What tutorials would people like to see?
 

LiveLinuxHelp.com has started a series of video tutorials. I'd like to find out what specific tutorials people think would be useful, especially for linux-newcomers. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Are distribution specific videos going to be included? Or do you want just general linux things?

Honestly I'm open to anything - just looking for useful topics that a wide range of people could benefit from.

Setting up common programs, especially email apps like Thunderbird or Evolution might be nice. Perhaps videos on using common editors like vim or emacs... granted that might make a long video.

Thunderbird install sounds like it may be worthwhile - aren't most people using webmail these days though?

Perhaps, but setting up Thunderbird to download your mail via POP3 is still an option.

Some rambling ideas:

I think that the idea of concentrating on applications is a good one. They would be common to all distro's. Programs on using Gimp, the OpenOffice Suite or Blender3d, etal, would be useful to users of all distros, even to users of Windows.

If you run a program on say, configuring wireless, doing so in a short segment in response to a user's distro specific question would keep an episode from appearing parochial (in a distro sense).

If you want to have a program on installing from source for example. For some programs there are settings which would be very useful but tend not to be set in a packaged version. Or for some packages, producing a PostScript or PDF version of the documentation would be very useful. The "coreutils" manual comes to mind. New users might be surprised how easy it is to A) Untar an archive B) run "make configure" C) run "make pdf" to produce a print worthy book that contains essential information on the most common commands.

A mixture of topics would keep things fresh. One could be more general on using IM programs for example. Showing off various programs in one episode. Another could concentrate using using Open Office draw.

And of course, doing as you are doing in taking viewers suggestions and questions is also good.

I'm inclined to think videos may not be a great way to go. If somebody has internet, and has mplayer/totem/kaffeine installed and functional it would be great, but I also think many first time installers don't have that level of functionality in their install.

The tutorials are a fine idea, but I think a webpage version with pictures might be better. Granted that still requires internet, which is a big stumbling block for many newbies.

A handheld, "this is how you check for a DHCP address on the terminal, this is how you install ndiswrapper, this is how you install mplayer" might be a better way to go. Once you can establish that everyone reaching your site has the ability to view videos by the tutorials they find there, then videos certainly could work.

Then again, this is all my :twocents: !

Peace,
JimBass

Look at all the other 10 million linux help sites, and the topics most asked on forums like this one.

That should give you a general idea about what people have issues with.

The only video on that site is hosted at youtube? Other help sites are using flash. Not very linuxy but much better resolution. There are also other hosting sites that don't mess up vids quite as badly as youtube.

Is this the long term plan or temporary until this site gets some legs under it?

Not to knock the general idea, which I think is a good one.

Thanks for the great suggestions. The tutorials aren't solely video, but contain step by step instructions as well. The videos are there just to show them what to expect as they go along. An example can be seen here:

I think with the exception of wireless, modern Linux distros are pretty self-explanatory when it comes to getting online.

Installing OpenOffice would definitely be a useful one - I think that will be next.

Until the site actually gets some donations (which isn't very likely judging how it's gone so far), YouTube is the way to go. A long .swf file would be pretty large, and wouldn't make sense to host. I'm inclined to think YouTube is the way to go anyway (that one video already has almost 100 hits on YouTube, which brings people to the site). The quality isn't the best, but you can definitely see what's going on.

How about how to install video codecs on Linux. that seems to be a popular question.

As for OpenOffice.org training videos it's already been done. But you could expand on the existing training videos..
OO.o Training Videos

Think outside the box, man. Users like me want to see new and fresh stuff. I've seen all the installing that I can bare with in Windows, and the move to Linux is fresh and new. Do some cool, difficult but not so difficult stuff like customizing a boot screen. Writing to multiple directories at once. Setting up a proxy, and using one that changes your ip every second that establishes a random ip address out of thousands of different ones without hindering performance *drool*.


These things are all good, some stuff that just shows why Linux is Linux.

What? Are you running from the cops? :p