How can I give a relevant answer on a protected question?

Question

I am sorry guys but I can't find out how to answer questions. I feel really stupid.

I want to answer the this question: USB drive install of Ubuntu 12.04 Server fails - can't find components from CD-ROM but on the bottom I read this message:

protected by Community♦ Aug 24 '12 at 12:47 This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.

1. How can i answer this question?
2. Do I need really need to raise my reputation?
3. How do I raise my reputation?

I read something about raising my reputation by asking question. I don't want to ask questions. I just want to give a answer. I hoop I do not understand the working of askubuntu because I think it's strange that I can't answer without asking.

Answer 1

So, this question was protected because a lot of users were writing "answers" that didn't actually solve or attempt to resolve the question. As a result the site (Community user) automatically protected the question so that only users with greater than 10 reputation points can answer. This doesn't happen very often and only occurs when a particular question requires a little bit of a gate for users interested in the question.

You can answer the question by simply earning more than 10 reputation points.

To answer this question, yes. Though you don't really need to. Reputation is the method this site uses to provide access to other tools and areas of the site (outside of the typical ask a question answer a question). It's how the site determines what privileges a user will have since this site is 90% community moderated. If you're interested in any of the privileged listed there it'll tell you how much reputation you'll need to earn them.

Earning 10 reputation points is a pretty easy task, you can edit (and have those edits approved) 5 times to gain 2 reputation points per edit (giving you 10 additional points), you can answer another question and have it upvoted to a score of one or more, you can ask a question and have it upvoted twice, answer a question with a bounty on it, and a few other ways to gain reputation.