Complete noob...

[STeve Andre']

On Sunday 06 August 2006 17:52, George Goodman wrote:
> Ok, so I'm a complete noob, but not a fool (I hope)... Can anyone help
> me find some decent HELPFUL documentation for a new OBSD user?
>
> Sure I have read most of the stuff on the OBSD site... took me 18
> hours, have got the animal installed and running, no errors, now I
> need to know how to use it. Seems to me all the docs are written by
> experts who assume too much.
>
> Here are a few examples of problems I am having, may sound stupid, but
> believe me I have spent hours on trying to get answers from the web
> and I am quite frustrated:
[snip]

As someone else has said, Google is a great resource for things.  Try
things like "openbsd subject" (where subject is what you are puzzled
about), and you might find what you're looking for.

But first there is the question of how much of the unix like world
you know of already.  If you are coming from Windows then no amount
of the man pages are going to be enough--you need to get a handle on
some unix basics first.  You don't *have* to; you can bumble about
and teach yourself from ground zero but this isn't for everyone--that
you said you are frustrated suggests that perhaps a class at a local
community college would help out.

Thats why Google is such a neat tool: chances are that if you were
confused about something, someone else was too, and wrote about
their experiences.  Take note of how old the pages are however.
OpenBSD is a moving target with a new release coming out every
six months, so what was right in version 3.3 might not be so right
for 3.9.

The dmoz.org project has an OpenBSD section, that might help 
out, as well.

Lastly, as good as the OpenBSD man pages are, they aren't perfect.
Keep track of what you think are errors--chances are at this stage
of your learning that what you think is a mistake isn't, but errors
do exist and the man pages evolve just as much as the code does.

I hope this helps, somewhat.

--STeve Andre'