I guess it would have been around 9 months ago. I think the most annoying thing was that whenever i asked, people said "keep trying" - and im like "keep trying what, people. I have no idea what im doing"
I do agree that Linux is really really good. I really like the feel of it, and enjoy using it. Its very fast compared, but dont you think that because of all the distro's, its pretty complicated to get an answer because most people use different ones?
It can be - I learned a lot in how to use google to find relevant search results, as well as where to go for accurate answers. Each distro has its best resources. That takes a bit of time and makes things a lot easier once things start to click.
Generally, answers apply across distros - they tend to vary most around package installation - this depends on your package manager and the base your system is built with - portage, debian, rpm. That is what differentiates distros more than anything. Any distro that uses the same base is going to be pretty similar in the questions and problems your most likely to encounter.
The Ubuntu forums are SO high traffic, and theres so many new clueless users (I was one not long ago), I found I had to do a lot more sifting thru good/bad answers with Ubuntu - but there are good answers there and they commonly show up in google.
For Gentoo, the gentoo handbook is extremely helpful - its very very detailed and if you follow it, you will end up with a working system, and learn a lot about how things work... Then you can do it again since you understand things better and can see how you would improve things. Rinse, wash, repeat and you see a lot of progress in how well your system runs, and how customized it is - Gentoo is pretty cool,
read about Portage if you are interested. The Gentoo wiki is also a great resource, and then theres the Gentoo forums which are also very good. The first place I go is often here tho, after I google search.
The hardest part for me is knowing whats relevant when I get stuck and have to break down and ask for help - most things I can search and find someone who's done it before or ran into the same problem. Knowing what to ask exactly, how to ask it, and where to ask it takes some time - and thats a big part of getting good answers.
You got some bad advice... I've gotten great help from the guys in our Alt OS forums tho, very helpful crew.