[lug] Re: newbie how-to's

[Michael Deck]

At 02:35 PM 2/10/00 -0700, you wrote:
>On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, bill ehlert wrote:
>
> > **  yes indeed  --  but basic system config and
> >     basic system admin first, please  --  that way
> >     we can make better sense of samba and apache,
> >     i'm guessing.
>
>The problem with most of these requests is that system configuration in
>the Linux world is an almost limitless topic.  I've been configuring my
>systems for over 6 years, and still am not done.  This also seems to be a
>bit of a moving target.  If you've got a specific topic that you think
>would be helpful let use know.

Amen to that. Sysadmin is like a gas -- it expands without limit to fill 
available space. One kind of interesting talk might be from someone who's 
done some consulting in this field and could put together a Top Ten list of 
SysAdmin gotchas: what were the most frequent problems he/she has seen when 
helping new Linux users? My guess is that list would include

* Basic TCP/IP network setup including hosts, networks, ifconfig, routing
* Dialed vs. networked access, e.g. PPP
* Basic Apache configuration and setup
* Basic SAMBA configuration and setup
* Network security esp. Firewalls and masquerading

I personally encountered these issues in about this order :) Maybe a list 
like this would guide the newbie-howto direction a little more than just 
"sysadmin topics, please"?

-Mike

Michael Deck
Cleanroom Software Engineering, Inc.