Hi Jayne and other newcomers, I would add to what's been said:
If you *do* get a "brassed off" reply, shrug it off. Some people get brassed off too easily and it's not your fault. Also, some people are geeks (like me) and forget to soften our replies for non-geeks/sensitive-types. For specific problems, please state: 1. Distro and version (eg Mandrake 10.0) 2. Application and version (eg OpenOffice.org 1.1.0) - optional, only if your question is about a specific application. 3. Hardware make and model if it's a hardware question 4. the output of any command that a "guru" asks you to try. eg, if you have trouble with a serial port, a "guru" might ask you to type: dmesg | grep tty at the command line a post results. 5. What you have tried so far. 6. As concise a description of the problem as possible. If someone asks a question and you think you know the answer, don't be shy - share it. Even newbies can help other newbies (I'm still a relative newbie and I've been using linux as my main OS since about 1998). If you have an opinion, again, don't be shy. Some of the debates on this list could probably benefit from a newbie's perspective. We do have some lively discussions. If you just want to lurk, that's also fine. Yuri
