On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:03:59 -0400, William Hooper wrote: > a) The yum.conf contains no "code", and doesn't require the ability to > write "code" to edit it. If you have the ability to type > http://fedora.redhat.com to get Fedora, you have the ability to put a > URL in the yum.conf. All right, so I don't know code from gibberish; I'm not surprised. All I really know is that that file is not in English -- nor any other language I can read. But you're still overestimating me. (Thanks for the compliment.) I can type that on either of two machines, and do a download; but I've had miserable results trying to burn CDs -- and haven't even dared try installing anything straight off the net. The first time I got Fedora, I was sent CDs by an electronic friend. The second time I used ones out of a book I bought. I have yet to get more off the Net than updates in any way to be able to use it. (I had FC1 running, after a lot of help; gave up on it when I got a flat panel monitor; and got it again when that monitor showed up in the list under Main Menu > System Settings > Display.) As for putting a URL into a .conf file : the only editor I know is pico; until I learned about the -w switch (You do call it a switch, don't you?), I couldn't preserve line length, indentation, etc., etc. I learned about -w only by asking dumb questions in places like this. Beforehand, no, I couldn't put a URL into a file -- not so that it would work. > b) Downloading and using a random yum.conf is just as bad as running any > random e-mail attachment on Windows. Well, it was hardly random, having been authored for this list by a regular here. And it works. And hasn't broken anything. >> What would you test?? > > Speed of the repo, that it is reachable, etc. > >> I did use wget once -- with someone walking me through, step by step. > > wget it a very useful tool, and easy to use. Start with "man wget". I did. And despaired. Wget's man page is one of the worst: you have to have an advanced CS degree just to be able to keep your place in it, let alone find anything you can understand. Don't get me wrong: I'm sure such man pages are very useful to many here; but after more time and effort spent on linux than most people I know would dream of, I still can't begin to make any use of most. That's why I label so many of my posts VDQ : Very Dumb Question. I run linux not only because it's not MS, but because I know virtually anything *can* be tweaked to suit the way I use it -- *after* I've learned to use it, if that's within my capability -- and someone online will probably tell me how to do the tweak if I try to find it and don't, or find it and don't understand it. How many languages would anyone here use, if before you learned any you had to be able to compare and contrast the history of Balto-Fennic versus Indo-European grammar and phonology? I can do that -- but I didn't get to the ability by learning it *before* all the languages I know. Man pages are great for those who were present at their creation, and have followed along during their growth -- or so I presume, secondhand -- but many, such as wget, are a barrier and not an aid to the uninstructed. -- Beartooth Autodidact, curmudgeonly codger learning linux Remember I know precious little of what I'm talking about!
