[Techtalk] Just a little insight

[Mary Gardiner]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 08:12:14PM -0500, Amanda C. Clift wrote:
> Thought everyone who's been helping me would like to see the course
> outline we got today on what we're supposed to do, and the time frame
> for all of it.  If anyone has any insight on making this a little
> easier, or if they think its impossible, please let me know

OK, the first week thing is good - install, install, install and play.
Linux installs are not too bad these days, I got my first one done in a
day, and that's only because I was trying to get Windows to play nicely
on a dual boot system.

I've done most of Week 2 myself, I got most of it right the first time,
and I didn't know too much about Linux internals at the time, although I
was used to working with bash and the command prompt.  It should be
possible to do in a week. You'll continue finding a lot of helpful stuff
at http://www.linuxdoc.org/

Week 3 includes some stuff I've never done, so I don't know how
reasonable it is. MySQL is a fairly easy install, even if you have to
compile it, but be sure to read and reread the documentation on setting
up permissions!

Check http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Software-Building-HOWTO.html for
building stuff from source. configure scripts are the most common of the
setup scripts that I've seen. Check the Apache and MySQL websites, both
programs have very good documentation.

Take detailed careful notes.
Note:
 * What documentation you used.
 * Exactly what the working command was.
 * What all the options you passed to it were.
 * The order the steps go in.
 * The config files you had to change.
 * What you changed in those config files.

Once the install works, take those instructions to a different box and
do it all over again from the instructions to check you got them right.

It'll be useful for this test you've been promised.

One last thing, you'll learn very soon that there are no Microsoft
products for Linux, basically. A lot of us here use Linux all the time
(I use Windows for games, but not everyone games), not just on our
servers, but also on our desktops. Those people have no access to
Microsoft tools, including Microsoft Word, and they will have difficulty
reading anything you post to the list in Word format. It will also get
embedded in the middle of the digests as MIME encoded lumps of text
(well, I think so, Mailman *may* be more intelligent), and a lot of
people are subscribed to the digests.

Plain text, on the other hand, can be read by everyone :)

-Mary.