Documentation for Newbies (was: win and linux)

[Joe Bouchard <jpb@cybertours.com>]

On Sat, Apr 08, 2000 at 03:43:22PM +0300, Serkan ?nci wrote:
> hi,
> 
> I'm too new for linux and loaded to my computer linux yesterday. However I want to use my old O.S.(windows 95) too but now I can only use linux. How can I use linux and windows together. I have got some documnets but I coludn't find any satisfactory answer. I added something to lilo.conf but there is no change. I know this question is very simple for you but any solution or reference to a document will be very good for me...

/* answer this specific question */

When you change lilo.conf, you must run the program /sbin/lilo to take
the changes you made and write them to the boot sector.  You didn't say
if you did that, but if not, that is probably your problem.

/* begin newbie documentation lesson */

As a linux newbie, you may not realize it, but the answer to 90% of all
your questions is already on your computer.  Seriously.  The only only
answers that aren't there are the brand new ones (like what driver do I
use for some card which just came out last month).  Lilo has been around
as long as linux, and the rules for lilo don't change much.
Furthermore, you probably got the documentation for the version of
software you installed, so you may have better documentation than anyone
else.  Therefore you should really get in the habit of looking for this
stuff yourself.  Personally, I feel a great deal of pride in finding my
own answers.  This is pretty arbitrary, but I figure if I have read
documentation for at least 4 hours and I still can't find an answer,
then it's time to post a question.

Places to look:
- cd /usr/doc and do an "ls".  Wow, look at it all.  There is a
  directory for almost each package you installed.  Usually, this is a
  very good place to look, but now always.  Some distributions (I'm on
  Debian Slink) use a different location than /usr/doc.

- the "man" pages.  There are millions of them. If you think there is a
  man page out there but can't find it, try "man -k <keyword>".

- the "info" pages.  There are a lot of these too.  The info program is
  a browser of sorts.

- There are "HOWTO" and "MINI-HOWTO" documents all over the place. Some
  documentation is stored in html files.  Locate will help you find them.

- "locate" - On windows you have the ability to "find files".  You can
  do that on linux too.  In both cases it scans the entire disk, and
  takes a few seconds.  On linux, though, there is a scheduled cron job
  that runs (usually in middle of the night) which scans the entire disk
  and makes a "locate database".  At that point you can type "locate
  lilo" and it will show you all the files with the phrase "lilo" in them.
  It's case sensitive, so try "locate lilo Lilo LILO", and in my case it
  shows a nice file called /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini/Multiboot-with-LILO.gz
  which I can view with "zmore /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini/Multiboot-with-LILO.gz"
  The job that runs at night is called "updatedb".  If you try locate
  and just get some error message, then it's because updatedb hasn't run
  yet on your new system.  Run "updatedb" as root (it takes a few
  minutes) and then locate should work fine.

- Buy a decent book.  This simple statement can spark many hours of
  debate regarding which books are best, but I won't go there today.

- Poke around at http://www.debian.org  There is documentation out there
  also.  Typically it's the same stuff that is on your disk but it's
  worth a shot.

- Web search.  I like http://www.google.com (no need to start a debate
  here either), and you will find more documents and lessons learned.

Hope that helps.  I'm sure other people have other sources of
information.

-- 

Thank you,
Joe Bouchard

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