Re: What Was Your Experience When You First Started Using Linux?
From: Aragorn (spamtrap_at_lycos.com)
Date: 02/16/05
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Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 23:31:14 +0100
On Wednesday 16 February 2005 22:53, Mark L. Cooper stood up and spoke
the following words to the masses...:
> JoJo,
>
>> Why so many hostile and defensive people? My post was made in good
>> faith, and basically asking for help. Why attack me? My post was not
>> an attack in any way.
I will say a few things here to the original poster myself, if I may.
I'm sorry if I have offended you, but you are cross-posting to three
different Gnu/Linux groups, and the one I am in - AOLM - has been the
target of trollism for quite some time now.
People come inhere and start bashing Gnu/Linux because they didn't even
take the time in getting themselves informed about what Gnu/Linux is.
Most of them will buy "made for WindowsXP" hardware, still cling on to
that WindowsXP on their machines and think of Gnu/Linux as a freely
downloadable alternative to Windows. Well, it is not, and people must
simply start understanding that.
Hardware designed for Windows will most of the time cause problems in
Gnu/Linux, because first of all the hardware vendors mostly refuse to
supply the Gnu/Linux community with a driver or to disclose the
workings of the apparatus they sell, and secondly because Windows is an
commercial end-user appliance system while Gnu/Linux is a Free Software
Foundation clone of UNIX, a client/server multi-user operating system.
They both run on the same hardware, but that's where the comparison
stops. And one would think - with nearly everyone in the world having
access to the Internet - that people would inform themselves? Well...
They don't...
Even people who don't wish to troll end up trolling on AOLM, and I
suspect on other Gnu/Linux newsgroups as well. And that is a bad
thing. Hence the short fuse that we all seem to be having... :-/
> I've found that most Linux newsgroups are populated by a core group of
> people that live/breath/use Linux as much because they hate Windows as
> because it can get the job done. They are willing to re-invent the
> wheel just because they can. They seem to enjoy the process more than
> the end result.
I don't hate Windows. I can find great joy seeing it run next to
Gnu/Linux, requiring all its reboots and crashes. Really, I mean it!
I find it amusing.
I only hate Windows when someone asks me to install it on their
computers, or even worse, if someone suggests that I *must* install it
on *my* computers, just because they choose to support only "official
operating systems" - a big "DUH!" for that!
> These people will spend more bandwidth berating you for how you
> post/phrase questions than they would by answering your question in
> the first place.
That's not true. I'd say that we give people very sound advice here,
but along with that advice, we expect that the poster also does a
little bit of the work himself/herself.
If a poster has a problem compiling software while the software came
with a README.TXT file that the poster did *not* read, well...
> They KNOW what you are saying/asking. They've all
> been there. They expect you to pay your dues by figuring things out
> yourself. So what if it takes 3 days vs the 10 minutes if they
> answered your question.
No, it's usually the other way around. Doing a Google search on a
certain matter can yield one an answer in less than 5 minutes. What we
then usually do is tell the user that it took us less than 5 minutes to
find the answer on Google and supply him/her with that answer that _we_
were so kind to look up for them.
> I am an independent computer consultant. I have been around computers
> since I built my first computer in 1977. I've dealt with Apple II+,
> CP/M, MP/M, DOS....up through Windows XP, and Server 2003. I am
I don't know MP/M... First time I hear of it. :-/ The first computer I
ever set at had TurboDOS, on single-sided 5.25" floppies. ;-)
Oh yes, and the phosphor green, glaring screen, of course. :-þ
> currently a Windows network administrator for several small companies
> and government agencies. My specialty is setting up a network that is
> easy to administer and uses standard retail store hardware.
>
> I got into Linux because I was looking for a configurable firewall. I
> did not want to get involved with a proprietary firewall/internet
> appliance. I ended up settling on Red Hat 9 on a $500 Windows XP
> computer from the local retail store. By the time I got that working,
> RH9 had been dropped and Fedora Core 1 was born. My backup firewall is
> Fedora Core 2 based, on another $500 Windows XP based PC. I'm about to
> go live with the FC2 box with Shorewall, Squid, and Webmin. It has
> been a constant battle compared to my Windows experience. I'm battling
> poor documentation, poor examples, arrogant 'experts', etc.
The documentation is not poor, or at least most of the documentation
isn't. You have to keep in mind that the documentation must be
translated in most cases, as Gnu/Linux is a worldwide project.
/man/ /pages/ are not poor documentation. They are manuals, but not
tutorials. A /man/ /page/ is only intended to tell you what a certain
command does, what options you can use with it and how to use it
syntactically. That is _all_ it is supposed to do.
If you are speaking of "poor documentation", then you _must_ be
referring to the documentation that comes with Windows. Half of what
you encounter in your system is undocumented. I've run NT 4.0 for 3
years, so I know. There was no documentation whatsoever on the
Registry.
In regards to poor examples, I'd say that's debatable. Some tutorials
could indeed be a little better. But then again, you have to keep in
mind that they are usually written by the developers themselves, and
not by professional-grade editors.
As for arrogant experts... I'd say you'd find those more in a Slackware
group, where "RTFM" is *all* the advice you'll ever get.
> I am also a Visual Objects (read dBase/Clipper descendent) programmer.
Yup, yup... dBASE IV... Nice, nice... ;-) Hmm... I was told there are
UNIX versions of that software out there. I wonder if there is a
Gnu/Linux version of it. It sure was fun coding in that one. ;-)
> I am a member of the Visual Objects newsgroup. Those people are a joy
> to work with. Even though it is 'Us' vs 'MS Visual Basic' (read Linux
> vs Windows), they are cooperative, friendly, and helpful. We have
> newsgroup members from all over the globe. The 'experts' are NOT
> condescending. They welcome newbies into the fold. They make them feel
> welcome. They post code snippets to help out others. Some have been
> known to respond to a question by starting out with RTFM, but they go
> on to summarize the solution and give good sound advice. None of the
> petty childishness you see on the typical Linux NG. The VO people seem
> to realize that they were all newbies at one time. They also realize
> that they may be the next one to post a 'stupid' question.
The way you present it, AOLM is infested with childish people. I would
disagree with that, and I would like to point to the countless numbers
of people that got and still get solid advice here from people who all
seem to have their own field of expertise.
In the process, those who do not answer a certain post because it would
be out of their league or experience, all get to learn a little
something themselves by just reading the replies of others.
> In summary, I stuck with Linux because it is the only way to get the
> job done that I was trying to accomplish. I can not in good faith
> recommend Linux on the desktop in a work environment in the US at this
> time. It is generally less expensive to purchase a PC w/Windows XP
> installed than it is to build one from scratch or purchase one built
> to specs w/out an OS. You get a one year on-site warranty from most
> vendors to boot.
A PC with Windows installed comes with the OEM license, which means you
are not entitled to support. And then even still, Windows is too
expensive, as you pay for the appliance system alone without the
applications to run on it. If those are included, then you can rest
assured that you paid for that too.
I prefer to have a system custom-built, with selected components of
which I know that they are not "designed for Windows".
> Just my 2 cents,
> Mark
>
> By the way, I HATE that 'No Top Posting' crap. If I'm following a
> thread, I want the meat of the answer up front. I hate scrolling down
> through 3 pages of replies to replies, just to find out the current
> poster's response was RTFM, ditto, or Yes.
It's not crap at all. If a post catches one reply, then good for the
reader. However, Usenet is a forum. It's like a big mailing list, and
if people top-post, then you don't know *what* they are replying to.
It makes much more sense that you comment underneath and in between the
paragraphs, and that you trim out the irrelevant parts. This makes it
more readable *and* more suitable to be replied to further, by multiple
people. I even use the same method of replying in my e-mails as I do
here.
I do agree that a lot of people just "bottom post", leaving the whole
thread of previous replies intact, and that this is unworkable as well.
It's not just "don't top-post", it's "don't top-post and trim your
posts".
-- With kind regards, *Aragorn* (Registered Gnu/Linux user #223157)
- Next message: Mark L. Cooper: "Re: What Was Your Experience When You First Started Using Linux?"
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- In reply to: Mark L. Cooper: "Re: What Was Your Experience When You First Started Using Linux?"
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