[H-GEN] re the earlier discussion on assisting beginners/migrants

[Russell Stuart]

On Mon, 2009-02-09 at 12:25 +1000, Peter Robinson wrote:
> Hard to say - I have just pointed them in the "right direction" and let 
> them at it. My course uses Python (and IDLE) and so is OS independent. 
> In some (3rd year??) courses students are exposed to Unix.
> I think it should be a "general intro".
> 
> Thoughts (in no particular order):
> 
> 1. downloading packages - e.g. synaptic (and update manager)
> 2. su (root) discipline
> 3. using xterm and basic commands like cd, ls
> 4. man, info
> 5. use of some text editor - e.g. vi, emacs, gedit or whatever - emacs 
> might be a bit hard and vi might be a bit strange for those used to MS 
> editors. It seems lots of sites that provide fixes for things tend to 
> use gedit to edit files.
> 6. gnome v KDE v ...
> 7. pointers to sites to help with problems - and being able to google - 
> e.g. ubuntu ibex ATI
> 8. firefox, thunderbird
> 9. tar, zip (useful for student assignments)
> 10. document construction - ooffice, latex???
> 11. xorg.conf
> 12. compiz???

That is a fantastic list!  There are many talks just
in there, and many of the existing attendees at Humbug
could cover at least one of them.  It would not even
be too hard to do, because it is sooo easy to cheat -
just gather a couple of existing tutorials/talks on
a the given topic, and mash em up.

What we need now is a Talks Maintainer who:
  1.  Has a track record in getting things done.
  2.  Knows how to deliver a good talk.
  3.  Actually exists.
I nominate Clinton.