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SlashNET Forum with Marcel Gagne

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the getting-to-know dept.

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."

15 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goobye... by jetkust · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...Say Hello to the Installation Screen of Torture.

    1. Re:Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goobye... by kfg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Fedora is a bleeding edge development distro.

      Give a try to Mandrake, you'll find that it generally installs on out of the box boxen, quicker, easier and with less intelligent input than Windows.

      And of course there's always Knoppix for those who are curious, but want to take minimal risks with either their system or intellignce.

      KFG

  2. BSOD isn't *that* unfriendly... by PornMaster · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  3. Distributions by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm fairly new to regular Linux use, and as such am probably one of those readers for whom his work is intended.

    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 ./ers could offer their suggestions as well. Sorry if this isn't quite on topic.

    1. Re:Distributions by mumkin · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      I would recommend that you drop into the #forum channel of irc.slashnet.org around 8pm EST this evening and ask Marcel Gagne. :)

  4. installation screen of torture? by freerecords · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  5. The Blue Screen of Death by FreakOfTheWeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:The Blue Screen of Death by curtisk · · Score: 3, Funny
      I have seen some recently on winXP pro and they actually were due to hardware issues, so yeah they still exist, but nothing like their glory days of the win9x series. Beating the "BSOD" joke to death is old hat and really not current for a current book.

      OTOH, my new book "Saying goodbye to Exception Errors and emm386 by moving to Linux" should be on bookshelves soon.

      --

      Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!

  6. Linux Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
    His first book was the acclaimed Linux System Administration: A User's Guide.
    "Linux Users: A System Administrator's Guide" would be more acclaimed.
  7. Please! by msimm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Please! by dbc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Indeed!! That stuff drives me nuts. At first, I tried to slog through his crap to find out what he was trying to say, but that French chef schtick just got in the way. Pretty quickly, I just started completely ignoring his columns. Then I dropped the magazine. It was an easy decision... which of two Linux magazines do I want to continue paying for? Easy: shit-can the FRENCH CHEF magazine.

      Hrumph.

  8. What people should say to interested users... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Of windows is that with linux, you actually can figure out what went wrong, when something goes wrong. You have extensive logs, all the configs are right there in front of you.

    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.

  9. The logs will be at slashnet.org by chmod_localhost · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

  10. Mon ennemi by g1zmo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  11. Linux needs more Marcels by embill · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.