I have ZERO knowledge.
I want to start a hosting company (yes i have a techie person to help me, but i dlike to be able to do it myself too)
i will be running Redhat Linux.

What steps do i take to learn how to handle technical issues,
to help customers with their problems.

Where do i start.?
How do i do it?

Thanks
Trevor

Well here are a few places for online tutorials:

http://www.sitepoint.com

http://www.techtutorials.com

http://www.findwebspace.com

http://www.hostsearch.com



Good luck

http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/

Read and digest..............


Gordon

install apache win32 to play with directives and be able to stay in windows...


or install redhat on a partition and you can experiment with the enviroment as a whole

reading is good, but once you're actually typing in commands and subsequently messing things up and having to fix them... then you actually get a good idea of what it is all about. :D

I agree with what the others are saying about learning the business, but there is more to hosting than just technical matters.

Since you will be a startup company you will also have to learn about marketing strategies, how to handle customers questions/comments, how to best use your dollars (advertising or building up you hardware), etc. There is a lot more than just learning the hardware, operating system, technical issues, etc.

To help out, I suggest first learning the technical side. This is accomplished like the others side, read tutorials maybe buy a few books and while you are reading these materials practice them as well. Put togther a Redhat server and put a few problems on it and fix these problems yourself.

This will not only help you in figuring out how to handle a variety of problems, but you will build confidence in performing these tasks.

Another thing that will put you head and shoulders above the rest is to practice answering emails and phone calls.
A few things I've done to better handle the customer service end are:

* Experiment on telemarketers (no kidding it works), this will help develop your patience.
* Call up various customer service lines with different problems and different attitudes. Make notes of what ways they used both good and bad to handle your problem.
* Have people you know call you up and ask technical questions. This is effective because it allows you to get feedback on how you answered their call.

Besides tutorials, how to guides, and learning on your own, Web Host Forums such as the one we are on have a lot of material on various subjects and many people here are subject experts.

I myself visit the various forums and browse the subjects to glean as much information as possible.

Well, I hope this helps, and if you need more information and/or help I'd be more than happy to help get you started in your venture. Good Luck.

Books, maybe some training or what not

Its always good to get a tech to teach also

Joe