Hi
I am creating a site for Linux newbie's as I am one myself and want to share my experience with Linux so far and write a few guides on how I got certain things working. I really want to help to show people the new world of Linux and how to successfully move away from microsoft. Any ideas you may have would be appreciated or if you can write straight forward guides that would also be great if you would like to get involved in any way and have the experience to really help the site take off please let me know. I have purchased a tld and am willing to get a professional hosting package when the site grows so only reply if you are serious and have the spare time if you want to be a member of the site's team. Any suggestions then?

Well when I first started I had a problem with commands. Like the install commands for rpms, debs etc.

I would definately give a walkthrough for installing software from source, cvs, rpms, etc. It seems a lot of new people to Linux have trouble with that (I know I did). As stated beofre a run down of some commands would be good. Do not forget the "alias" command if you do that. I remember when I was first learning I set aliases for a lot of commands to some DOS ones. Althoguh, that could also be a bad idea. A quick intro to partitioning wouldn't hurt. Install guides are always handy. A link to this forum would also be awesome. Tutorials on how to get xine/mplayer and flash on a computer wold be great. A tutorial for LimeWIre P2P. Teach how to start and stop services that aren't needed (this way the newer people can figure out how to make their machine run faster). I could go on and on. If you need any help with this give me an email. I've done most of the stuff in this list and could write some stuff up for you.

As long as you stay away from plagerism, you could peek at other newbie sites (I'd give some links here but I have the feeling it's better not to), see how are they structured and what they're focused on and that could give you an idea on how to profile your site.

What caps_phisto said is indeed really needed for n00bs. Just one ammendation regarding the install guides: each distro has its own type of installation (both the OS itself and other software as well), so that would result in not just one guide, but several, one for each (major) distro.

So you could categorize the guides on several levels:
-a short (or long ) intro to Linux,
-a few basic commands which will be needed for the next level which could be
-installing the OS, configuring the network connection, setting up the video and sound card
-filesystems in Linux
-usual commands for day-to-day use
-configuring other peripherals
-installing new programs (see the remarks above)
-Linux administration (a bit more advanced commands), including users/groups adding/removing, password changing, permissions, etc.
and last (there are many more but that's what came to my mind right now), but not least
-security: again, like caps_phisto said, using only services you really need, backups, firewalling, periodic checks of the integrity of the system, etc.

Of course, that should be all written in a simple yet useful manner, understandable by the n00bie-n00b, and I think a bit humor won't hurt.

If there's anything I can do to help, mail me.

I had some free time on my hands so I did the same thing. I recommend sticking to a single distribution, seeing as each distribution has their own philosophy on how their distribution works. It can be misleading to someone new following step-by-step instructions for one distribution while trying it on another, get my drift? That and you might want to search this forum for repetitive questions that are being asked, that would give you a good start on what to write. Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject. BTW, what's the address going to be for this site?

I'd put things on it you yourself had trouble with getting right and spent some (or a lot of time) to get it working.

make sure you show how to config the xserver and things, that is confusing as heck

Thanks for the input guy's,
really good suggestions that all newbs seem to have problems with, I'm thinking of a splitting the site into distro specific parts, so, I'm new to Mandrake, SuSe, Slackware, Fedora/Redhat, Gentoo, Debian. I think they are the most popular distro's, also putting up a forum specifically for help to newbie's in step by step plain english "tell it to me like I'm a 2 year old style". Guys who offered me to mail you, thanks and I will be, I want there to be clear consise basic stuff ready before I put the site up and add to it from there. My experience is mainly in mandrake although I have taken a peek at other distro's so if anyone would like to help with guides/atricles for other distro's please let me know here.

Well, there's a bit to be getting on with so I'll crack on with the initial site structure although I doubt anything will be online for a few weeks yet.

Oh, the name for this site will be

www.fatboyslinux.co.uk

keep those ideas coming please...Cheers!

When writing for beginners may I deferentially suggest that thnking the reader knows anything is a big leap.
I am a newbie in the very new sense and I have and am finding Linux very difficult and very intimidating. None of my past experience is any use now. I am totally lost and pretty unhappy.
Reading posts is pretty much a waste of time as the language is alien and for now not comprehensible.
I just mention this as a pointer to how a newbie site might be done. Not on one level that is for sure. There are newbies who are puter programmers, and ones like me who are hard put to click start.
Oh yes and thats another thing... command lines... woah... way to early to frighten me with them... I am scared enough already.
So maybe a three level site? One for utter beginners and then slightly more advanced then further again.
I know this, I am desperate for a true beginners site.

I wish you all the best in your endeavour.

Shen

Shen_1
Yes this site will be aimed at total beginners under the assumption they know absolutely nothing about linux. Other sites can cater for the more advanced user but this one won't. I like Linux and want to try and help bring people over from windows but myself found it difficult finding idiot proof guides. I am a newbie, and that's where this site will differ because I can't baffle with jargon coz I don't know it yet. All I know is over the past few days I have downloaded a lot of distros to test how easy it is to achieve a simple goal with as little knowledge as possible, setting up a linux system that can access the internet, install new hardware easily and be fully useable for a complete beginner within a day with as little trips to the command like as possible. So fat I have gone through Mandrake, fedora, suse, slackware, ubutnu, mephis and arch and am in the process of writing short reviews to each (in some cases very very short) as a newbie's guide to the easiest distro. No doubt experienced users won't like what I have to say about their favourite distro but it's not for them but for complete beginners and they can move up as they go. I would really like another newbie who had the time to do the same so I may offer different opinions in the review, if anyone feels they can do this please please contact me or just post here.