A total beginner's question

[Bernard de Bono]

Dear All,

Having absolutely no experience with GIS, I was encouraged to read about
mapserver's connectivity with MySQL and Perl, and have just installed the
latest source code, and look forward to testing the server.

Is there a simple guide available that does not assume any GIS background? I
still need some basic questions answered, such as:

1) Is map data (i.e. maps of countries) freely available? Is that a separate
download?
2) Is the impression that Mapserver uses MySQL to store data correct? What
type of information is stored on MySQL, and why was there no reference to
MySQL accounts during compilation?
3) MapScript: is there documentation for it? Has it been downloaded with the
server source package?

Any pointers as to how to get up to speed with Mapserver would be most
appreciated.

Regards,

Bernard