 
reinstall.

-- 

  - Steve    XMPP/Jabber: steve at nexusuk.org    Web: http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence