I have noticed and frankly goteen sck and tired of all of theswe newbies not searching the forums befor they post a duel booting question or searchi the lq forums or the forums or wiki(s) for their distribution)s of choice.

ubuntu

Ubuntu Irc Channel #freenode

fedora

centos

slackware-irc channel
irc.freenode.net #slackware
arc


Mepis


Would a moderator please be kind enough to move this post to the linux newbie thread and sticky it.

BTW If any one knows of has another distrbution for the liste fell free to pm or even better yet email me at linuxquestions@mac.com and i will make the nesscery amendments to the above listing, wikis and irc channels are also welcome.

Thank you you local open minded bird of prey,

Linux_Hawk

In is inherent in being a newbie that a newbie will not use linuxquestions efficiently. When a newbie asks a frequently asked question you can solve both his problem and the efficiency problem by replying with a link to the correct answer. That gives him the answer and shows him where he can find the answers to his future questions.

There is one caveat when you do this. Don't browbeat the newbie with statements like, "You could have found the answer yourself using Google." Most people are annoyed by such statements because they border on RTFM.

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Steve Stites

ditto with just dumping the link on them.

Is, "I think you'll find the answer on this website" too browbeating?

TG

I agree, that's fine.

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Steve Stites

the main problem for a newbie is they think (sometimes) that it the end of the their world unless someone solves all of their problems.

when it occurs, you run the risk of being their godfather.......oh my gawd you are soooooo great dude.

I wish they would see how ms treats them .....in australia....they will firstly tell you to go to the OEM...then register and pay da money.

Me thinks that because a number of distros are GPL that all users have to offer free advice and correct advice at that.

aussies have almost reached US parity so thats my US 2 cents worth.

First if all the problems were searched out and only 'new' problems were posted there would only be six or seven new threads a day and there would be a lot less members. When I decided to multiboot distros I had a hard time of understanding how to bring the menu.lst and edit it with vi editor. A member finally realized my problem and gave me a step by step. Now if you look back through all the searches I think my thread is the only one and I do not think it is listed any more. I think most of the newbies do read articles but do not understand everything they are told so are too embarrassed to admit it. I agree that if they do not take some effort (which you can usually tell after a couple of posts) then its time to back off. Maybe someone else can help them. The main thing is try and understand that some of us have a slow learning curve and all were newbies at one time or another.

This thread reminds me of some others related to it and there was a lot of them.
What the original question and comments of OP comes down to is "use search engine".Well,there are many reasons why that advice isn't always the best advice.We all must take in consideration that usually what people want is simple solution and to get one as soon as it is possible.To achive that goal posters in the forums are starting their threads in hope that it will come thrue,instead of searching for a solution and reading who knows how many online pages with(often)unnecessary,boring,time wasting and confusing tutorials,articles,howtos etc.Someone who knows how and wants to help will reply and that's it to it.Isn't that the essence of forums anyway?If sometimes a link is necessary,I have nothing against that.
So,here we are,to make things easier for all of us,right?I belive that's in the spirit of LQ and that we should keep it that way.
Also,this sentence from jailbait really speaks for itself;

We must also keep in mind that no search engine is perfect, and the 'newbie' might not always know exactly what to search for. So, when one receives 20,000+ results and the first 3 or 4 don't even apply to their problem, are they expected to continue down the list until they find one that does? Or try different search engines? Or reword their problem over and over? If so, then why are we here at all?

Just my

Cheers

yes dragonslayer and that may indicate a kind of meno paradox....to get the fewest hits that match their issue

To put into a search engine the correct term say "blacklist module x" "interrupt conflict" .... I have deliberately made these up .....presumes the newbie knows what is wrong....be it hardware...bios (which I consider separate) or software

as I get uglier um I mean older....I might copy and paste the error messages into the search engine. The same argument works for searching for tags.

Again, I think we sometimes miss the point that newbies to Linux may have searching skills so we rarely see those questions being asked....meno paradox was solved by searching for the correct term. So when they do ask, often saying they have searched for x, maybe, we shoud compliment them more?

It reminds me of the lies politicians in UK and Australia exhibit...."I thank the member of anthill for his question"....its a white lie but makes the question poser feel chuffed.

I don't know if complimenting is necessary. But when the OP says "I searched for problem x with no results", I do a search myself, politely copy and paste the most relevant solution, and add a link to the page. If it's too exasperating to help the newbie politely, then how does one find time/energy to be impolite or complain about their question?

Cheers