Thanks jdow;
You have helped somewhat.
On Sun, 2006-16-04 at 16:03 -0700, jdow wrote:
> From: "William Case" <billlinux@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> > Hi;
> >
> > I am moving into a post newbie stage of my Linux experience and I would
> > like to find a friendly mailing list that will happily handle Linux
> > kernel, my operating system questions and an occasional 'C' question.
> > Some questions would be fairly deep others would reveal me as a newbie.
> > Please I am not asking for answers to the above example questions here.
> >
> > I am asking, has anyone on this Fedora list had a good experience with a
> > list that helped newbies move to being a guru? A newru, or perhaps a
> > gubie, list?
> >
> > All suggestions of such lists you might have will be tried.
>
> Lists? I fear you have two choices for those sorts of question, newsgroups,
I have checked out some newsgroups and googled for days. I was hoping I
could find someone who has had a good experience with a site, forum,
newsgroup or mailing list.
> a trip to college for study,
Hate school, too old for school, too stubborn for school and have always
been able to learn much much faster on my own.
> or a lot of Googling coupled with a boatload
> of reading.
I was trying to cut down on the googling, but love reading anything.
> The questions above seem to indicate a lack of some very basic
> knowledge needed before you can ask somewhat more sensible questions.
Don't mistake shortcuts used for an example for stupidity.
> If you understand boolean logic,
Yes, I understand boolean logic -- what I have forgotten I can brush up
on.
> how addresses are parsed
I suspect that that was what I was asking about. I know port numbers
have special designations so that the CPU or other devices know where
they are. (It is more complicated than that but you get the idea)
> , and that there are
> standards organizations such as VESA at work the answers to the first
> question is obvious as are the answers to the next batch.
Thank you, forgot about VESA.
> (The venerable
> old 68000 CPU might help understand the answers to the second batch. It's
> command set was very "regular". It's manuals were relatively easy to
> understand, as well.) And interpreters simply add an execution step and
> remove the linkage step.
It is more complex than that, I am sure.
>
> (Life was easier for bootstrapping yourself in the days of the old Z-80
> or 6502. The Amiga, even, was approachable without much base knowledge.
> Reading some old texts about these machines in depth might help to give
> you a grasp on what is going on inside in some detail.)
>
> {^_^}
Done that kind of thing a couple of years ago.
I really appreciate the time you took to reply.
I know this is not on topic for a Fedora List, but I have googled and
looked at newsgroups, and was hoping someone here could suggest a list
that they had experience with that was both very knowledgeable and
stupidity friendly. I asked here because I had to start somewhere and I
have been following the Fedora (RedHat) list daily for two years now.
For the most part, members seemed helpful and supportive.
I have two manuals on Pentium architecture (both of which
I have read from cover to cover) and I have the Intel Manuals, IA-32
Architecture Software Developer's Manual vol I, II and III as well as
all the data sheets for my motherboard and chipset. I wanted someplace
where I can get help translating the occasional Greek in those manuals
and maybe an explanation now and then why something is done one way
rather than another. It's not just enough to absorb information.
Discussing it clarifies and fixes new things in the mind -- or at least
in mine.
Regards Bill
