RE: [gentoo-doc] DRobbins 2007.0 review

[Ted Kosan]

Chad wrote:

> I just finished my undergrad. About two years ago I took up Gentoo as a
> student on my own and the handbook was the best linux doc I'd ever seen at
> that point.  My first hand experience helping classmates is similar to yours
> however. There is a huge gap to be bridged for windows / mac / gnome / kde
> users to get into gentoo.  Huge like, what's a kernel and why should I
> configure it, or the fact that tar.bz2 is a compressed file tree, not an
> executable install file ala windows setup.exe.  I seriously had a classmate
> ask me half way through the semester of my operating systems course how to
> change the current directory.  He never used DOS growing up, like most kids
> my age.
>
> Things like chroot, tar and symbolic links are demonstrated but their
> practical application is not well explained.  Do you annoy the savvy or help
> the newbies?

My position is that the Handbook is well suited for the savvy and that Linux
newbies need their own, separate document that is specifically designed to meet
their needs.  Listed below are most of the pieces of information that I found
newbies needed more help with while installing Gentoo.  The document I created
explains each of these topics and I found that ( in most cases ) this is all
that needs to be done to help newbies bridge the gap between
windows/mac/gnome/kde and the Gentoo Handbook.

Thanks :-)

Ted


- What is GNU?
- What are the main parts of an operating system and what does each part do?
- What is a GNU/Linux distribution?
- What is VMware?
- What is a .iso file?
- What does the ifconfig program do?
- What does the ping command do?
- What is a file?
- What is a filesystem?
- What is a hierarchal filesystem?
- What is a directory?
- What does the cd command do?
- What does the pwd command do?
- What does the ls command do?
- What does the -l option do when passed to the ls command?
- What is a symbolic link?
- In an ls long listing, how does one know which entries are files, directories
and links?
- What is the purpose of the /mnt directory?
- What is a path?
- What is a path separator?
- What is contained in the /bin directory?
- What does the "more" command do?
- What does a "pipe" do and what is its symbol?
- What does the -a option do when passed to the ls command?
- What is the purpose of the /proc directory?
- What is the purpose of the /etc directory?
- What is the purpose of the /home directory?
- What is abstraction and why is it useful?
- What is an interface and how is an interface related to abstraction?
- What is a block device?
- What is a character device?
- What is the purpose of the /dev directory?
- What does partitioning a hard drive do to it?
- What did we use the hda1 partition for?
- What did we use the hda2 partition for?
- What did we use the hda3 partition for?
- What is a hard drive cylinder?
- What "type code" is given to Linux partitions?
- What is the main difference between the Ext2 filesystem and the Ext3
filesystem?
- What command is used to place the Ext2 filesystem on a partition?
- What is the purpose of a swap partition?
- Where did we mount the /dev/hda3 partition in the CD's directory hierarchy?
- Where did we mount the /dev/hda1 partition in the CD's directory hierarchy?
- What command is used to set the motherboard's clock chip?
- What does the .tar file extension mean?
- What does the .bz2 file extension mean?
- What does it mean when a file has a .tar.bz2 extension?
- What does the wget command do?
- What is a message digest?
- What command did we use to determine the MD5 message digest for a file.
- Why are message digests used with large download files on the Internet?
- What is contained in a Gentoo stage3 file?
- What does the tar command's 'j' option mean?
- What is the portage tree?
- Where is the portage tree in the directory hierarchy?
- List 3 packages that are in the games-mud category in the portage tree.
- What is the difference between the / top-level root directory and the /root
directory?
- What does the chroot command do?
- What does DHCP do?
- How can you tell how long your computer has been running?
- What is a dumb terminal and why are they called 'dumb'?
- What is a teletype?
- What is a shell?
- What is a terminal emulator and why were they invented?
- How do you switch between virtual terminals in Gentoo linux?
- What is a shell environment variable?
- Which environment variable holds the command line prompt configuration?
- Which command is used to change a shell's environment variables?
- What keys need to be pressed to save a file in the nano text editor?
- What keys need to be pressed to exit the nano text editor?
- If you are on a Linux system, and you want to obtain information about what a
command does, how can you do this from the command line?
- What is ASCII?
- What is the decimal ASCII number for a capital letter 'A'?
- What are USE flags used for?
- What does the 'less' command do that the 'more' command cannot do?
- What 2 files contain descriptions of the USE flags and where are these files
located in the directory hierarchy?
- Into which file are USE flags placed so that they can be seen by portage?
- Which directory holds the timezone information for all of the world's
timezones?
- Which package was emerged that contained the Linux source code?
- What command runs the kernel configuration utility program?
- What does the lspci command do?
- What is a kernel module?
- What is the difference between arrow braces <> and square braces [] in the
menuconfig program?
- In the menuconfig program, how does one exit from the current menu?
- What effect does placing a period in front of a filename have?
- What is the filename of the file that the menuconfig program saves the kernel
configuration in?
- When the kernel is compiled, what is the name of the file that is created and
where is it located?
- What is the purpose of the fstab file?
- What is a system service?
- What does the syslog-ng service do?
- What is grub?
- What command creates a user account?
- What is the command that sets a password?
<end>
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