How to how to

Its' been a long precarious ride on the "other OS" transport, you finally get to Linuxville. You've seen the sights, sampled the food, enjoyed the local color and wondered how does anybody live here. To speak like a native is one thing, to become one is another. I was told by many older immigrants to this country, they listened to Frank Sinatra records because he pronounced every word so that you could understand them. I bet Mr. Sinatra never thought of his music as English tutorials.

There are a lot of great Linux books out there and you could consume them like cramming for exams, but brains require hands on to make it real. Lucky for you the live-CD Linux is freely available. Next is to play with it, curiosity only kills cats if the threat is real. Point-n-click, point-n-click, mouse around, open and close........Once you have relaxed a bit, now you can ask "now what?"

I am as you know the artist type and I have heard how hard it is to use the GIMP, mainly by folks who insist on Photoshop. I open GIMP and gasp, "what is this?" You could explore with point and click but I recommend TUTORIALS, especially video tutorials. To follow along watching and listening to someone using GIMP leads you right into it yourself without a lot of figuring on your part. Knowing how to do one thing gives you boldness to do other things.

I cooked my first pot of rice as a boy. I read the package that said 4 pats of butter. I did not know what a pat was, put in 4 sticks of butter. Mom rescued me, corrected me, instructed me. We froze the messed I made and used it over time. I had to start over but this time everything was clear. Today I can fend for myself if I need to just fine.

I watched a GIMP tutorial yesterday, the person was showing how to use the brushes to put a grunge textured design on a snowboard. I immediately saw how to use the tools and thought what else I could do with this. By the time a book comes out, I already know how to do it, on the reference shelf it goes.

Then there are user groups, forums and blogs about many Linux applications. All resources for you so that you don't feel alone or neglected in your Linux quest. Linux takes a little work but you don't have to know it all to begin. Yeah, Linux takes a little work, no more than learning anything else you don't already know. Some things you'll get right away, some over time.

We are symbiont beings here in Linuxville, (Jedi talk!) a community. It is especially appreciated among Ubuntu users who share in the sentiments of the Ubuntu meaning. Then Linux has always been a community effort.