New User Alert

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: New User Alert
started by: cbagger01

Posted by cbagger01 on May 02 2004,00:58

FYI,

If Damn Small Linux is going to be featured on "The Screen Savers" next week, we should expect two things to happen:

(1) The site may slow down if it gets swamped with visits from new users.

(2) Expect a surge of "First Timer" questions from people. Please be nice to them even though they probably will ask the same question for the 1,541st time.

I suggest referring new users to the "Search" feature if they know the correct "keyword" for their problem. The "Search" button is located at the top of the user forum web page and as long as they are told to choose "SEARCH ALL FORUMS" and Search messages "FROM THE BEGINNING" "or NEWER", they should be in good shape.

Posted by roadie on May 02 2004,03:06

I'm all for helping new people get Linux in any flavor going.
What bites my ass lately is the seemingly greater number of people that apparently don't even try to find out an answer by searching.

I'll help anyone who's willing to help themselves.

roadie

Posted by ke4nt1 on May 02 2004,04:20

In the past month, better than a dozen members of this forum have
offered help, tips, pointers, and suggestions to me in solving
challenges and difficulties with my new DSL experience.

Where last year, I was exploring many different flavors of linux by
simply installing and perusing them, this year has been much more
in-depth as to what goes on "behind the desktop"

DSL has been my focus for several months now. Before this, I had
never even posted in a forum before, much less understand
forum "etiquette" and now obvious things such as "search before
you post" or " post your request in xyz place"

Mostly by patient, courteous members here, and spending
lots of time simply reading the 4000 - 5000 posts availiable, I
have come to appreciate this forum as a valuable resource.

I check here daily now for new posts, answers to my old posts,
and follow older posts that I have contributed to. I learn
something new about DSL every day I return here, and look
forward to "returning the favors" to new members even as
they make the same "fubars" as I did.

I will soon be explore remastering, samba, etc, etc..

And I'll be returning here when I'm up against a bump or two.

Thanks, DSL members

73
ke4nt

Posted by hasty on May 02 2004,06:47

Quote > I learn something new about DSL every day I return here

Exactly. DSL's greatest strength is the quality of these forums.
I would hate to see it go the way of many of the newsgroups which are filled with GAFC, RTFM, STFU etc. etc..

Often newcomers aren't certain what they are looking for. or know the right keywords to search for.
So often with linux the answer is staring you in the face, but you are dealing with information overload and just can't see it.

For example I installed gimp2 and wasted ages trying to get it to run. Read web pages, searched google and found the answer by using an editor on one of the config files suggesting I use gimp-2.0 .
Not exactly intuitive

Posted by clivesay on May 02 2004,12:21

As a beginner 5 months into Linux, a would ask that the guru's be patient with the new people.

If I could give one piece of advise it would be to not make any assumptions when you help someone. "Newbies" are going to take everything you say literally. So make sure you point out every step of a process. It may be tedious, but it will save alot of extra questions. When I was first starting, people gave me answers to questions making assumptions that that I already understood other commands I needed to type or that I needed to edit such and such file. As I saw in a post one time, "explain it to me like I'm a first-grader!"

Fortunately, for these beginners, they will coming to a very helpful community with great people.

Chris