I am very interested in this aspect of things. I do not come from the Computer world, I actually have a degree in Geography with my Computer Knowledge coming from GIS (Geographic Information Systems). I taught myself DOS and Windows, because in part, they were really simple. I have this job, because I have a knack for getting computers to do what I want them to do. I do want to learn Linux, but I'm restricted by my lack of knowledge on Perl (which you all use a lot of) and command line Unix. I will be coming from a strictly boxed version and reading the setup instructions and installing the GUI's because that is where my confort level is. In the meantime I am reading a text my husband got me, Linux Unleashed. Perhaps I will keep a journal of my encounters. I also intend to put a partition for that on my desktop to play around with StarOffice and some other stuff, because if Linux gains more users on the Desktop those are the things that are going to require the most assitance and that users are going to be using the most. Sorry to go on like this, but I wanted you to have some perspective on where I'm coming from when I start asking the "dumb" questions. ;) Oh and go ahead and call me a "Newbie" my husband does. -----Original Message----- From: Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom [mailto:chrome at real-time.com] Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 10:11 PM To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org Subject: Re: [TCLUG] Contributing to Open Source On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 09:05:09AM -0600, Jesse Erdmann wrote: > Last night at the beer meeting there was a fairly good discussion about > how non-programmers could contribute to Open Source. Most of the > discussion centered around doc writing and the like. > > Here is yet another way I found posted on The Register this morning: > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23245.html that's actually a pretty good thought. I know I'm definitely in the category of 'admin who lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes in xterms'. It continues to amaze me, the things I find when I actually sit down in front of a box that's running Gnome or KDE. I'm going to try to introduce my girlfriend to Linux (she's going to have to know it, if she uses the computers at my house); but I've been despairing about how to do it. as anyone who works with me knows, I run very minimal desktop environments; which are kind of simple, even for most linux users. (lots of monitors, full of xterms and the occasional web browser, and not much else. no panels, taskbars, or icons.) I really wanted to bring her to the Installfest Saturday, so she can take a look at the different desktop environments people have; and see which one she likes. unfortunately, she has to work that day. :( guess I'm going to have to learn how to set up Gnome... without that GDM russian-roulette buisness. (yeah, it looks all pretty... until something breaks and you have to bludgeon it to death before you can properly work on your X configuration). Carl Soderstrom. -- Network Engineer Real-Time Enterprises (952) 943-8700 _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list