hi all, newbie intro..

[manoj1307]

Hi all, new here and new to bitcoin.. I sort of landed here because of all the recent hype about bitcoin and an article I read on the BBC website, about a guy who had had some coins from early on and forgot all about them, and then discovered they’re worth close to ½ million..  that sort of got me curious to try and learn more..
I’d like to learn more about mining, and saw that I could buy some mining hardware, but it does all seem terribly difficult and technical, and not having any linux skills might leave me at a disadvantage if I invest in some hardware and just can’t get it up and running..
That’s all for now, I’ll go back to my research.
Manoj

[Jacce]

I wouldn't say mining is worth it. Sure, there is great new hardware available for mining (ASIC miners), but as more people acquires them, the higher the difficulty will be and it will take much more effort to get the BTC. I'd recommend you either buy BTC or use faucets instead, since they are safer ways of gaining bitcoins.

[Earths]

You can mine but there are several other ways to make good btc. One of them is this (my favorite) if you have minecraft- www.bitvegas.net/bitcoin-casino/?id=13657

[manoj1307]

as a complete newbie, you'll have to clarify "faucets" 
its a word I've heard my American friends use when referring to a tap..

[durdenBTC]

helloooooooooo

[parabollox]

Great info here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90718.0

[Jacce]

as a complete newbie, you'll have to clarify "faucets"  
its a word I've heard my American friends use when referring to a tap..

Pretty much sites that give you free BTC for filling a captcha. The faucets themselves gain their money from advertisements on the site. It doesn't pay out a lot, but it is totally free (except for maybe the electricity) and the value of BTC is constantly increasing so it could be worth a lot more later. Personally, I earned more from faucets than mining. Of course, I haven't been mining a lot and my computer only mines 90 Mhash/min.

For a list of free faucets and other ways to gain risk free bitcoins, I'd recommend the link in my description. But there are many other faucets out there, so if you can find more just search around a bit on this site or google.