Aichuk

I know many people will disagree, but try to NOT read tabs as much as possible. Music is mainly about your ears, not your eyes. Try to pick up songs by ear and tune your guitar using your ear (if you get a tuner, then only use it to tune to the bass E). Yes, it won't be perfect and you'll make lots of mistakes but unless you're in a race (like you have to perform a concert in 4 months), you should take your time and form solid basics.

Learn some chords and learn to play in beat. Proper timing is essential in being a great musician. My teacher made me strum my chords in proper timing for 3 months just so I can get it done perfectly.

Decide what type of guitarist you want to be. If you want to be a blues or rock guitarist, then you don't necessarily need to learn to read music or know music theory (though it will help you). If you want to be classical/jazz then knowing theory and how to read music is a good idea.

It'll be best if you have someone to guide you or to tutor you or else you may ignore your mistakes or not learn the proper way. Find a person who teaches guitar and go to him.

I made a mistake of going to a guitar shop and buying my guitar without having someone who knows about guitars with me. If you don't have such a person, then ask the store people for help in choosing and if you aren't a very rich person, then a relatively cheap guitar will suffice. Ask someone to play all the frets to see if they make a proper noise and make sure there's no buzzing. Be careful about the action (distance from fretboard to strings). Too high will be hard to play and too low may make buzzing sounds.

I suggest you learn to play with your fingers first as there are more things you can do with your fingers than with a plectrum. Get a good tutorial on youtube or buy a book. First I suggest you learn the A minor, E major and D minor chords and practice playing with these. Fool around and experiment with your guitar and see what note 'sound right' when played together. Remember, everyone sucks at the beginning.

Dark Horse

Eh. Honestly, learning by ear shouldn't be a priority when you're first starting out. Sure, it's a good thing to do eventually, but learning and practicing something you like is a lot less frustrating than "****, as that an A? That makes the first three notes B,C,A..." Besides, if you play guitar long enough, you should be able to recognize what some notes are because you've heard them so much that you're familiar with them.

Also, being able to play steady isn't really as important for a guitarist than, say, a bassist or drummer.

Also, learn how to play the pentatonic scale. Then you can say that you can solo.

Aichuk

Dark Horse, it's your opinion and I respect it, however I disagree almost completely. It wasn't frustrating for me picking up songs and I'm far from a guitar prodigy. It'll take more time, but as long as he starts with easy songs, he can easily pick stuff up with some effort. He can always then use tabs as a reference.

And playing steady is ABSOLUTELY essential for most musicians including guitarists. You need to play in proper timing to jam properly. I'm not saying he should practice 11/4 prog beats at the beginning but trust me when I say a simple 4/4 beat is much harder than it seems. I personally went to a concert where a guitarist missed his timing a little and the entire song was ruined.

I don't think his main intention should be to start playing mad solos right at the beginning, he should remember to get his fundamentals correct. It's all about attention to detail.

But then again this is just my opinion.

Dark Horse

Same. I guess this goes to show that there are tons of ways to approach playing guitar.