Slashdot Mirror
SlashNET Forum with Marcel Gagne
weebl writes "SlashNET is pleased to announce an upcoming forum with Marcel Gagne. He writes the 'Cooking with Linux' column every month for Linux Journal magazine. His first book was the acclaimed Linux System Administration: A User's Guide. Recently he wrote a book called Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!, which is intended for consumer desktop users who are curious about Linux and want to give it a test run. The forum will be held on Monday February 23, 2004 at 8PM US Eastern Standard Time (-0500). As usual, the forum will be held in #forum. You will be able to submit questions both before and during the forum which will be used to guide the discussion."
...Say Hello to the Installation Screen of Torture.
I can imagine the shit in the pants of a neophyte who sees "kernel panic" on their screen.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I'm fairly new to regular Linux use, and as such am probably one of those readers for whom his work is intended.
./ers could offer their suggestions as well. Sorry if this isn't quite on topic.
Lately, I've been trying to get moved over to Linux (from WinXP). But damn near every distribution I've tried to install gives me problems. From SuSE to Knoppix (installed, not live) I cannot get it working. One of the attractions is that it doesn't cost me anything to try out.
How do you handle the recurring debates over distributions? What would you recommend to someone who wants to try moving to Linux but can't afford to spend countless hours getting it to install - installing Windows XP only takes me 30 minutes and everything works.
Perhaps some other
no... you obviously haven't had a go at installing any of the "user friendly" distros anytime in the last oooo ummm 4 years? Redhat/Fedora has a great installer which is so easy to use.. but by far the winner has to be Mandrake whose isntallation makes Windows look like Slackware 4.0.. Linux is ready for the desktop - the desktop just isn't ready for linux.
tim
I honestly don't remember the last time that I or anyone I know had a blue screen of death with windows 2000 or windows XP. It's time to stop complaining about the stability of windows.
There are plenty of other things to focus on (for example: security, closed standards, cost, etc.)
I am not saying that the current windows operating systems are the pinnacle of stability, but for most purposes, they are definitely good enough.
"Linux System Administration: A User's Guide" was one of my first Linux books. It was fairly informative and very easy to read. Now, mind you, I'm still addicted to Windows, but I thought that he had a very realistic slant on the strengths and weaknesses of various Linux options.
Make him stop using the CORNY FRENCH shtick. It make interesting articles unbearable. French is a beautiful language, but Marcel's French waiter doesn't belong in my firewall configuration article.
Quack, quack.
I recently upgraded some servers to Win Server 2003 and it's very quick, but I'm pretty sure it flashes the BSoD every other time I reboot. I'm going to hook it up to a VCR to check it out, because it's too short to notice anything but the color of the screen and writing. It's just eery...
I hate windows now, after using linux. Windows is like the stereotypical woman. You never know what's really wrong with it, and you have to keep on trying different fiddling games. Then suddenly, it will start working fine again.
I do NOT want something that is as mystical and mysterious as windows when I need to get something done. Thank god I've got linux, which just works (And if it doesn't, I can figure out why it doesn't...)
All metaphors aside, I still think the registry and drivers system of windows (especially XP) is one of the most mysterious and confusing arrangements I've ever seen.
For some reason, nobody ever bothers to mention where the logs of the Slashdot IRC forums get posted. After the IRC interview with CmdrTaco and Hemos a few months ago, it took me some digging to figure out where the log wound up.
For those who can't make the chat, the log will eventually be at http://www.slashnet.org/forums/
Editors: After the chat is over, any chance of having the log URL linked to the story text as an update?
Is he going to keep up the annoying French persona, having his stuffed penguin fetch obscure bottles of wine for the readers? It's a failed bit, in my opinion.
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
I am biased. I've been using Slackware since 1995. I've tried Debian, SuSE, Red Hat and certain commercial UNIXes. When it comes to my own personal machine, Slackware is never beaten.
Stick Men
I see some commentary about the difficulty of installing Linux. If this book is for the average Windows user, then it needs to include some Linux distro that is practically guaranteed to install with no hassle (or at least no hassles not described in the book!).
If THAT can be accomplished, then Microsoft can start kissing itself goodbye.
I thought they already had toasters that run linux. Or is he talking about high-end machines, like ovens?
In my opinion, Marcel provides an intelligent, readable, and most importantly FUN introduction to Linux. A first line of support for many Linux newbie's is their local LUG mailing list where more often than not (but not always) they're berated by the local alphageeks for asking a question that's been answered 100 times previously on the list or in scads of documentation. Unfortunately, newbies just want things to work, they don't want to know how it works. These types of responses usually result in their retreat back to the safety of Windows. Whether we like it or not, the latter situation is only going to increase, as more and more users migrate to Linux. Marcel's book stands as an excellent resource for anyone newbie's who don't mind doing a little reading. And for those who don't, Marcel offers both a mailing list and an IRC channel (#wftl on server: www.marcelgagne.com) for painless, alphageek free help.