[Wolves] Newbie questions..

[Peter Cannon]

On 29/03/2012 20:46, Ravinder Verma wrote:
>
> > Learning 'What' does 'what' is probably the quickest way,
>
> based on the above statement, what is worth knowing as a beginner? Or 
> is that to vague a question??
>
How to turn the thing on and off probably.
Sit in a corner somewhere away from your machine and think what it is 
you want to do. Do you just want to play some music? Send some emails? 
Write a book? Do you want to set up your own server? Webserver? What 
about a mail Server? Once you decided on that you can build up the 
blocks of what you want to achieve and the skills of how to do it. 
Everyone has heard of the saying "Learn to walk before you try to run" 
the same can be said of Linux. Rather than trying to learn *Everything* 
(Which you never will) get good at specifics.

If Linux has taught me one thing it's to get comfortable doing something 
the easy way before you start trying to do it the hard way. What I mean 
by that is you really should get comfortable with doing things via the 
menus and icons, the graphical user interface GUI before diving into the 
world of CLI and text editors. Most of us here still bare the scars of 
having to do it the hard way from command line, these days there's no 
need with the GUI and wizards.

I'm not even convinced that if you just want to use your Linux box as a 
typical home PC there is anything to learn other than what application 
does what. Most distributions automatically set up your Internet access, 
there are hand holding wizards for networks and shares most people of 
all ages can be using the Internet and email within half an hour or so 
so there's no great mystery only the ones we create ourselves. Ade 
Bradshaw (A former Wolves Lug member) did a post the other day on Google 
Plus stating how he used about six or eight 'commands' on a regular 
basis these was mostly simple things like sudo yum update which can me 
achieved through the GUI updater anyway. Interestingly others started 
posting their bash history (Bash shell = Terminal) and predominantly it 
was around the eight mark for commands used over and over again this 
tells us that on a regular daily basis not that many people use CLI and 
when they do it's for something simple. Obviously if you are a coder 
then it's a different kettle of fish but you're not so that's not important.

> Peter C, what is the difference between a service and an environment?

With the greatest respect if you don't know, forget about CLI till 
you've learnt what the difference is. It's easy enough to find out 
Google --> Search --> What is a Linux service
You'll feel more empowered having found out yourself rather than me or 
another member just telling you. (It's a simple one otherwise I'd tell 
you) :-)
>
> This list of questions just keeps getting bigger... :-)
>
That is because you are trying to run before you can walk.

I am now off to steal a small child's lollipop.