My Incomplete "Newbie" Guide

[Presto123]

Hello, I just started a few days ago a basic guide for people I intend to give disks to. In some cases, I wish to get deeper into helping to explain some basic stuff that I ran into when I switched. (I.E.: I honestly didn't realize that I needed to burn my disk as an image. I figured that it would burn correctly using the program I had.)

Especially considering someone's rant in this same thread of a lack of documentation, I know I cannot do it ALL on my own and would like to have a great document that MOST of any previous Windows users would be able to understand. I'm not talking about "this is called a disk", but instead "this is a live disk" as you will read further.

If anyone would like to contribute or suggest some things, that would be absolutely accepted, but I will ignore anything intended to flame my word usage attempting to make my thoughts appear ignorant. I'm sure you all will understand what I mean here.

I hope some of you might enjoy helping me with this. I especially hope some of you with a bit of a humorous side can help, because I believe that this is necessary in order to be effective. Humor will help to offset any boring elements of a decent guide. I also have no problems with you using the guide for your own needs, of course, if it gets to where it is a usable one. ;)

I will post the beginnings of it below this post.

[Presto123]

Okay, cannot post it in here...I realized that it is WAY too big. Here is the file I uploaded to www.orbitfiles.com :

**Removed**See latest posts...l

[p_quarles]

I'll be happy to provide input where and when I can. In the meantime, you might want to look at the following site:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/

There's a lot of good information there, even if it can be a bit much to navigate. Another really good source for information (and much more user-friendly, IMO) is here:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/index

In any case, I like the idea. A lot of tutorials and how-tos tend to be written by people with a fair amount of experience, and this can make it difficult to remember the kinds of questions and confusions they had when they were just starting. You may not be able to do this on your own, as you say, but you have the advantage of being very close to the beginner's experience of a new OS.

Best of luck on this project.

[Presto123]

I'll be happy to provide input where and when I can. In the meantime, you might want to look at the following site:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/

There's a lot of good information there, even if it can be a bit much to navigate. Another really good source for information (and much more user-friendly, IMO) is here:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/index

In any case, I like the idea. A lot of tutorials and how-tos tend to be written by people with a fair amount of experience, and this can make it difficult to remember the kinds of questions and confusions they had when they were just starting. You may not be able to do this on your own, as you say, but you have the advantage of being very close to the beginner's experience of a new OS.

Best of luck on this project.

Thanks...I am intending to write stuff as I go through installs and such. I have had to do some of it to remind myself anyway, and figured it would help others.

[akiratheoni]

I've found the Official Ubuntu Book a great way to get me started. I'm not sure how the community feels about this book, but it sure got me to understand Linux, at least at a basic level. Might want to look at it in a book store or something to get an idea.

[jpittack]

I certainly like your idea of helping out begineers at levels we tend to forget about. I, for one, get very frustrated when my mom asks me how to copy paste. If a beginner has the will to learn, this would be a great idea for them. A final draft that was very nice on the eyes would be a great way to help people out.

I have an idea that I have posted in the cafe already about helping out moderate users. You can check it out if you would like. So far the community does not seem to be going for it, but its only been half a day. Heres the link in hopes that this idea will take off.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=638065

I would say that we need a free-online guide to help users switch from windows to Ubuntu, from downloading the iso to installing in a dual boot manner, beyond to setting up drivers. Great Idea!

[Presto123]

LOL...My father wanted me to install Ubuntu and still can't get the copy/paste thing that makes stuff much easier. Really, it does. I'm sure he will get to liking the OS, but some of this stuff that would really help him seems to confound him as to the purpose.

He is one person that this kind of thing could help, but, wow! I think the best way I can get it without getting overloaded is posting little hints and quick explanations to their benefits will help.

Thanks on that...I'm going to go edit part of my guide to better do this! :):)

Oh, and I will touch on the partitioning bit as well, because I had to learn that since I had to dual boot some stuff. Definitely cannot forget this kind of thing. Especially if you have to do it manually.

One thing is that I found a link that "unlocks" the NTFS hard drive that haunted and ticked me off in Vista until recently. It basically really partitions a piece of the hard drive out so that you can use it...effectively unlocking this piece of the locked partition.

The link: http://unlockforus.blogspot.com/2007/10/unlock-me-partitioning-your-drive-in.html

[zesty]

Best of luck to you. I'm a fairly new Ubuntu user. As a suggestion, I would keep your guide general and simple because it will quickly become outdated if its too specific. I think it'd be great to have a "guide to the guides". A sort of listing of useful guides to help noobs along. There's a ton of info out there but much of it is fragmented, incomplete, or out of date. This forum is the best I've found, but even here, a noob could wind up trying out a suggestion made in a 2005 post that is no longer relevant.

Here's my fragmented contribution:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=634374&highlight=partitioning+guide

[aysiu]

I think it'd be great to have a "guide to the guides". A sort of listing of useful guides to help noobs along. There's a ton of info out there but much of it is fragmented, incomplete, or out of date. Someone is already trying to implement such a thing (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=579726). I hope it does get off the ground.

[Presto123]

Someone is already trying to implement such a thing (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=579726). I hope it does get off the ground.

This is a great idea for the internet! My stuff will be compiled into a hopefully manageable document for offline and online use.

I will have the whole week off next week, so I intend to get some of it done...:)

This would be a great time to actually get everything together...HINT HINT. I would also urge moderators to help me make sure that the document is valid.

[Presto123]

I haven't done much with it, except implement the "Ctrl +" help into the document. It follows below:

(FYI: the other link does not work now since I deleted the file.)

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2348715368.html