In a message dated: Tue, 16 May 2000 22:39:33 EDT
"David P. Greenberg" said:
>
>--Well, now I know how Francis Gary Powers felt. I knew I'd get a flamin' but
>boy howdy...
>
>Now that I've effectively pissed everybody off;
I wouldn't say you actually pissed people off. Rather, what you did was open
a can of worms without actually realizing the potential to be lambasted for
your actions :) You need to be careful with blanket statements, especially as
they pertain to MS, and more especially if they seem to indicate that you're
trying to defend them. Most of the "flames" you received were actually well
thought out arguments as to why your statements were invalid. Remember, that
we, the Linux community, and more broadly, the Unix
community, have been facing these same statements for (in the case of Linux)
going on 10 years, and in the case of Unix in general, going on 20+ years. We
as a community have heard them all before, and have collectively had a long
time to formulate both our opinions and disagreements with such statements
into well thought out arguments which leave little room for denial. MS has
brought most of their problems upon themselves, and we're more than willing to
point that out any chance we get.
>Hi, my name is Dave Greenberg.
Hi Dave, and welcome to GNHLUG :) I'm glad you have apparently invested in an
asbestos suit and decided to return :) We're not usually that harsh on new
comers, my instinct tells me no one realized you were new. Actually, I'm
guessing no one even noticed the From: line :)
>You realise of course that it's all in good fun, and an attempt at
>learning something. I gather from reading the posts on this list that most of
>you guys are pretty much computer heavyweights.
Well, we're all here for the fun. Though I can't imagine that lambasting was
much fun for you :)
As far as most of us being "computer heavyweights" I wouldn't go that far.
There certainly are several of us on the list who have been around a while and
know a thing or two. But by the same token, even those who remember
programming the first resistor at the beginning of time with less than 1 bit
of memory come up with questions to ask the group that occasionally stump many
of us. And, surprisingly, the neophytes on the list just as often come
through with answers to questions they have just experienced that some of
us old-timers miss, since they may relate to some aspect we either haven't
faced, or haven't dealt with in a really long time.
>I'm not. Although I'm a bit of a guru to my immediate circle of friends,
>I'm still the guy who (after countless tries) could not install Star Office,
>has appoplectic seisures at the thought of configuring Pine and has never
>been within 100 yards of a server. I don't program in Pearl, write C++ code
>or have a Beowulf Hive (!?!).
Well, I don't think that's a problem. I don't code in C++ and have never
seen a Beowulf cluster either. I do program in Perl, and deal with a lot of
servers (you know that technically *any* system can be a server, it's all a
matter of perspective :)
So welcome!
>I do however feel that I may be a valid contributor in that I have an
>insight into the struggle of the "common" user.
And I'll go so far as to say I agree. Anyone on this list has the potential
to be a valid contributor, we don't discriminate against any experience level,
nor do we have any set expectations of people. We will point out when you're
wrong, and try to correct the information provided, but that's nothing
personal, I get this same treatment all the time :)
>For example, yes, Linux is "free". After I purchased my sixth distro before
>I could get one to work,
Well, one thing I can say for sure, using Linux on your own definitely
requires a lot of reading. And I mean a lot! If you're new to Unix, or
you've never installed an OS before, you need to read all the docs that come
with any given distribution. You need to know your hardware, and you need to
follow up with reading various docs at the Linux Documentation Project website.
This may make it sound like Linux isn't ready for enterprise use yet, but keep
in mind, that in an enterprise environment, you usually have professional
support people managing installations and configurations for you. Would I
recommend Linux to a small company? Depends. If they have someone who knows
and understands Linux, or are willing to pay someone for consulting time to
deal with the hassle? Yes. If they didn't know anything about computers in
general, and were considering a switch? No, not unless they talked to a lot
of people like us first.
documentation
>Yes there's thousands of free software titles. I'd say at least 60 percent of
>the apps I use in Windows were also free. There's tons of free "Win-ware"
>out there.
No one has ever disputed this. Yes the price tag is free, but are you also
provided with the freedom that Open Source/Free Software affords you? The
"Free Software" surrounding the hype of Linux has little to do with the price
you pay for it, but rather, is all about the freedom one has to access the
source code, change it, redistribute it, etc. See http://www.fsf.org for more
information about Free Software. The "free" stuff you get for MS platforms
seldom fits in this category.
>Most of the freeware I get for my Linux box, I can't install or if it does
>install, it won't work.
I will agree that the installation/configuration process on Linux is not as
slick as the "Install Wizard" on Windows. It also requires more reading of
documentation, which "average" people seem to avoid like a plague. RedHat,
and other distributions based on it, however, have gone through great effort
to make this easier to deal with. RPM is about as effortless as it gets, and
while I have some philosophical opposition to the way they've designed RPM,
for a single, standalone system in someone's house, it works great.
Though, again, if there are errors reported by RPM, it requires some reading
of it's documentation before you can understand what the problem is. Once you
understand this though, it's usually trivial to fix the problem and get on
with installing the problem.
>How do you get the "Clone" feature to work in GIMP? The one in
>PhotoDeluxe (freeware) works great.
Have you consulted the documentation for GIMP? Have asked this question on a
GIMP mailing list, or visited the website to see if the answer is contained
there? I contend (not knowing anything about PhotoDeluxe and little about
GIMP) that once you know the answer, it's trivial, and Gimp provides a lot
more capability than PD. But, once again, you have to be willing to read the
documentation.
>Furthermore, let us not forget that there are also companies out there who do
>not give away their Linux products either.
Again, no one is disputing this. But if you're a company, wouldn't you rather
save the $100 or $200 per OS license for Windows, get a really good and stable
OS, then spend the money saved on quality software applications?
>Corel WP8 has two versions. You can down load a crippled and timed demo which
>they say you can register and recieve a key, but I've never been able to get
>that pipe dream to come true.
Have you called Corel and asked them why this doesn't work? I've found the
Corel sales folks quite easy to deal with.
>I paid 80 bucks American for my copy. Word was about $39.00.
>I also paid over a hundred for the super duper deluxe Corel distro, and ended
>up keeping the rubber penguin. Not only did the distro blow, but (after
>reinstalling my Mandrake6 which it killed)
Did you read all the documentation that came with the Corel OS distribution?
Did you read all the on-screen prompts? I haven't installed the Corel
distribution, so I can't say anything definitively, but I find it hard to
believe that they'd over-write another partition without offering to at least
allow you to partition your drive and install on a separate partition.
>I couldn't even use the extra give-mes that came with it, 'cause they're
>not compatible.
This I know is not true. The Corel apps all run perfectly fine under RedHat,
Debian, Corel OS, Caldera, and Mandrake. It should work perfectly fine under
any RH variant (which Mandrake is) and any Linux system that is running a 2.2.
kernel. Did you visit the Corel Website which contains documentation and help
for running the applications under various configurations?
>I can run DOS progies in Win95, and (with a little effort) win95 progies
>in Win3.1
Okay, this I want to see. Show me Office95 running under Win3.1.
>but apearantly I can't run Debian programs in Mandrake.
That's not true at all. First, there's no such thing as a "Debian" program or
a "Mandrake" program. There are programs which run on the Linux OS which have
been packaged for different distributions. Mandrake, which is a RedHat based
distribution, uses RPM. Debian uses dpkg. You can use alien to covert
between the two, and you can install RPM on a Debian system and use it to
install rpms, or install dpkg on Mandrake/RedHat systems to install .deb
packages.
>Now, I will freely admit, that these issues are my own and due to a lack of
>knowledge,
Yes, and all these can be overcome by reading documentation and asking *how*
to do things. The fact that you state you're awareness of your lack of
knowledge should also indicate to you that it's not a good idea to go around
making blanket statements about things which you just admitted you knew little
or nothing about. This is precisely what caused your first post to result in
an all out assault from those on this list.
I implore you to read the available documentation, ask for pointers to
documentation you may not be aware of, and then, when reading the docs fails,
ask us for help. This will lead to you becoming much more knowledgable,
getting less frustrated with things, and prevent us as a community from
getting out the flamethrowers. Lack of documentation reading is probably the
single largest cause of frustration with any computer environment, Windows
included. With a Unix environment, there is even more to know, and more
places where documentation hides, that no 1 person can know everything. It
therefore even more essential for those of us in the Unix world to read all
available documentation, and ask for pointers to that which we're unaware of.
Of course, there will always be holes in documentation, which is what mailing
lists like this are for. When the documentation is incomplete, ask the
community.
>but I feel you all should be made aware of them as the
>"voice of Linux in New England".
We are painfully aware the various weaknesses of Linux. But we are also
welll aware of it's strengths. And we, as a community are also capable of
*fixing* those weakenesses, which many of due.
Yes, a fresh point of view is always welcome. But telling us what the
weaknesses are in a manner that causes us to get defensive is
counter-productive, especially when it comes in the manner of uninformed
rhetoric. That's wasting your time and ours, you don't learn anything, we get
defensive, and you're feelings get hurt. Pose your problems in the form of
well thought out questions, whether requests for help or topics for
discussion, and everyone's time will be better put to use.
>I have, I feel, come a long way with my Linux work and am learning more
>every day. I did, after all get started with this so I could learn a little
>something about Unix. It's been three years now, and I haven't given up yet.
Congratulations. It's not easy to first get past the part of figuring out
what to do with Linux once you have it, nor is it easy to learn about it if
not coming from a computer background where you're forced to learn about or
surrounded by others who use it. So pat yourself on the back for coming this
far.
>I propose a barter. You help me with my Linux box, and I'll help you shake
>your floors and rattle your windows
I have a better proposition. Contribute to this list and help others with
problems you may have already solved, and we'll help you solve the problems
we've already conquered. Together we'll all be better off, and we'll all
learn something.
And again, welcome.
I now return you to your regulary scheduled program, me, I'm off to play with
Samba, Amanda, and write a HOWTO :)
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
"I always explain our company via interpretive dance.
I meet lots of interesting people that way."
Niall Kavanagh, 10 April, 2000
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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