I have always been interested in computers, and would find myself hanging out with the Computer Science students instead of the Aviation Management or Business Management students I was a part of. At home and at work I have been largely self-teaching myself using computers starting with Excel and Access with VBA through ASP and SQL at work. Thankfully my current employer values education, and so I have been taking classes and not only learning the technology, but un-learning what I have been doing wrong over the years. At home, though, I have been teaching myself Linux, system administration, networking and the overall method of migrating our system from Windows to Linux. I am involved in the Danbury Area Computer Society (DACS.org) I have the opportunity to take what I've learned the hard way and hopefully help others.. I have been enjoying Open Source for a while now, and I am hoping to get a better understanding of the entire model and application.
Authored Comments
On a much smaller scale, a friend of mine mentored me without really thinking of it this way. He knew Linux so when I was getting into it his help and encouragement helped me poke, prod, break and learn. It's what got me started with Linux around 2003. Now, I find him coming to me asking questions, updates and suggestions.
It try to do the same for other people getting into Linux.
I agree that the question of where to start in a project is a big one. The idea of joining and being involved in an open source project seems like an Herculean task!
Having a guide into not only the technical aspect of how and where to contribute, but even the social aspect and understanding the work flow and expectations which cannot be learned from a Wiki page, seems daunting.
An important piece is making the connection. Finding the Mentor and finding somebody to Mentor.
I've been curious about the course, just haven't been able to carve out the time yet so I am glad to get a "sneak peek" into the course coverage and initial input.
I think your issues illustrates the tough road of getting people started with Linux; appealing to everybody's experience level, interest and capabilities. Some people need to really ease into it, while others are ready to jump in and start breaking things (-er, I mean explore the system ;) ).
Apple, Microsoft and Linux all work great at what the designers had developed for. Once you go out of this "pre-planned" arena is when things can get sticky. The wonderful thing is that Linux has a very low bar to entry; easy access, numerous resources and better documentation.
I find Ubuntu handy to get people's feet wet because it puts the focus on learning the bits "under the hood" rather than getting discouraged trying to get a working and usable system. Sometimes getting system working from "scratch" can require further knowledge of Linux to understand what is going on (or what needs to be done).
I've also had people asking for help when running openSUSE or Fedora, to which I am glad that in the command line, they all look and act the same (with minor variations). These people, I usually find, are more tech-savvy but not necessarily developers.
Without having used Crouton in years, I wonder if running it on your Chromebook added unecessary complexity compared to installing on a basic Intel/AMD based system.
I actually did not get into Linux until after going to an unrelated class that ran the mainframe programs in a terminal on Red Hat Linux. Having the chance to use it did wonders in giving me the confidence to give Linux a go.