Comments on beginner documentation

[Debee Norling]

Just some random thoughts on reading/accessing documentation:
Because I'm new, I'be been reading everything I can.

Personally, I'm finding older books on Linux more helpful than current ones.

On Bookshare, several very current OReiley books are available, but they
have a greater emphasis on X and GUI tools in general, than earlier books.
RFB&D  for example has an early edition of the classic Getting Started
Guide, by Matt Welch, which is pre-Pentium and hence has lots more technical
detail than the more current version on the LDP. The current version on the
LDP is less useful also because all the screen shots are GIFS.

RFB&D has done about fifteen Linux books. NLS has a Unix for Dummies book
available and of course RFB&D has UNIX books dating back to the seventies.
Books on tape can't be searched but are good to listen to while you do
something else. It is helpful too to hear all the descriptions of the visual
elements of a book.

If you are outside of the U.S. depending on where you live, you might be
able to borrow from NLS or RFB&D through your country's blindness library's
interlibrary loan. Some people tell me this works, and others say it
doesn't, but it's always worth a try.

People who do not live in the U.S.  might not be able to access NLS, RFB&D
or Bookshare.org, but  they can still use sites like archive.org to find
early editions of online Linux books. The Linux cookbook, for example, that
Saqib turned me on to, is available in several earlier editions on
archive.org.

empowermentzone.com Jamal Mazrui's site has text copies of several older
Linux/Unix books. Slackware Linux unleashed has been especially useful to
me.

It looks also like you can search Safari on the Oreilly website without
having to pay for full database use. Undoubtedly, as I get more advanced,
Safari will be even more helpful.

Mailing list archives are great too; beginners surfing around shouldn't
forget about those.

I personally can't sit at my computer reading forever, so I use an FM
transmitter connected to my soundcard so my synthesizer can read to me over
any FM radio.  This way, I can cook, garden and generally putz around while
reading all this documentation. The particular transmitter I use is the
Ramsey FM-10, which must be built from a kit; but I've had it seven years.
Modern, fully built  and very cheap ones are quite plentiful today.

--Debee