A couple of comments. On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 01:15:08PM -0400, Miles Fidelman wrote: > > >It's been my experience that most users never read the manual. > Too much trouble. When something breaks, they find someone to > fix it or tell them how to. No learning required. If someone tells you how to, you've certainly learned something. Haven't we all been to school?
> I'm really floored every once in a while by someone who can't get > their email set up - but when you come right down to it, there is > some trickiness to things like getting all the server names, port > numbers, protocol selection, and passwords set up. OK, a little survey here. How many of you use mutt, or elm, or Evolution(?), and do your E-mail right from your home computer? I do, and since my ISP -- not PatriotNet, incidentally -- gives me a dynamic IP address I have to use a "smart host"/'relay host' for my E-mail to get anywhere. It has been my experience that setting this up is very difficult, requiring a good knowledge of what one's ISP requires, and what the proprietor of one's relay host requires. My Postfix setting up took quite a bit of work, and I bothered lots of people on the Postfix E-list before I got it right. > I'm not sure I'd recommend any flavor of Unix to someone without > some general understanding of computers, except maybe a Mac. I'm Those of us who are familiar with other countries know that we are uniquely dominated by M$. Others get familiar with IT much earlier, and I have the impression that they are much better at it. I bet there are tons of non-native-English speakers here; I wonder if they will agree with this assertion. > (apt still rules). I've watched one of my sons - the English major > - ditch Windows for Arch Linux on his ancient Compaq laptop, learn > the ins and outs of finding/installing drivers for various things, > and teach himself some C and Python along the way - so you never > know. Great! I congratulate him; and you! Best wishes, Alan McConnell, in Silver Spring MD > In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. > In<fnord> practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra P.S. Compare my .sig of today, just below<g>. -- Alan McConnell : http://patriot.net/users/alan Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really". -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20110421193515.GA5272@alanmcc.localdomain