(0) Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. That's what we're here for. At the same time, though, has the question already been asked? Is your question simply an expression of frustration? Does the question you ask, as you asked it, facilitate the giving of a useful answer? In other words, don't be afraid to ask, and, strive to do a good, thoughtful job of asking.

(1) Skip the self-effacing "I'm so dumb..." bit. You are not! You are learning a strange new environment which is nothing like what you may be used to, but an awful lot of your skills and experience do apply. Learning a new operating-system makes everyone feel "stoo-pid" now and then, but we are all smart human-beings here. Now that you are "here," in search of an answer, focus on the question itself.

[P.S. Sometimes the very process of asking your question, of "stopping and thinking about it," actually helps a great deal in finding the answer for it! It makes you (a) stop, and (b) think. Walking away from the computer, taking a nice walk, sipping a thoughtful glass of brewsie or bubbly or cappucino, can also help.]

(2) Make your "Subject:" line count! There are hundreds of posts and replies each day. People who know the answers you seek want to see it in the Subject.

(3) Be specific... If you see "a message," quote it exactly. If you were doing "something," exactly what was it? Try to trim-down the response so that it includes, verbatim, what you reasonably think may be necessary to understand and diagnose your problem. Responses should also be self-contained and as informative as possible, because they'll be searched-for and read for many years to come.

(4) Allow twenty-four hours for responses, because the people with answers might be asleep, or having their first cup of coffee, or having one more brewskie before the bars close for the night.

(5) Explore other resources available here, such as "search" for previous postings; the "Tutorials" and the "Wiki" sections, the "linuxanswers.com" site, and so-on.

(6) In due time, give back knowledge, by actively participating in these forums. There is a constant progression of people who "flow through" a site like this, and as you gain knowledge, be willing to give it. The high quality of this site's content, and its rapid effectiveness in solving people's Linux questions, comes from the high quality of participation that people give to it. (Thanks!)

damn!!!!

i was looking for some spelling mistakes here to boost up this post high up on top of the list, but unfortunately couldn't find any!
a shame cause this well witten and elegantly written piece of literature would not be misplaced with a high listing on this part of the forum,

can i vote sticky?

I second the sticky.

I agree. Someone should sticky this.

Unfortunately, even if it was made a sticky, it'd probably not be read by many people .

Yeppers. Sticky it up please Tink/Mara/Jeremy etc.

Yes! Stick, er, Sticky it!

I vote sticky
(and keep it at the top by posting )

sadly enough i think you might be right about that, it would probably not be the first post read by most newbie's. but it might give a senior member with 1,207 posts a nice pointer so it would be the first thing a newbie would read after there first (it doesnt work) thread, saving the trouble to spell it out over and over again, just like it was spelled out to me after my first badly asked question.



but till so far its read by 47 people in +- 2 hours (not a bad score)

On the other hand, it might be better as a second post in Tinkster's sticky...

I appreciate that every user who's been here for a while likes
the post (I do, too), but the reality is that a) there's similar
information in the message people get when they sign-up, and b)
it's already being referenced (in terms of pointing at stickies
in Linux-General [which also don't get read]). There's a Linux
answer from XavierP, too.

The sad truth is that most people don't search OR read stickies,
they rather spend (waste?) time learning the ropes by asking.



Cheers,
Tink

True. And I am every bit as guilty as any other newbie. I came here asking dumb questions with dumb subject lines and couldn't figure out how to use search appropriately. Still do! But isn't search turned off for non-registered's during the daytime? I seem to remember that about these forums. New people may stumble in and want to get a feel for how useful a forum is before registering. I've found many dead-end forums over the years. Search is usually the first thing I try to "get a feel for the quality". Maybe I'm remembering wrong about the search-turned-off thing. Of course you have to take into account the CPU-hogging potential of searches before enabling them. How does one balance that with ease of access?

Hopefully new people quickly learn the ropes and return as contributing members, helping others. That seems to be the case usually. I've done a search to help someone who asked a standard newbie question that's been answered 100's of times. And there, in the search results, is ME asking the same question a while back. Oops! How embarassing.

[edit]
I shouldn't have said "dumb questions" above. They're not dumb questions. Slip of the old typing fingers there ... sorry about that!
[/edit]

Good question, did you search in the website questions & suggestions
forum? No, I didn't go look there myself, but then I'm not involved in
the technicalities of LQ. My personal stance would be that if they came
here via a google-search which would provide them with current enough
hits anyway they should have a fair enough idea of whether it's worth-while
signing up or not.... ;}

http://www.despair.com/cluelessness.html

My favourite ;}


Cheers,
Tink

I am noob to linux. What is sticky? I hope I am in the right forum for this question. Seems like just about everyone in these forums have a lot of posts. If I am in the wrong forum, can someone direct me to the right one to just ask general questions, and find out what linux os I should use please. I use Windows ME and have PCLinuxOS on CD that I was able to download and copy. Please let me know if this is a good OS for me at this time.
I do not consider myself an amateur on a computer as I have built my own system, and have constantly screwed up my Windows just to learn. I consider myself a bit of a Windows ME expert, but it is time for me to change to Linux. I know I can't afford to upgrade to XP, and when the new Windows program comes out, I definately can't afford that. I also don't like the fact that Windows is a leased program.
So...since I have already made a long statement out of anger, can someone actually help me with which program I should actually be using? Thanks...
Bill........

A "sticky" is a thread that stays at the top of the list while other
threads "fall down" the list as they age.

I don't know the distro you're talking about, so can't tell you
whether it will be good. I can tell you so much: Linux is *different*
from Windows, every single distro is. Whether it's right for you
depends widely on your intelligence and your will to learn. If you
expect to be "just like Windows, only for free" it may not be the
right OS for you at all... I'm not trying to discourage here, just
to be honest (and stop you from being disappointed).


Cheers,
Tink