Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

27 Good Reasons to Love Linux

<< < (2/9) > >>

MilesAhead:
...

Support is a sore subject for me. Trying to learn Linux, I had hoped I could use various forums or IRC support channels to learn the OS and figure out what I was doing wrong.
...
-Josh (August 31, 2010, 01:40 PM)
--- End quote ---

Things have changed a bit since I was messing with Linux.  But I did have best luck asking for help on the usenet groups. I did notice a feeling of "I spent 3 months to get it to work so why should I just hand it to you?" on some of the groups.  But usually if you showed you were trying to do what you could to get there, you would get some pointers which direction to pursue.  Definitely not the type of hand-holding common on Windows groups.

I must have had a masochistic streak because I kept messing with Slackware distros. :)
I'm glad I did it but I have no real desire to go back.  I'm just too entrenched in Window type editors.  I have to think too much about how I'm doing stuff rather than what I'm trying to do. Looking through the help to find out how to delete a line or some other mundane thing every couple of minutes doesn't help.  If I started with Linux things would be different.  But going from Dos 3.1 on up though all Dos/Windows/OS2 based stuff, it's just too ingrained.

edit: btw I did try all the "Windows" style editors available at the time. The ones that come with the word processor packages, kate I guess, I didn't find appealing.  There was one decent one but I'll be damned if I can remember the name of it. The key bindings were pretty close to Windows default.. but that had its quirks.  The only one totally transparent for me was kylix ide editor.  But that's a lot to bring up just to edit a file.  Of course I leaned enough console based editors to do the scripts.  One thing I think is somewhat self-defeating, is they try to give you little applets to do everything.  The applets reflect what you do in scripts in /etc. If you never learn the /etc scripts and what does what, if the little applet doesn't save you're hosed.  To some extent the hard-asses are right because you have to do it and struggle to really learn it.  Sure the new distros you can install, boot to a window manager and use a browser and email.  But you'll never really control it unless you get into the nitty gritty under the covers.

Eóin:
Yes, doing something for one's self is the best way to learn, but when it's been done thousands of times over, why spend the time googling when someone very well might already have that answer?
-Josh (August 31, 2010, 01:40 PM)
--- End quote ---

But when that someone has had to answer that same question thousands of times over, just because everyone wants their hands held, of course they get frustrated.

Josh:
I do not want my hand held, but I also don't enjoy being told how wonderful and easy to use Linux is and then finding out I have to hack my driver by installing ndiswrapper, a windows driver, and spending 3 hours editing various files throughout the FS. If people are going to push Linux, they need to be willing to help support it. If the issue is something that common, surely a FAQ or a ?? command (IRC script) can be made with those issues. Sorry, but if Linux has to be hacked in order to get a linksys wireless card which is 5 years old to work, then it is NOT ready for primetime.

I spent a good number of hours over several days trying to hack my wifi card and get it running. If I am coming to a support group like IRC or a forum for help, it is because Google has not availed me any results which work.

Gwen7:
the writer's english usage is charming. and some of his arguments are debatable. but it was still a nicely done article. with luck it might encourage people to actually try linux and form their own opinion rather than rely on the opinions of others.

so read this article along with the comments above.  

then go boot a live cd and see for youself if you haven't already.

linux is far from perfect. but there's still a lot to like. :-)
        

Stoic Joker:
Yes, doing something for one's self is the best way to learn, but when it's been done thousands of times over, why spend the time googling when someone very well might already have that answer?
-Josh (August 31, 2010, 01:40 PM)
--- End quote ---

But when that someone has had to answer that same question thousands of times over, just because everyone wants their hands held, of course they get frustrated.-Eóin (August 31, 2010, 02:08 PM)
--- End quote ---
That transcends all OS's - I have to grit my teeth every time I go to troubleshoot a network only to find that once again some clown has borked DNS on a Windows domain. It's incredibly simple to setup properly - but gets screwed-up constantly by folks what don't RTFM. *Shrug* Never-the-less, I will persist in answering the question for the 9,000 time - or 10,000 (as needed) ... if only in an attempt to minimize the times I must walk into the aftermath.

Any well defined question deserves a clear answer.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page