and there have to be places where competent people can take relatively trivial questions about how to do this stuff.
I'd hoped that joining this group might be such a place, but on seeing the nature of the postings, would be embarrased to put my questions here.
The list is populated by a very wide range of Linux ability. This is a feature. We can all learn from each other. There is such a variety of new (and rapidly changing) software and hardware that no one can even remotely claim to be proficient with all of it.
The old-codgers are, by and large, friendly to newcomers. That is, you would have to ask an exceedingly lame question to be told off here (like the guy who wanted notepad.exe for his windows 98 machine).
As a general rule of thumb, if you aren't close to the answer within 5 minutes of competent googling, then ask away. We certainly don't want to put newcomers off asking questions, otherwise it might turn in to some elitist linux-experts group. Nobody wants, nor benefits, from that.
Cheers, Carl.
