I don't think that anyone has tried to imply that any single source, be it books, man pages, etc., was the key to success with Linux. The article in discussion here touched on the deficiencies of man pages as well as other non-indexed references, command line or other.
One could argue that, for the example of man pages, reading "man man" would certainly help one to better digest the results of the apparently quintessential example "man tar." Whether or not a particular man page presents a valuable solution to a problem is not the same as whether the user has done his/her best at understanding the information readily available. So I would argue contrary to your post that it needing to read man man *doesn't*miss the point. If you make the decision to operate any sort of *NIX computer, at least learn how to read man pages. It simply "comes with the territory" so to speak. Secondly, books do address very well the exasperations of the article's author in that they are indexed and generally contain real-world examples. And, since books are generally written as distribution specific, they address the obfuscation issue quite directly. They don't require X or a mouse either, a definite plus. But don't get me wrong about asking one's peers for help. It is an absolute necessity as there is no amount of documentation that will ever exist that will address without omission the difficulties one may face with Linux. But a casual reading of USENET shows that posters who have made some attempt to do *something* before asking for help get a better response. The fact that there is a community of Linux users and groups such as this have made Linux what it is today. That point should not be lost. Finally, to ask why Linux developers don't make the system more easy to use begs the question. Obviously if it was difficult to them, they would change it. I understand that the original release of the Linux kernel required a good deal of knowledge just to get it to compile. And, from what I've read, the early versions of Slackware were anything but "user friendly" regarding installation. So I think that in 10 years things have certainly come toward the way of user-friendlyness, or ease of use. But part of the draw of running your own Linux box is that it does make you think. It forces you to learn something about the inner workings of the computational wonder you have at your fingertips. Those who come searching for a mindless I/O that is nothing but eye candy can probably be happily directed elsewhere. -Mike- On Wednesday 13 February 2002 12:48 am, Greg Kettmann wrote: Sorry to pipe in, but I must. The fact is that the learning / use curve of Linux, particularly compared to Windows, is very high. I completely agree that the man pages are confusing. They often lack real world examples as well. This can be very imposing to the new user. The response "well they obviously didn't read the man man" is just plain stupid and completely misses the point (sorry, no offense to whomever posted that remark, it's very a very typical response). It's as far off base as "they didn't read the how-to's in the LDP". The point is the average newbie doesn't have a clue about these things. That's the definition of a newbie. Now, conversely I'm not suggesting that these newbies become instant sysadmins. Absolutely there is a place, and a need, for people and documentation for those well versed in Linux. So, I understand where those with a great deal of experience are coming from. However, I've got twenty books here. I'm only a casual user of Linux and I don't use it day in and day out but I use it as often as I can. It can be very, very difficult to remember exact commands and syntax and most of the time the man pages do little to clear things up. They do an excellent job of giving me the full breadth of a command but are far weaker for telling me how to make something work. The books do a far better job but it's awkward and difficult to always have the books around. Also, although man pages are in the same general format some are pretty good. Some are... ummm, not as good :-) It has always amazed me just how recalcitrant the Linux community is about making the system easier to use. Note that I didn't say less complex. Just some way to lower the entry bar. Many people, such as myself, learn by getting their hands dirty. If I screw it up too badly I just reinstall. Despite a great deal of reading I've found very little in the way of good beginners guides (I've read quite a few weak or poor beginners guides) and certainly nothing built into the system. So, any newbies out there just keep reading and learning. This list gets fairly interesting sometimes but I don't think I've ever seen a question go by without someone answering it, no matter how difficult or simple. In fact I've seen some pretty amazing problems and concepts batted around here. Some of the people on this list are really, really good. _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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