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Linux Snobs, The Real Barriers to Entry
McSnarf writes "It's not Windows. It's not distro wars. Sometimes it's just the arrogant attitude that keeps people from switching from Windows.
'As I spoke to newbies, one Windows user who wanted to learn about Linux shared the encouraging and constructive note (not) he received from one of the project members. The responding note read:
"Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn.""
Of course, what the article doesn't tell you is that they said that to him after he asked 50 times "how do I start process daemons like a web server" in the Gnome IRC channel. The whole context tells the real story and sometimes that does happen on IRC. Just like in the case of Ryan Holt and his balloons. Slashdot, stop being such a "hype" news source. Besides, you can get that kind of snobbish attitude "anywhere
".
On the other hand, I think the real barrier with Linux IS the Linux snobs, but in a different way. I was just talking about this on the BLUG mailing list two weeks ago. Many of you are too wrapped up in playing with the latest transparent desktop that you forget that it is important to support companies that do start adopting Linux and providing real value. A major reason why places like Micro Center start carrying Linspire PCs, but don't train anybody on them is because they are test it to see if it will make money. When it comes down to it, companies need to make money (big surprise there). Yet, everytime someone tries to start something around Linux open source, half the community starts acting suspicious and picking apart everything that company does. Sometimes this is warranted (read SCO), but most of the time it is not. Unless you expect Communism to be adopted in the United States anytime soon, you need to backup what YOU support with your own MONEY if you want to see the economy go your way.
All of you need to stop talking the talk and start backing up your shit with rea
l action.
I was trying to setup a Linux-HA cluster.
After struggling to read their documentation at http://www.linux-ha.org/ (bad formatting, the use of Wiki made most sentences hard to read BecauseOfWikiWords and the fact that hyperlinks were nearly same color as the text, I finally decided that it would be easier to ask on their irc channel, #linux-ha @ freenode.
Oh, how wrong I was. Upon joining the channel, I noticed there were about 30 users idling. I politely asked my question, and waited for reply. No reply arrived, so I idled in the channel for a few days, occasionally repeating the question (not annoyingly and never automatically), hoping someone would notice. Finally, around noon european timezone, some people were awake and chatting in the channel about fixing a particular bug in the new v2 release of Linux-HA. I joined in and asked my question again. I was immediately sent to the "documentation" (the wiki trash I had trouble reading eariler), after that I politely let them know that documentation is not very readable and does not solve my problem either. At this point I was accused of "bitching about service provided for free" and "its a wiki, feel free to contribute and edit it".
I said, that this was a standard v1 configuration which worked, automatically converted to v2 configuration using the included conversion script. Everything was supposed to just work. Take a working v1 config, run the script, add 'crm=yes' to ha.cf, and v2 will work.. Except it didnt. Within a few minutes, the debug logfile grew to several gigabytes in size, filled with repeated failures of glib/heartbeat daemon, thousands of lines of meaningless XML snippets and other junk. I said that my disks were getting filled with errors, and at this point #linux-ha folks suggested I post the entire error log on the mailing list "because more people read the mailing list". I wasn't interested in waiting another week for a "RTFM" response from a mailing list, so I told them "why not help me now, or at least say you arent qualified to help, etc".
At this point, the active 3 or 4 users in the channel have decided I was a "nuisance" and though that their best course of action would be to place me on ignore. Why? Because I wanted to run THEIR software? Because they made a RELEASE version of their product, which was supposed to work out of the box, and it didn't, and I was complaining about it? After placing me on ignore, another opensores user in the channel thought it would be a good idea to complain about my "behaviour" (asking questions about Linux-HA in a SUPPORT channel FOR Linux-HA) to lilo, the freenode nazi.
Few minutes later I was klined with a message "please do not harrass channels/users on freenode".
What the fuck. All I did was ask for help configuring a piece of software in a support channel designed for this exact purpose.
So, fuck this, I trashed Linux-HA install and got my boss to get Veritas Cluster Server.
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
WOW! That IS snobbish! Can't even read the freaking article!
Alt title could be When Penguins Attack!
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Well duh! Of course it's the arrogant users that are keeping people from trying Linux. That's precisely the reason why I use a Mac.
This guy's the limit!
All the best snob applications are on Windows, anyway.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In my experience, I'd have to say this article is right on the money. While snobs can be encountered for just about any OS you care to name, the Linux snobs are particularly shrill. This shrillness may be attributed to a variety of causes, including social ineptitude, feelings of intellectual/moral/fiscal superority, attempted concealment of their own limited knowledge, etc., but there is just no excuse for this sort of behavior. Linux is first and foremost a collaborative effort, and by failing to live up to that ideal, Linux snobs subvert the very point of Linux itself.
Yes, it is true that the answers to your questions are out there...Linux does have copious documentation. But the fact of the matter is that a simple answer to a simple question can do much more than save the newbie hours of combing through MAN pages...it can also foster the sense of community that is the very lifeblood of Linux.
Linux users need to understand that when disillusioned Windows users come to them asking for help with Linux, they effectively become representatives of Linux...ambassadors, if you will...and they need to behave accordingly. Abusing new Linux users for their lack of knowledge, rather than helping them to learn more, only harms the cause.
Just remember....you were a n00b yourself once...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I have been using Linux as my OS of choice for a year now and am willing to admit I'm far from being an experienced Linux user. The main thing that helped me when starting to use Linux was Google. If I didn't have Google I don't think I would have solved most of my problems. From what I have seen any problems that I had there where already tons of information out on the web answering these questions if you looked and didn't take the easy way out and post without even trying to search for it on the internet.
These are Microsoft evangelists trying to poison the water well.
My freshman year (2000) in college started with me not knowing what a "linux" was. This all changed when a friend handed me a Debian distribution burned to an ISO. He encouraged me to repartition my hard drive and install this next to my Windows 98 SE installation. Like a lot of new people, I hosed my hard drive. I ended up doing fresh installs on both OS's and getting the dual boot to work. There were cheap little games and some truly great and historical open source software on that disc also. The next day in class, the guy couldn't get me to shut up about how great it was. I had hit a few snags but the answers were all online.
... Where do I get a disc for that?"
My first college kegger could not compare to the first time I ran Linux. Nor would a kegger ever be as memorable. A free operating system? That works?
A year or two later, I'm in a new class. There's a kid sitting in front of me going on and on about Linux. Up to this point, I've used Debian, Mandrake & Red Hat so I drop a question out there:
Me: "I really like Mandrake, what do you think is the best distribution?"
Student A: "It's obviously Gentoo."
Me: "Gentoo? I haven't even heard of that one..."
Student A: "Well, it's clearly the superior distribution."
Ok, so my first encounter with Linux people working against Linux people in a childish d*ck measuring contest. To my horror, I overheard the following conversation thereafter ensue between him and a person in the class looking for a Linux installation experience:
Student B: "I use Windows and I'm confused even as where to start..."
Student A: "That's easy, just install Gentoo."
Student B: "I
Student A: "They're freely online, you just have to find them and install them--I recommend an ftp install so that you get the latest versions of everything. And with Gentoo, you can just emerge whenever you want to update. "
Student B: "'Emerge'--what does that mean?"
Student A: *snorts* "If I have to tell you, there's no point in you even getting Linux."
And on it went, with Student A asserting his superiority. When I got home, I tried to install Gentoo. It took forever, I hit a million snags but eventually got it working. I hated it. After talking again to them, the only reason Student A was using Gentoo was because he had some crazy chipset he needed to compile everything for (a dual AMD setup which was rare back then) and he also revealed that he spent every Sunday night "emerging."
Luckily, I intevened with Mandrake and gave him something close to Windows that an idiot probably could install. I told him all the cautionary advice I had to give and I feel that he most closely identified with me.
The truth is: not all Linux experiences are for everybody.
My work here is dung.
I'm sure everybody here can empathize with the poor windows luser.
Do you have ESP?
The article assumes that "n00b-haters" does not exist at all from other platforms. I just recently got told to go screw myself by a MCSE, because I nagged him ten thousand times about how to find the Active Directory wizard. There you go, more anecdotal evidence.
Dvorak on Doomtech
What I have found is that there are really tough question in the Linux world or just common mistakes. Sometimes these questions are repeated many times but there may be a reason the questions are asked over and over again. When I use the popular search engine Google to fetch the answer to a question I have, the first hundred results are usually some chat thread with my question being asked and some brilliant and insightful genius replies back with the comment to just use Google. Even better, you can go read a chat thread and it has 20 pages of 20 entries and another brilliant and insightful genius replies back sating he already answered the question and to use the search function to get the answer. What is bad, the question usually fall to the side since the rest of the group thinks it has been answered satisfactorily.
How does the article reference a digg on the article?
Anyone who lets their choice of operating systems be dictated by hurt feelings from the reactions of others must have a very weak personality.
'Reactions of snobs' is an idiots' excuse for an action they didn't want to admit they did for another reason (like: they were too stupid to understand the documentation themselves.)
This article seems as much flamebait as anything.
;)
I read through and a lot of what he was describing sounded like listening to the anonymous cowards on here.
Asking a Mac user which is the best operating system will result in one answer, asking a linux user to discuss the various distros is another.
Audiophiles will deride a newbie for asking silly questions, gamers will take the piss out of n00bs for aiming wrong or asking about the best weapons, hell even office staff will give you a 10 minute diorama about their red stapler, but if you ask them what the differences are they will fly off at the handle.
Nobody knows about all the distros or databases and theres not really a one size fits all solution so people get embedded in their current system.
Sounds like he just found people on their off days, but I agree with the general article contents - it extends to all walks of life and multiple subjects.
And I've not even touched on vi vs emacs
liqbase
As shown in this penetration test study, the linux server does not blow up, despite very heavy black hat pounding. Now, can windows do this?
Could this post be any more obvious a troll?
Move along - yada, yada, yada.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
You'll find that the idiots who get their panties in a bunch about "newbies" are the "My e-penis is bigger than yours" type who likes to think they're special or clever because they can knock up a Perl script. They feel threatened by the idea that Joe user may be able to pick up Linux and use it without the need to wave his own e-penis around, because it makes their e-penis all the more tiny.
There are a lot of snobs, that's true. The fact that most newbie questions tend to ignite flamewars ("Which distribution should I use?") doesn't help either... Newbies are supposed to pick up the basics by themselves and only ask more interesting questions, which obviously doesn't work for everyone. Maybe there should be more (and better) FAQs. You know, sites which answer common questions in easily understandable terms.
However, part of the problem is also the perceived snobbery. Sometimes people automatically assume that you're a snob just because you're a Linux user (seems like Linux has replaced the Mac in that regard), especially when talking about OSes; I have been in a discussion about WinXP vs. Win2k which quickly detoriated into "Microsoft apologists vs. Linux snobs" as one user assumed that all Linux users saying "I prefer Win2k because XP's interface is too damn annoying" use Windows 2000 as a clever analogy for Linux...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
One huge difference is that the Microsoft tech support guys are paid to listen to your stupidities. You are a lot more patient and understanding when you're paid.
The problem is nobody takes the time to read anything.
If it isn't an Email or a joke, users just don't have the time.
I have created many programs that need user interaction at some point and the users seem to ignore the text in the pop-up dialog and click OK/Yes no matter what it says.
Until Linux uses a speaking interface or a direct mind-reading app, it will take a long time for users to adopt it.
The only other option is to remove all choices in Linux so users don't have to answer any questions.
Or even better, pre-install a generic copy of Linux on all new computers when purchased.
Hmmm, seems someone already does that!!!
Good call.
God knows how long I put off learning the ins and outs of Linux distros because of the Linux catch-22: Linux sackriders go on about the superiority of Linux and insist that you're still living in the Dark Ages if you're using Windows, yet if you even feign interest in wanting to learn and perhaps getting some guidance from them, they shun you for being a newbie.
Thank God I'm stubborn and like reading enough that I gorged myself on dozens upon dozens of books so as I had a large enough Linux vocabulary to 'fake it' and subsequently was 'accepted' into certain online Linux cliques. I was then 'allowed' to ask questions and thus was no longer 'out of the loop.'
Seriously, if people are so adamant about making other people aware of the advantages of Linux then for crying out loud, help them learn or at the very least, point them in the right direction. Don't smack them upside the head for not knowing. It's one thing to be a Linux pusher, trying to convince Windows users to try out the alternatives, it's another thing to be a Linux snob and to shun people for not-knowing-yet-wanting-to-know.
I personally don't have enough patience to teach too many people about Linux, especially from scratch. So what do I do when someone asks me about it or wants to learn about it? I give them a whole bunch of useful e-books and related reading materal on CD and tell them to start by taking a bite out of that. I also give them a copy of whatever easy distro I have laying around and tell them to install it on a second computer and just 'play' with it. Then if they're still interested, they've got a decent enough foundation for me (ore more likely someone with more patience) to have a crack at enlightening them further.
Certainly not: 'As I spoke to newbies, one Windows user who wanted to learn about Linux shared the encouraging and constructive note (not) he received from one of the project members. The responding note read: "Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn.""
Just do what this guy does and you'll be fine.
And anyone who denies... well...thank you for just confirming yourself a member of the arrogant elitist 'nix users.
But you know, denying the fact is not going to help Linux move toward the general desktop market any. And yes, I would state that the above is one of the top 5 reasons Linux has less general desktop market saturation than it really should.
- Saj
And every time I mentioned it in the past I got my ass handed to me on a plate. I've asked questions in forums, emailed software maintainers, and done the RTFM, and read the FAQs. And sometimes there are no answers, yet you get the same old "RTFM, n00b" answer, followed by "STFU." Nice. It also doesn't help that some of the documentation on TLDP.org is out of date--which is one step away from being outright wrong when dealing with rapidly changing software. If Linux wants more users (or OSS in general) you need to (1) fix the documentation so that it's always up to date to the newest version; and, (2) fix the culture of the dipshits that are out there. If they don't want to help, that's fine; but to hear over and over again the same unhelpful advise is only shooting your cause in the foot.
....
Do I care that this will cost me Karma? Nope. You've had it coming, and I've lost Karma before on this so
Everyone starts out as a newbie at one time -- sorry to burst the bubble of those of you who thought you were imbued with the power of the Linux kernel neo-natally. I remember when I first got into computers back in the TRS-80 era and went to college only to discover there was a whole other side to computers you didn't see in Popular Electronics. I learned C and Unix, and now all these years later I've learned Perl and begun absorbing Linux. I'm not the smartest guy on the block, but I'm also not Gomer Pyle, Web Developer.
I've noticed a tendency for those steeped in the mystique of Linux to see anyone with an opinion contrary to theirs as some kind of infidel, interloper, or at worst, lower that your average lawyer. You dare not point out flaws in logic or try to compare two distributions, lest you incur the wrath of "the gods." A perfect example is my comments yesterday about whether Linux should use proprietary drivers. My idea is that yes, it sounds like a good idea, until reverse engineered equivalents are available or someone comes along and starts a graphics company that uses open source exclusively for their drivers. Seems logical enough and the moderators agreed. But some folks thought I was ignorant:
But let me clue you in on something. Torvald's motto of "world domination", is a joke! He isn't being serious! I'm sorry you didn't understand this before, but now you do.
Or that I was suggesting the wholesale destruction of Liunx:
No, if making Linux non-free is the only way to develop greater market share, then you can keep it, binary drivers and all. I'll take freedom, thank you.
I'm sorry to say that some in the Linux community seems to become more insular as each year passes, which is a shame because there are so many great people pushing it. Linux is a great operating system, works well for just about anything you need. It could eat away at Windows' advantage in the marketplace with just some tweaks to make it so easy to install and run that Joe Average doesn't think twice about it. But if the more fanatic members of the community keep treating every new person with a new idea or new question like some kind of pariah, Linux will remain just another operating system.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Not at all surprising. A majority of people, given the slightest opportunity, will be dicks, as spending 15 minutes on any internet forum will confirm. If using Windows required asking random groups of people questions, then the general concensus would be that Windows users are dicks. Because they are. As are Linux users and people whose favorite color is blue. The only solution to this is to design things so that no one needs to talk to anyone to make it work, because if you filter out the sons of bitches, there will only be two people left on the internet.
After reading TFA, this guy seems really good at pissing people off. If, once or twice, I had a Linux 'fanatic' go off on me, I'd blame it on the 'fanatic'. But 3 or 4 times? Geeze dude. You are just ANNOYING! I can imagine the title of your next article: 'Grocery Store Snobs: Bagging Barriers'.
Sig? - yeah, whatever.
However, to universally blame the help provider is completely wrong. The asker may be intruding. The asker may be insufficiently respectful or remunerative in other ways.
Beggars cannot be choosers.
weeeeeeeellll... maybe if windows users weren't RETARDS we wouldn't have to snap at them for asking RETARDED questions.
of course, if they weren't retards, they wouldn't be windows users in the first place, but...
There is definitely some snobbery in the linux community. The big problem is how the community aids people who do not really understand the gravity of what they are asking. Explaining to someone why they are looking at the wrong thing i.e. kernel code instead of apache ... can some times lead to serious impatience when new users pick the wrong forum to ask questions. The community in my opinion needs to publish better "newbie forums" not just for users, but naive developers and newbie hacks, and possibly even goes as far as creating "computer science" basics forums. The "P" in GPL is far to often forgot ... if you want to work for the greater good you must realise this.
I think a good majority of us have had that same experience. I started with Gentoo, myself. It was fun learning how to do a Linux install from a stage1 tarball */sarc* I had users actually tell me RTFM and nothing more... it was like they were irc bots... The few people I managed to get to help me understand what I saw when I RTFM, they were very helpful. However, it was unfortunately too little, too late. Redhat at least had info available online for me to find so I could fumble my way through things. I found Ubuntu to be the most friendly when it came to community support. That is my biggest thing with sticking with that flavor. They are a community that makes you feel welcome. I am just glad that I didn't go with slackware ;)
There are assholes in every camp. I'm sure I can just as easily find Windows and MacOS snobs [well the latter is a given].
I've personally helped a half dozen people switch to Gentoo. Not all of us are meanies [though I play one on TV].
This article is pure flamebait.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I'm an avid Linux user and developer, but I must say that this is unfortunately where many many projects fall short of the mark. We need to realize that, unless we are willing to take the time to educate people about Linux and all of the options it opens up to people without belittling them, then we will never be ready for the desktop.
I go out of my way to help people who have questions about any of the projects I'm part of, because I realize that people won't use them unless they feel comfortable doing so. Making people feel stupid isn't the way to do it.
Unfortunately, some people on certain projects aren't disposed to being social. For instance, I had technical question regarding Hurd at one point, only because I was curious about it. So I decided to ask a question in #hurd on freenode and was immediately derided by a certain individual. I left feeling like "Why should I even try Hurd, if they're going to have that attitude" and I confess I haven't bothered to do so since. I am a developer... imagine how this kind of thing would come across to a normal user. Not good.... not good at all.
We need to change our attitude, or we're doomed to remain were we are. So, next time someone asks you a question about your project, resist the urge to call them names and be patient. Try to understand that this person doesn't know the code as well as you do and is simply trying to learn. Do that... and people will not mind switching.
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
While I agree that there are a few elitists out there, I'd hardly say that the vast majority of linux users are snobs who won't give non-nix guys the time of day. The only reason I ever got into linux in the first place was because one such "snob" took the time to sit me down, help me install debian on my machine, and then walked me through setting things up, installing programs and even (and this one still surprises me to this day) recompiling my kernel. Now that I know how difficult it can be to explain a lot of this stuff to a non-nix person, I appreciate the time he spent explaining things to me that much more. I don't think he was an oddity in the field either, since most people I've met or have chatted with are more than willing to share their knowledge and help problem solve. I've found that that is a lot of the fun of linux: Figuring out how to fix something that goes wrong. There's nothing more satisfying than having someone come to you with a problem and seeing that rediculous amount of satisfaction on their faces when you finally are able to figure it out.
Granted, there are those nix users who don't want to lend a helping hand or will look down on anyone asking about something they see as "obvious" or something that even a "n00b" should know. However, you find a few of those wherever you go no matter what OS or software you use, Microsoft products included.
Just like in the case of Ryan Holt and his balloons.
uh... saw the video... What's (Where's) the 'real' story, with the rest of the context? TIA
The Admin and the Engineer
Linux snobs or not, there's no big barrier to entry on Linux. The installer is a piece of cake for most distros, most Linux distros can get most hardware set up in at least a usuable state, and the window managers installed by default now are almost as easy (if not easier) to use than Windows built-in window manager. My wife can very comfortably use Linux as can my neighbor who used to come over occasionally to use the Internet since she didn't have a computer of her own at the time. There wasn't a massive learning curve to usage and I don't even think she even knew she was using Linux.
Why aren't people coming over? They don't want to. As someone who used to install Linux on all my computers a few years ago, I now use XP almost exclusively at home. XP is almost as stable. I do have to reboot once in a while but who cares on a desktop machine? As long as I'm using Firefox to browse, I don't even have to worry about spyware too much (though I do run it weekly just in case). I keep a Linux box in the basement in case I ever need some sort of server or I'm evaluating some new programming language, but other than that I have no need for Linux on my desktop (which happens to be a laptop in this case). And for those things, I could always use Cygwin.
Are there community awards to award portions of the linux world that do provide outstanding support?
I landed a job as UNIX admin from learning UNIX out of necessity and then as a hobby. When I got out of the military and started to school I purchased a computer so I would not have to work in school labs. My mathematics degree required two core CS classes, algorithms and data structures and the CS department uses Linux. So rather than piss and moan I purchased another hard drive and dual booted my machine. The reason that I purchased another hard drive is so that I could revert because I knew that I was not going to get it right the first few times. After being able, to once again do my homeword at home, I spent another 6 months getting my printer to work. It was an Deskjet 612 that used the printing performance architecture (PPA) drivers that some guy in Oregon reverse engineered with little or no help from HP. I figured if he had the wherewithall to accomplish that I should be able to at least get it working.
I spent many hours reading books on Linux in general, and countless hours browsing the web for help on UNIX printing. Wound up switching to CUPS, when it was fairly new, and managed to get it working. It was a lot of work and the only reason that I was able to do it was that I had the attitude that the "machine is not going to win."
Most people want everything handed to them, and if you do not have a self started attitude UNIX is fairly intimidating.
The quote that I developed about Microsoft and Bill Gates is this:
"Bill Gates brought computing to the masses, pity they weren't ready for it."
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
As someone much wiser than me said, "the desktops war is over, Linux didn't win". Seriously, although desktops are still a large part of our lives, they aren't really where the "future" is going. There is a significant inertia in changing your desktop operating system. Here is the real reason why linux hasn't gained more market share: MOST PEOPLE JUST DON'T FUCKING CARE WHAT THEIR DESKTOP OS IS!!
Seriously, Windows does a good enough job for most people, so why change? Obviously as enthusiasts we see things differently, but in the end to most people a computer is a tool. In the end I think it would be beneficial to linux to focus on things such as mobile computing and servers.
Also, I know I will get flamed for this, but why does Linux's market share really matter? It's not like Linux is in any danger of disappearing, so why does it bother people so much when others use different operating systems? I used to be a mac zealot till I came upon the revelation that someone else using Windows really doesn't detract from my OS experience one bit. Why is linux any different? Other than perhaps you are trying to fight an ideological war, in which case it is no wonder people ignore linux. We get preached at enough as it is...
Monstar L
The impersonal Internet coupled with people with high intelligence, little life experience, and a lack of social skills that is contributing greatly to this. Can you imagine these same geeks telling someone to their face to "Go Read The Fucking Manual?"
You make the assumption that most documentation out there is well-written and easy to understand, without making hundreds of obscure references or alienating new users with obtuse language. The reality is that most people who write documentation, unfortunately, especially for OSS, are not good writers, good speakers, or good teachers.
If you find a particular piece of documentation useful, that's great. It served its purpose. But keep in mind that you and the author might be on the same unnaturally inhuman wavelength, and that "real" people will have a bit of difficulty deciphering the author's meaning.
At this point I was accused of "bitching about service provided for free" and "its a wiki, feel free to contribute and edit it".
I've gotten that too. It's very strange. I'm looking in the Wiki because I don't know the answer. When I see the answer isn't there, I'm not the person you want to edit it. What am I supposed to do, write down how I'd *like* it to work?
I'm not sure what kind of person Linux snobs think they're dealing with. Snobs seem to assume that ordinary users aren't asking questions because they want to know the answers, but because they want to catch the snobs in a mistake. I wonder what social group interacts that way. Oh, geeks. Right.
Where's the news?
Ever drove by bus in LA? Ever asked the bus driver if this particular bus goes to a specific direction? All you get is "RTFBM"!
I think, it is not a problem of the Linux community. You can find this attitude everywhere.
The problem is that it is easy to forget what it is like being a newbee. When I started using Linux in 1994. Things like Mounting Disks, Compiling Apps, Having to Gzip and Tar a file. Or even asking for Help and it wasn't untill 1998 I was sucessfully able to understand what the heck the Man pages were talking about and how to search for data in them. And I was at an advantage because I knew DOS. Today Windows users Never touched a commandline and are not even sure where to start, and they don't even fully realize what the computer handes and what the OS does. Before I though the hardware organized the drives as A: B: C:... not the OS (Espectially with the CMOS giving drives the same values). When they decide to switch to Linux you will need to rember almost everything including the Man pages which expect that you understand some concepts first. But after using it for a while we exect everyone to know what you mean. So when you hear a seemingly stupid question then you should step back and just give them a simple answer then followed with an explanation why it is like it.
RM=ReMove
LS=LiSt
etc...
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I try to read as much documentation as I can. I also try to help out other newbies by giving them answers (if I know the answer), and also where you can find the answer (in the documentation).
I think this helps them out by giving them a good answer but then also showing them how to find other answers on their own.
After all, knowledge is meant to be shared.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
I couldn't agree more.
I can't think of a successful industry, anywhere that doesn't invest a significant (if not major) portion of time to new customer acquisition. The word "Newbies" all by itself, reflects a culture hostile to new blood.
Its amazing when you compare Linux culture to Mac culture which almost resembles a cult in its "love-bombing" approach to new members.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Nearly every site that aims to be helpful in learning linux is not. It often has references, without links, to utilities you have to scour the internet to find. The people who aim to help never begin at a point where someone who knows little to nothing about linux can begin.
Where is THE linux documentation? (if you're going to say man pages, please don't)
The Admin and the Engineer
Most people have a limited emotional range. Hyped news plays at the edges of that range. My range is a bit more intense, though possibly no more varied. The intensity of the news doesn't affect me as much, however most people want me and others like me to confine myself to their range, mostly because I affect them in a way similar to hyped news.
A long time ago I paid $1000 for a subscription to a 1-year Microsoft Support offering.
During that year I asked approx 10 questions, none of which got answered properly.
One of the answers I did receive was a "forward" of a note from one of Microsofts developers. It read:
"It is none of his business!"
That consisted the entire reply to my request for help!
Christ, man, why couldn't you just toe the line and post a Goatse link like everyone else?
On the other hand, I admire someone who has the guts to do that with a username.
Not that I'm excusing bad manners, but here's the otherside of the equation:
I used to help out quite a bit with linux noobs. I'd show them where to find the answers, and I'd give them suggestions. I don't anymore. 99% of the time, after I'd show them where they could find their answer, they come back asking the same question, obiously not reading the source I had sited. Not only that, but they'd get upset that I suggest they go read the site again, as if their time was so valuable that they simply couldn't take time to read it.
I'd get flamed, emailed, IM'd because I had politely suggested that the answer to their question was at so-and-so's site. I didn't tell them to RTFM, nor would I call them names or otherwise be an ass to them. I'd tell them where their answers were, and I'd receive all sorts of idiotic flaming for my efforts.
I have since chosen to only help those truly interested in learning, but I can see going the otherway and returning the flames. I don't agree with it, and I think a lot of people in general need to grow up, but I can see why some people would do it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I can definitely agree with the fact that some IRC channels, mailing lists, etc. are not newbie friendly. And I agree that's a bit of a problem. But I wonder if there aren't some decent reasons for this.. Granted, these aren't "good" excuses, per se, but they work..
First, the people you're asking these newbie questions are often the developers of the software. Umm, wow. A programmer being introverted and arrogant? Most developers don't have the social skills and graces to handle repeated barrages of newbie questions and respond with anger.
Secondly, those mailing lists and channels with people that are willing to help often get fed up with hearing "How do I start the X service" a million times a day. FAQs and Wikis are there to handle the intro questions.
That said, if the FAQ/Wiki does not answer the question, then someone needs to fix it. Someone needs to step up to the plate and correct the mistakes and make the documentation clearer. Ultimately this should be a combination of the newbie and a guru from the list. The guru, knowing the software already, thinks the docs are fine and may not be able to fix them. The newbie, being a newbie, knows what doesnt make sense, but may not be able to fix it since they don't have the experience.
It would be nice to see a Linux Tech Support company to handle stuff like this, but I'm not sure how they'd make their money....
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
Working on a Linux team with no prior knowledge or training in linux is just so stupid. He probably was a jackass for taking the job. He probably was a jackass for not finding his query in google or the documentation with his distrubution. Why should other people cross train him? They have their own jobs to do, instead of supporting a newbie that souldn't be there. Come on!
Personally I try to help people on irc (freenode) on the projects I work on, but ignorance of Linux in the workplace when you are designated to be working with it is inexcusable. Expect the jackass to be sacked.
"If Linux snobs where a problem with the wider adoption of Linux then people who are interested in buying Ford or Dodge trucks would be put off by the hostility that each side has towards the other, etc. But yet there are millions of Ford and Dodge truck owners."
I hate car analogies. I hate analogies in general, but car analogies are always among the worst. Yours is an example.
People usually know how to operate a car when they buy it. The same is not true of Linux.
Do you see now why your analogy is so terrible?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I've seen folks called "stupid", right here on /., for not understanding parts of the GNU License, for misunderstanding how some esoteric functinality (on ANY platform), etc...
I don't think there's ANY misperception when someone just comes out and calls someone else "stupid" - just because they're ignorant about how something works.
And it's funny, but many times when I come across a problem, I will search the net to see what the solution is. I usually find that many folks have the same problem and very few of the answers are helpful. Most answers are "Read the manual" Read the "How TO". I already fucking did, but the number one assumption is that I didn't.
Spending days to fix some stupid problem (almost ALWAYS because of some quirk in the config or code that only the developer or a very experienced person would know!) get tiring after a while. Now, when I see something new some out, I just say "Fuck it!" I don't want to chase my tail around trying to make it work.
I love how about half the comments in this thread so far consist of "We make this software and give it to you for free. We don't have to help your dumb ass figure out how to make it work." Umm, guys have you ever considered that this is *exactly* the attitude that this article is referring to?
This guy's the limit!
Love and kisses,
esr
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
This makes me think about celebate catholic priests. They're the only intermediaries to the deity (Linux, in our case), but ... they're evolutionarily sterile so the meme is less likely to propogate without a mutation in the general population.
Makes me consider priests in a whole new light.
This is definatly a problem within the linux "scene". For example, a friend of mine went to #linux on afternet, wanting help setting up a telnet server. The responces were basically "I'm not going to help you beacuse telnet is outdated and insecure", despite my friend repeatedly insisting that he wanted telnet, not SSH. Elitism and hoarding the knowledge seems to be prevalent.
At least linuxquestions.org is still friendly.
I've worked as a developer both for Oracle and Microsoft and also in a hardcore Linux environment (embedded systems.)
I used to like Linux. It was reliable, fast, etc. You know the deal.
However, I became so tired of the arrogant, insecure, superior-attitude Linux freaks that on principle I switched back to Windows. I just didn't want to be associated with these people anymore.
The funny thing is, the people I worked with in Microsoft, although they were certainly nerds, they were polite, helpful, and just used their OS to get things done. Their OS was not used to create their own personality. They had lives, had normal emotional reactions to things, and did not have a defensive/superior attitute to their knowledge.
I really believe the problem is that the Linux freaks use Linux to define their personality. And being superior in their Linux knowledge makes them feel better about themselves. (How sad.)
This is why I use Windows. Yes, I know Linux is technically better, but I am happier being around normal people.
You mean there are actually programmers and software persons who lack social graces, act immaturely and respond impatiently?!?
Shocked, I am. SHOCKED, I SAY!!!
I know of a few people who can attest to the same scenario repeating itself as well. I am scratching my head over a problem I am experiencing. Seems nothing I do will work and nothing I have read to that point addresses the issue I am experiencing. What do I do? I post of a forum. I try to be as detailed as possible. Listing what I've tried and the results I get from it. Listing all the symptoms I have identified until the moment of posting.
No sooner do I post the question than I find the answer myself since I never stopped looking for answers elsewhere. So then I am faced with the question: Should I attempt to retract my posting or should I reply to my own question with the solution? Most of the time, I decide to do the later. Even though it makes me seem like an idiot answering my own question, I am always hopeful that someone else asks the same question but doesn't find the answer on their own.
The forum I frequent most is the Fedora forum and, frankly, I see no evidence of snobbery on there. So I guess perhaps the answer is to direct people to the forums that are most suited to the users with questions. I know from previous experience that the IRC bullies out there use IRC as a means to maintain a level of social dominance and treat channels like territory. Clearly, they have their own issues to sort out and are best left alone.
'The responding note read: "Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn." '
He was being especially gentle. You should read what they say when they are being rough.
I've found that often those who are especially knowledgeable about computing think of themselves as part of an in-group, and believe that acting out their anger toward others is acceptable.
Many of these so-called Linux snobs are that way just because they don't know how to run the software themselves. They may know the words but they can't converse about the topics themselves so they use snobbishness to hide their ignorance. They may have written the software, but they are clueless about what happens when it is linked with a newer or older version of some library.
People who don't have much experience with Linux naively expect it to work as advertized. When it doesn't, they assume (incorrectly) that they must have done something wrong. That is just the way Linux is. If you can't fix it yourself, no one is going to (or may even be able to) fix it for you.
I think the linux snob attitude is actually a defensive reaction against the holes pointed out by the newbies that the snob just doesn't want to see. A libertarian attitude common among geeks doesn't exactly help, either, nor does the quasi-aspergers interpersonal communication style that is also common (and they are hand-in-hand I might point out). Not that it bothers me - I don't mind a sink-or-swim environment, but it's obviously the great barrier to entry.
My guess is that only a "whole widget" approach like the Mac hardware + OS X + cultural support will have a low barrier to entry to the n00b. The cultural component is critical.
must... stay... awake...
Just because its open source and free does not mean the product is better than the closed source competition from the users point of view.
I'm sure there are many people around who would use something from Redmond over OSS simply because the developers only see other developers as their userbase. The task of reversing the result of developer mentality ends up at the distro companies who need people to buy the stuff and not need to read pages of badly formatted docs to use it. Users want to get stuff done (and will vote with dollars if need be), not listen to fanbois make baseless bullshit arguments for them to use their favorite product
The first time I installed linux was on a 386 (Slackware 0.99) I have always run it in one form or another. I have had experances like this and it saddens me that such a great OS gets plagued with people like this.
I am not a programmer, I am an Admin!
So I noted a problem in the game OOLite (Great game) and posted on the board that it was locking up. The responce
DEV: Recomplie the src with --debug load it into gdb and do a trace on the lock up. Then post the output.
ME: umm Great what is gdb and how do you use it?
DEV: NO Responce!
It still locks up, oh well I just keep waiting for a new release to fix the problem.
This has been true for as long as I can remember. If the software is inadequate or confusing, blame the user. It's happened to me, even here on Slashdot.
Way back in the stone age.... sometime in 1997, maybe? Maybe 1998. Not sure. Anyway... Linux was _just_ starting to get deployed occasionally in business. I had a couple of DNS servers up on an early RedHat box. The box lost power... these were just desktop machines sitting in someone's cubicle. (We hadn't grown to the point of needing 'real' servers quite yet, and an actual server room was a year off.) My primary box took a LOT of filesystem damage, and it took me ages to fix it. So I commented in a slashdot thread that ext2 was very fragile, and that it was one of Linux's real weak points.
You just wouldn't believe the crap I got. Slashdot doesn't seem to archive that far back, so I can't give you links, but _most_ of the replies I got blamed me for being stupid. I "should have used a UPS"... ok, I could grant that, but remember we were a shoestring outfit, and we didn't need those on Windows servers. A couple people went off on me for, get this, not knowing how to use a disk editor to find my secondary superblocks and repair with those. I kid you not. Linux was perfect, and ANYTHING that went wrong was obviously the user's fault... to the point that I should know how to manually repair my filesystem. Instead of admitting that the filesystem should survive a power failure, it was my fault for breaking it.
Several years later, after Reiserfs and ext3 came out, we had a similar conversation, also here on Slashdot. Suddenly everyone is all about how great the journaling filesystems are, and how bad ext2 sucks. It was probably even some of the same people, but the original conversation had already been lost, so I couldn't prove it.
People just will NOT criticize software they're emotionally involved with. It's the most ridiculous thing I've seen... these theoretically intelligent, rational software designers that become absolutely insane when you suggest their software is imperfect. Blame the user! "You're just too stupid to use our software. Go away."
Fortunately, there's enough people in the Linux community now that the lunatic fringe doesn't dominate quite like it did, but these people are still out there.
It was ridiculous then, and it's just as ridiculous now. It doesn't happen as much, but it still sucks.
As with all situations when someone goes crying to parents or authorities, that someone said something mean to him, there are different povs and situations "edited" to fit the agenda of the reporting party.
Usually, there are three steps to the "Newbie Story":
1. Linux learning curve is very steep. I have years of Linux experience and I still stumble over some problems that I cannot solve immediatelly. More often than not, newbie has problems making something work with/on Linux.
2. Many people have problems groking and go to power users or authors of the software for help. They usually help. And since they do have other things in life to do than answer the same question over and over again, their answers are terse, with more or less detailed pointers to relevant sections of documentation, sometimes spiced with some examples, not necessarily relevant to the problem at hand at first glance.
3. Some people just can't be bothered to use the pointers to documentation, post more detailed bug reports etc. They demand to fix their problem, telepatically, pronto! They usually get the answer along the lines of "you have the right to refund in the full amount you paid me, go bother someone else."
But when the newbie in question starts whining about the painful experience in some public forum, he/she usually skips step 2.
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
If Linux SNOBS are responsible for scaring the when-is-it-ready-for-the-desktop-blablabla-08/15-u ser-mob away...
Then we owe them thanks that Linux still has a functional commandline...
A large percentage (like 99) of people who went into tech fields are, shall we say "socially disadvantaged". No, make that "socially retarded". Add to the mix an unhealthy sense of inferiority, expressed as almost comic bluster, and you get the prototypical geek. It's not a Linux thing, its a tech thing.
The reason Linux people seem unresponsive to questions posted by newbies is that the "experts" probably don't know either. They just don't want to say so. "I don't know" is anathema to geekdom, it invalidates their whole purpose in life - "I know, therefore I am."
First of all, the whole point is a myth. People in Linux forums are unbelievably helpful. This with 3 years of experience - Help comes quickly, clearly and to the point. There are some arrogant people though, usually in the usenet newsgroups, or in the forums of more techie distros. But they are needed, they just give a signal out that in plain English is just "Try to google it first yourself, use the search feature of the forum, and just THINK what you are asking!". Whitout a little bit of arrogant messages around, we'd probably see 10-fold increase in questions in headers like "PLEASE HELP! A CRASH!", and questions like "Hi, does anyone here use Amarok? Pete", not even mentioning the good, proper questions which have already been answered about 10K times in the internet, and which can be found by search. Think about the forums without the assholes. Think about the forums with too much assholes. There is an equilibrium there somewhere. And hey, vote with your feet.. er mouse!
I don't think the attitude is snobbishness, I think it's fear of being found out to be non-omniscient.
Due to the infinite variations in combinations of kernel, libraries, packages, configuration files, network configurations and hardware, it's just not possible for the average (or above average) geek to actually cough up the correct answer or procedure for any particular question without actually logging in to the machine to see what's happening.
This makes the geeks feel insecure and they respond with anger instead of saying "I don't know" or "I can't tell without logging in to your machine".
Personally I found a lot of help on IRC a couple of years ago when I was setting up Linux as a dual boot option. You just have to know how to not be a douchebag and people will usually help you.
nothing
I've found the Ubuntu user community is extremely helpful & very patient with noobs.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
"Sometimes it's just the arrogant attitude that keeps people from switching from Windows"... Or it could be that they're just thick.
To plug a few projects where I have gotten a lot of help when my knowledge of the subject has been limited. By all means they could have given me a RTFM response but instead they answered my questions throughly and respectfully.
Zope http://www.zope.org/
OpenNMS http://www.opennms.org/index.php/Main_Page
MailScanner http://www.sng.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailscanner/
MailWatch http://mailwatch.sourceforge.net/doku.php
SipX http://sipx-wiki.calivia.com/index.php/Main_Page
Before Suse for Sparc died:
http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-sparc/
(Too bad that is gone, it was a nice Sparc based distro)
I've also encountered the problems of snob users as well. I've been happily using many distributions of GNU/Linux for a number of years, and would be more than happy to teach a person everything they need to know. However i've run into my own share of snobbish users. The users that take what you say, then twist it, or say "i already knew that" (even though they most likely didn't), or make arrogant remarks when you typo something, or have to think for more than 3 seconds about the syntax of random-3000th-command-from-the-left. There are a fair share of users that just don't show the eagerness to learn that some can, and will do anything in their power to make themselves feel better (when they start to feel confused) even if it means pissing you off when you're trying to teach them. (Thus, making a normally short task, take many times the amount of time it should have taken to explain the task.)
I'm not sure how many of you are keeping up with the whole "Tuttle" series on The Register, but it's situations akin to that, which happen quite a bit more freqently than some think. A lot of people love to blindly second guess someone when they really start to feel clueless in something. Instead of simply asking a question to get an explaination, they critisize the teacher to get them to explain a concept to them (Or in the tuttle case, threaten them). "So, then you just run scp -r @
I am not, however, trying to deny the fact that the Linux side has elitists, we do, I know a number of them, they're not half bad once you get to know them, but good god do not ask them for help. they can be assholes beyond logical explaination, but that's a rant for another day. In my experience with users i've found the best types of users are those that can admit they know nothing, forget everything, and start from scatch. Someone that can be sat down, and is willing to take notes to improve memory of the commands would even be better. I personally have run into such a user, and he's become quite a regular GNU/Linux user since and sits happily on a couple Gentoo machines at home. He doesn't second guess, he doesn't insult, he simply sits, listens, and asks questions, and isn't afraid to admit when he doesn't know something, and isn't afraid to speak up. If all of the Linux bound users were like him, then things would be a lot easier, but for now we're going to have to admit defeat on either sides. There will always be arrogant users, and there will always be arrogant elitist GNU/Linux users, nothing we can do about that for now I guess.
It's the truth and we all know it.
Seriously though, I think that we all have run into assholes on IRC. If you want support, an semi anonymous chatroom may not be the best place. You can find forums or other places to get good support, but IRC isn't the best .. IMHO.
For example, if you are new to making Fedora usable, fedorafaq.org and the like have some good hints on how to get things setup. I also personally have found good help on the forums I lurk the most, http://forums.somethingawful.com./ I used to be a Unix/Linux admin, so I also spent a good deal of my time helping people there. There still are some tools, but it isn't nearly as bad as IRC.
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
I guess that's the price of "free" software. If you want to have a better chance of a nice support person you need to pay for service.
Note that this admission absolutely destroys what used to be one of the features of Linux: "All the support is free!" If this features is finally being shown to be false (partially due to the horribly and inexcusibly rude attitudes of many of Linux's adherents), then let us all have the character to admit freely that it is so.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Although I've experienced this arrogant attitude with regard to linux before but this is common for everything else like windows help forums, opensource projects etc .... In my personal experience, the helpfulness of many linux enthuist/expert outweighs the rudeness of certain individuals.
IMHO, it's a matter of the culture around individual distrbutions. I subscribe to both Debian and SuSE mailing lists and also follow the Ubuntu forums from time to time. Regrettably, but perhaps not surprisingly, Debian is the only one of those three where snide remarks, unhelpful "advice" and generally rude or authoritarian behaviour is not uncommon. But then you only have to glance at, say, Planet Debian to surmise that the Debian "culture" seems to encourage elitism and a generally poor attitude towards ordinary Joe Users. SuSE and Ubuntu, by contrast, are normally polite, sane places. SuSE's mailing lists, in particular, have a calm and adult feel. These are regular folks interested in sorting out glitches and getting things right. Immature carry-on is given short shrift and the awful, cultish term "newbie" is rare whereas the Debian lists are full of it.
All the more reason to choose your Linux distro carefully. There's more to it than the reviews around the net. In the end, nothing good will come of treating your users poorly. For that reason, I'd say SuSE and Ubuntu have a brighter future than "pure" Debian.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Jerks are jerks, no matter what OS they run.
The barrier to entry that I found most annoying was learning the terminology. When you know the only answer you're going to get is "RTFM" and all you really want is to know what manual to read.
For example, say I want to learn how to do something using the command line. Googling a phrase that describes what I want to do rarely yields optimal results. Since I don't know what the command is, I can't type "man thing I want to do".
If you know a good solution to this problem (like a book that is worth reading/purchasing), or a really good site, etc then I don't care if you tell me to RTFM, as long as you tell me where to get it. The same goes for learning new languages, even though I find that getting that documentation is a lot easier.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
I somewhat agree with what this article is trying to say. However, I think a bigger problem might be all the smaller pieces that fit together to make Linux work. For example just to compile a program properly you need the compiler program, the shared libraries the program requires, the environment set properly, and all the archiving/dearchving tools. Now for a new user he may have "RTFM"'d the manual to the software he's trying to compile, and most manuals say which shared library he needs, however most manuals fail to mention that a compiler is needed. So the user can find out this information fairly easy by doing some google searches and gets his compiler, and while he's web browsing updates his shared libraries. Now he tries to compile again with another failure this time the error message is pretty vague and if he asks in a chat channel and gets the snob repsonse this can be frustrating. Come to find out the problem is in his environment variables and he finally fixes them and now he can finally just 'compile' the open source program he downloaded. Now... if the user were to read every 'manual' about the compiler involved, the shared libraries, how to setup the environment and the software he's trying to compile he'd take a week just to get himself setup to install an opensource program. Granted every program after that will go much quicker, it still is a lot if I'm Mr. Average Joe trying to learn linux. Then when the snob attitude kicks in thats icing on the cake.
Anybody who's kneejerk response to that probably wouldn't know the answer anyway. The people who are frequently the smartest, brightest, most experienced usually have no problems (and indeed truely enjoy) helping new people.
That being said, coming up to a linux person and asking any of the following questions (or permutations of these) will probably result in being completely ignored:
a) Can you teach me to hack into (banks|governments|school)
b) Windows is way better than linux, because blah blah blah
c) I already know everything, but I can't seem to get my 'foo' to work right, so if you'd go ahead and help me, I'll make sure to let you know that I already knew how to do it when you're done, thanks.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
Just like with most of IRC, I have seen people time and time again act snobishly. Especially the ops. They go as far as to sending people to different channels just because their question may not be on topic with the channel name. They may know the answer but they would rather be rude. Secondly, there are many different ways of doing things in Linux. Instead of encouraging diversity, they say that they are right and everyone else is ignorant and should stfu. I don't think that is a very positive or encouraging approach for anyone.
I use linux a lot, and I'm pretty comfortable. But I suck at using Windows. People who are real Windows mavens can be impatient and intolerant, too. Maybe there are just more Windows experts so the jerks are easier to sidestep and ignore.
I'm not convinced that there's some special form of grumpiness that comes with one OS or another...
computer aptitude. I am certainly willing to help anyone wanting to migrate but the first thing that M$ folks need to learn is that it DOESN'T work the same way. I firmly believe that not everyone that can use Windows can use Linux. Some people don't possess programming aptitude and all they will be able to do is point and click. Sad, but it's true. Now if someone wanted to switch my first suggestion would be to start with one of the many fine "Dummies" books moving progressively up to more advanced tomes of work. Linux is going to require that you know how to research to find an answer to your problem. They may as well get started that way. This aptitude issue is also what is forever going to keep linux behind M$. Better quality has a price.
The mozilla guys are really good. I wasted hours of their time on irc once, trying to figure out why I got a double request for each single request. Turns out my webserver gave their automatic 'favicon.ico' request a 301 to a page, which firefox followed, stupidly enough. But I squarely to blame for not spotting something like this before logging on. Anyway, the guys spent their fruitless hours with me chatting, eventually spotting the problem, and not a single foul word ever left their keyboards. In the next version of firefox, the favicon.ico request was gone. I don't know if my late night spluttering had anything to do with it, but I was very impressed with the mozilla people and their attitude anyway.
The GTK folks don't seem to give you much attention, on the other hand. After years of fruitlessly trying, I have still to get any answers to my questions asked on their mailing list. The mailing list in itself sucks as well, since you can unsubscribe, but they keep on sending you the mails. I suppose their attitude shows just as well in the (needless) complexity of their API.
I have come across this a few times, none worse when I asked a question on #debian on IRC when I had a question as to how I could download the different versions. Yes, I had read the website, and I still did not understand how I could download the latest version, the one I wanted to play with and learn on.
Believe it or not, this was my 3rd major linux distro and about my 2nd year of using Linux, and I recieved a much nicer welcome from #slackware and the folks at the Slack Gnome distro; Dropline. It was from here that I learned Linux, from the server to the desktop and back again. A few years later...Gentoo, and an AMAZINGLY helpful and kind community on IRC/Forums and mailing lists. I think the newness and the helpfulness is what made this distro in the early days.
Now with FreeBSD on the server I'm comfy reading the manual (the handbook is amazing) so when I do have questions I don't get flamed. Still, when I get a n00b question, and their, "Sorry if this is a stupid question" I answer them and sometimes follow up with a link that can help them learn more. I mean come on, we've all been there, at one point we had no idea what *nix was, so why treat n00bs any different than seasoned geeks? The way I see it, I am where I am in my career becuase of people that did not have chips on their shoulders and were happy to share their knowledge with others fo no other reason than to be nice.
It's this 'humanity' type of feel that I think Ubuntu has capatured, somehow, perfectly. This is what I use on the desktop now, and I appreciate Debian much more, but just can't get over the community that Mark has nutured around Ubuntu. Perhaps it's the lack of "we have to make money somehow, you have to join the club for 'Premium access' or something, but they've done it. I think Ubuntu has the best chance of growing beyond 90% of the distros just because of this helpful/dynamic base that has grown around it.
fak3r.com
Ask the question, then use a throwaway account to provide an obviously idiotic "answer". The know-it-alls will be jumping all over themselves to prove "the other guy" wrong.
This is more likely the wrong attitude for people who deliver software support.
...) software support needs proper interaction between both the requester and the guru providing support.
I you are supporting software on a commercial base (Linux, Windows, Whatever..) this could happen also. But in the long run, bad supporters will disappear from the job.
Free (commercial also
I remember the case of a newbie who asked for urgent support, otherwhise it would cost him a lot of money and he didn't got the time to learn this linux stuff.
I've kindly replied him, I was offering free support, as is. Urgent requests: pay a specialist. I also deleverid him some tested keywords I was sure he would find the correct answer, using the sites search engine.
It's all about attitude, from both sides. Software has not much to do with it.
I'm working on a commercial helpdesk for several years.
Leaves more jobs and a higher salary for me. Let them work with the Windows PC's and I will work with the linux/unix servers.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Before asking a technical question by e-mail, or in a newsgroup, or on a website chat board, do the following:
1. Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
2. Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
3. Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
4. Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
5. Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
6. If you're a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code.
I might be marked down because of this.
But what I see day to day in the IRC, very few new people do these very simple things.
This is why we go off on them, they dont even try to find the answer on there own.
I have. I'm no "noob". Over 18 years in the industry. 12 of it doing FOSS development professionally.
When I have issues, it's not because I failed to RTFM- and, in some cases, there's NO "FM" to be read,
per se. There's a project (for which I've mostly buried the hatchet- and not in their collective skulls)
that I was keenly interested in using. The problem was, what you get by direct check-out from the
version control system they use for things doesn't build, there's no stated clean check-points/labels
for the repository, no way to easily extract which labels are present, and the only way to get the
project's stuff was through the version control system. Normally, the above is utterly unacceptable-
but in this case, if the project would give known clean branches or tags in the repository, it'd not
be a problem with the codebase. However, the project does NOT build to completion. It never has.
It's not due to my inexperience. In reality, I could just simply use the tools they're using and
build up a useful result myself (Which is what I've resolved to do at this point, which is a shame,
as it's more duplication of effort on the FOSS community's part...)- but they have so much USEFUL
metadata in the repository, that it actually would be nice to just be able to grab everything and use it
to build the packages.
I've been careful up to this point to not name names. I don't plan on naming them here either (Go digging
if you like- I've talked about this elsewhere and in even more detail...). However, when
they were asked in IRC what was broken, I got a severe case of cold shoulder and got kicked from the
channel (Mostly for what they percieved to be inappropriate for IRC- not that it was, mind...). I've since
reconciled what went on then with them, but they still have the problems that I've mentioned (Which is that
a person that is not 100% involved with the project currently has NO way of producing the desired result- you
have to know which metadata to excise from the entire repository or which tags are valid result producing
ones...)- and apparently no desire to rectify the real problem with instances of hostility (i.e. "We know what
we're doing and it's the only way to DO it- and there's no further discussion..." To be sure, not that specific statement, but in the end, that's the way it comes across all the same.)
I'm not going to say that this is the case- but to day that while every platform has "noob-haters" out there,
it DOES seem that the ones in the FOSS community just seem to be more vitriolic about things than many of the
other groups of noob-haters.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
...but it's also true of most places on the Internet where people can ask questions. Message boards, IRC, mailing lists, etc. It's probably worse on open source communities, but not by any means exclusive to them. What I usually do anywhere, when I have a question, is Google the hell out of it. If I can't find the answer, I politely ask on a board with a glaring notice telling people that I ran the question through Google and couldn't find an answer. Even so, I run the risk of getting unhelpful non-advice, like "RTFM", or a straight out insult, like "What a stupid gay-ass question, please die".
Funny enough, I usually have the same fear of asking questions about Linux or open source software in general that I have when asking questions on computer game boards. Maybe because the demographics of both overlap in some fashion: extremely socially inept young men, or very immature older men (a stereotype, but one that's hard to avoid). I'm socially inept myself, but at least I'm polite and have some consideration for other people's feelings. It hardly ever pays to be rude with people who need help, however clueless they are.
If i stopped when somebody said somethign similar, i would've never used linux. Really, my first experience with linux went soemthing like this: me: i'm being nuked on irc and bad people keep me from having fun friend: install linux me: what who where? friend: *sigh* here's a cd me: slackware 3.4? what do i do with it? friend: install, read doc on root cd. stop asking questions right now so i read everything i could on the cd, installed linux, totally screwed up everything, re-installed, totally screwed things up again (repeat last 2 steps a couple of times), installed linux, work with linux. I had no help whatsoever and this is also why it took me 2 months before i was online (my modem required a special init string), but man! the satisfaction you get then! I felt great because i found all my answers. Not somebody from the internet, newsgroups or fora! So when i got a little better in it, and somebody asked me the same questions i asked in the beginning, my response was similar to "rtfm". I don't think the person in the article was treated with such disrespect. More likely the person kept asking the same questions, without doing a little research for himself. I treat somebody like that exactly the same. RTFM first, and if you have questions about that, that's okay.
I remember one of the first comments I'd ever made online (Browbeat BBS, sometime in the late Eighties). I was 15 or 16 at the time, and everyone else on the board was really old, like in their 30s. It was some offhand comment about everyone being older and I didn't think much else of it. A couple days later someone responded with a terse, "F**k you, man." I was horrified. What did I do to cause this? It took just a few messages before some others (Darla, Sylke) informed that the poster was just joking and it was all in good nature.
The article's different though, but not by much. If people got offended every time there was a non-PC comment, no one would be on the Internet.
Sure, I want to bring on more Linux users, but neither I nor the hordes of other *VOLUNTEERS* are your paid tech support. And if someone is expecting me to do the homework of Googling and reading the manual, then at least have the decency to ask nicely instead of the common:
"This stupid Linux won't work. It won't connect. What's wrong?"
KLL
If you concentrate on assholes, you'll be too busy to do anything useful from now until the day you die, because there are an infinite number of assholes in every area of life. I've sure found enough corporate conformist assholes in the MS world, and enough yuppie wannabe assholes in the Apple world. Who cares?
n/t
The attitude is prevalent, and ignores completely the service aspect of providing a positive customer experience. You might have the greatest product in the world, but if nobody can install it or configure it, then it's really quite worthless. Sure, the "target audience" can figure it out, but all to often the target audience is just the myopic developer, and everybody else who is exactly like him/her. Oddly enough, this planet has a great many inhabitants who might gain benefit from the great software product, if only the creator bothered to consider even passable service to go along with it.
I'll blatantly link to my own comment thread from another story just a couple days ago, which is exactly on this same topic. There I was flamed for suggesting that having good service is just as important as having a good product, and that there is a large range between the "I'll do anything if you pay me" attitude and the "if you don't like it my way get lost" attitude.
By the way, I highly doubt it is only the Linux/FOSS community, but it does seem disproportionate; if nothing else, given that it's a smaller community, finding the odd non-snob is somewhat more difficult.
When you have a problem with software being packaged and sold by a company, you typically interact with support and sales people to figure out the problem. These people are trained to interact with users. The engineers might not be.
Now with many free software projects, you're not going to get that support layer to "deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to". Is that a knock against free software? I don't know, but I do know that's where companies like IBM, Redhat, Novell, etc. come in.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
I've seen both sides of this when it comes to Linux, but for the most part have found folks pretty helpful whyen I've needed help. On a VERY positive note I admin 3 Unix boxes. Occassionally I have come upon issues that I've wrestled with, but found the answers and a multitude of help from the folks on the tru64.org mailing list. Addtionally they have a very good website with lots of help. But as a newbie many years ago... yep, I got the snob attitude on more than one occassion. But, I too have been guilty of it. I try tobe concious of this... as we have rolled out linux on a few desktops.
I think the following flash animation from JeffK of somethingawful.com fame sums up how a lot of Linux snobs feel about the OS:
l ey/
http://www.somethingawful.com/features/usarfreind
OK, the article is very vague about who, exactly, he questioned. This makes a BIG difference. Which "project member" and which project was it? If you ask a n00b question on the kernel-dev mailing list, you'll go down in flames. You're just not supposed to do that. That would be like calling a lead developer up in Redmond with basic questions about Windows. Large companies have armadas of low-wage help desk folks to shield them from that kind of stuff.
If you post your question in the right forum, you'll be treated respectfully. That being said, I have to say that I have yet to find a simple question that couldn't be answered with carefully crafted google search terms, often from list archives. Even you don't find the answer that way, the search would give you a list of good candidate forums for asking your question.
-bp
bp
1) This is a good reason to start documenting everything you learn. If it takes 2 days to figure out how to do something silly, post something about it to your web page or blog. It will save the next guy a lot of trouble, and he'll thank you.
2) Open source writers should learn some basic business skills. Charge money! Your software is free, but that doesn't mean you can't earn a profit in it. Charge a consulting fee of $100/hr. First, this will weed out everyone who doesn't really need an answer. If you're still getting easy questions, this is good for you. You're going to be making $100 for a few minutes of work. And you'll probably force yourself to be friendly and smile while doing it.
Now you might be thinking, no one is going to pay $100/hr. Suppose the 'ignorant fool' is costing his company $50/hr in wages. If it takes a day to figure out how to do something, that's $400 in lost money and time. If it really matters, he'll pay the fee. Everyone is happy. And if he doesn't want to pay, well, he has no right to be angry. After all, the software was free.
The snobbishness is not the main problem as for every arrogant "guru" there are several sites like linuxquestions.org than make up for the "we're so clever it's you that's dumb" crowd.
What really lets Linux down is the GNOME projects insane "make everything as dumb as possible" philosophy.
Given that GNOME is the desktop of choice on some of the most popular distros (Ubuntu, Red Hat etc) this is the real Linux killer.
Many years ago whe I had ISDN I needed a better way to share the Internet between several machines. I went with SmoothWall Linux because it was compatible with all my hardware. I set it up, but I couldn't for the life of me work out how to get the machines to access the Internet. I was new to networking and especially Linux and didn't know what to do! I was stuck in the old days of proxy servers etc. I read EVERY scrap of information I could find on their website so, in desperation, I went to the IRC "support" channel and asked for help on what to do. I explained in great detail what I had done and what I wanted to achieve.
I was ignored. I asked again I got the reply "RTFM!". I explained I had already done so, but couldn't find anything that explained how to setup the clients. I was personally messaged "It's in the manuals, I suggest you read them!". Totally ignoring that I HAD read them.
I tried to explain again, but was then kicked and banned from the SUPPORT channel for trying to get SUPPORT!
I read ALL the manuals again and there was NOTHING about how to setup the clients. I formatted SmoothWall and reinstalled Windows 2000 as a proxy again. At least when I needed help doing that I got it - and very friendly they were too.
A year later I found all I needed was to add the server as a default gateway. Needless to say, I DIDN'T use SmoothWall and directed all my friends away from them as well.
I was coloured by that for years. Linux was bad, difficult and nasty. I then met someone who guided me to a friendlier side of Linux and I have never looked back.
Because, whether you like it or not, first impressions are everything.
The story sounds plausable, but look at the posting history of Timecop and the URL he provides... This is GNAA troll fishing for mod points.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Talkink about snobs: most of the comments agreeing with the article got a "2" or worst. I guess they deserve it.
I had the same issue. I had been reading the manual for 3 hours, decided to see if anybody in IRC knew, and within 5 minutes, I was told to "go make your own distro". Keep in mind, I only said 3 lines of text within those 5 minutes, the first being a greeting. Shortly after, I was kicked from the channel, for pestering. Three lines of text is pestering?
It's never just a game when you're winning. - George Carlin
I have this colleague at work who is totally Linux-minded and opposed to Microsoft (even though he uses Windows all the time to work remotely on Linux - makes one wonder why). I never heard him say a good thing about MS products and never heard him say anything bad about Linux products - to me, that's being biased and non-rational. They both have pro's and con's IMHO. Now while I was "raised" - and pampered so it seems - on Windows, I would feel more comfortable with a deeper knowledge of Linux and in my current job it is also a necessity. I must say that I feel rather discouraged to ask my colleague questions about Linux because when I do, first he ignores me for half a minute and then he comes up with a totally inadequate answer like "that's not difficult". Asking more information doesn't help, so Google is my friend. While I do get work done this way, I would be a lot more efficient (and happy) with a good answer on a small question from time to time. In my previous job, when a colleague asked me something I had the reflex to join him to his desk to give instructions. This person would always be grateful - whether I was able to help or not - for the time and consideration.
So yes, I too have difficulties with Linux snobs and yes Linux folks, if you really want to inspire people to use Linux, you may want to be more considerate and while you're at it, let go of that feeling of superiority. Another poster talked about being an ambassador and he is right; don't soil the image of Linux. I'm glad this topic came up and hope things can change.
And what if there's nothing behind the door until it is being opened?
Maybe you're not asking the right questions
.45 from an retired Marine.
Your mother should have taught you something: Not just in the context of linux, but within any community, respect requires that you recognize that the rest of the community is NOT here to hold your hand. They never will be. You can learn electrical engineering from the electricians (yes, the tradesmen will teach you if you behave correctly), learn linux from developers, learn how to shoot a
Any of these people you hope to learn from (they're called "experts", by the way) are going to expect some degree of respect from you. For starters, this means that you DON't waste their time, you do your homework, and you show that you've contributed some effort towards your own understanding of things.
OK, you've done all this, and they're still picking on you? Poor baby. Your mother really didn't do a very good job, did she?
Remember all those mean kids that picked on you in grade school? They did not abruptly become kind, generous, patient and accomodating when they graduated. They're still out there and they're still acting like assholes. You're going to meet them from time to time.
Suck it up.
Which GUI should I use? Gee, I don't know. Which distro should I use? Also, can anybody tell me what's the best religion? I don't want to get that one wrong, either.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I'm not saying the snobbery doesn't exist, it certainly does, however the following document can be really useful when trying to get beyond it and get your question answered. http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
"While snobs can be encountered for just about any OS you care to name, the Linux snobs are particularly shrill."
Hey, don't forget that Linux users are simply trying to emulate Unix users, so while we're shrill, we're a watered-down version of the Unix variety.
I really don't find anything wrong with being told to check the FAQ, read the man pages, and the increasingly common "Google is your friend" response. It tells me that many people have had the same problems, and now there's answers. Of course, it's degrees more helpful if someone says the above and includes a link to the FAQ, the Google search, or the online documentation.
What bugs the CRAP out of me is people who ask questions, and never write back to say a solution worked. I think that step in protocol is often passed.
"Linux users need to understand that when disillusioned Windows users come to them asking for help with Linux, they effectively become representatives of Linux...ambassadors, if you will...and they need to behave accordingly."
True... but what's accordingly? I expect most of us don't have Turret's syndrome, as the Linux "gurus" in the article did, but at the same time, I assume we're all too busy to fall on our faces over every question. I want to make it clear that in addition to saying "Google is your friend", or "Read the FAQ", there will inevitably be a link to a result, or to the FAQ. This is the difference between someone saying "I can't help you, get outta here" and "I can't help you, but here's someone who can".
While I can see that some wouldn't like to read the entire documentation, it seems easier to do so than to have an entire stranger guess at your situation, what you expect as your end result, and to have that person sift through the documentation for you. Who knows if they understood what you want? When they respond, after many hours of research, with a completely different answer than what you need, and you tell them it's not what you wanted, I think they have every right to tell you to RTFM (with a link to TFM).
So... expect cordiality, but please expect to do some work yourself.
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
Oddly I think working in the computer industry bears some strong similarities to other aspects of life like maturity, politics, being or not being a parent. You can't relate to one side until you've been there and you can't relate to where you've been once you've crossed over to the other side. That pretty much sums it up.
;P) the parent might take great offense because they can only picture their own child as the butt of the joke. It's the same with where you are in your understandin
When I first started to work with PCs I came over from the Atari, Amiga and Macintosh worlds. I really only knew the GUI because I barely used the computer beyond just creating music, and working with graphics. I didn't use the CLI on the Amiga very much. I used some "TTP" apps on the Atari but only with GUI wrappers. And the Mac... well with the Mac I just primarily focused on my creative work and had NO inkling of the underlying aspects of the system. (We're talking Mac OS 7 and later here)
Then I graduated from college and needed to get my own computer. I couldn't afford a Mac since even with student discounts a decent Mac was still $4000 and that didn't include all the software I wanted. Instead I spent $4000 on the parts to build my own DOS 6.22/Windows 3.1 PC, all the software I wanted and more and a few peripherals too. I did it because it was cheaper. But it hamstrung me in terms of being cretive because I was spending more time trying to get the system working right since there were driver and software conflicts out the wazoo.
In fact I remember when I first put all the hardware together I was confounded about how I was supposed to format my HD. On all the other OSes (excepting the Amiga Workbench) I'd dealt with primarily, All I needed to do was turn the computer on, and the base GUI would load from ROM. Then I'd just point and click my way to a formatted drive. So I called the computer store and asked them where the formatting utility was in the BIOS. They seemed annoyed with my question. They said I needed to boot the OS to format the drive. OK... well how do I boot the OS if it isn't in the ROM? Is my ROM bad? So the guy walked me through booting my DOS setup disks. Then I finally "got it" and I was on my way. But it seemed so archaic compared to what I was used to. No GUI to format and I also had to consider this new concept of partitioning...
So now here I am twelve years later. I'm a Unix admin where I work, a pure Linux user at home and I still have a foot in the Windows world thanks to work. But now that I'm on "the other side" I find it much harder to relate to users. This is odd because I used to be great at relating to users. I remember when I first started out that I could explain very clearly any software on the Windows platform to a user and they'd usually "get it". I was told many times how "friendly" and "accessible" I was. A lot of people commented on how I could make all this stuff make sense to them. Today, it's a lot harder for me. Part of it is because in order to communicate effetively the concepts that you use on a computer, you really need to speak a different language. And that language confounds users. If I take a step back and translate, "the close window widget" to "The 'X' in the upper right that closes a window" I find myself being annoyed at having to do that for a user. It's needless if they'd just come around to my way of thinking. And therein lies the problem.
Just like being a parent changes certain things and there is no way to relate those changes to a non-parent without them feeling like you're insulting them. They assume that when you say, "having a kid really made my life complete" that you're implying to them, "your life sucks because you don't have a kid yet but just you wait until you do you worthless whipper snapper". When that's not really the case. On the other hand when someone who isn't a parent makes an off color joke about children or babies to someone who might be a "normal" parent (I'm not.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Like any population there are assholes and nice folks. It's who you get.
I've seen people in the Open Source community answer questions that would have had me saying "go buy a book". Particularly the PostgreSQL folks. I have watched them answer basic SQL questions that really don't belong on the lists where they are posted again and again - some of those guys are saints.
Basically, 3% ruin it for the other 97%.
Guess that's just life:-)
Shut the fuck up
I develop a few projects, most notably amaroK. And can attest to the truth in the f***ing summary.
The thing is, popular projects get a lot of questions thrown at them, we have 200 people in our irc channel at any time. We're usually very good at handling questions and being nice, but the constant barrage can get you down, especially when you've had the same question asked 50 times that day, and perhaps you had a bad day at work too.
You know how it can get.
I understand a user's frustration. They want to like your product, and your documentation is sub-standard, and your program buggy (it's open source after all), so you decide to ask a developer.
But this is the error! Try not to ask the developer. Every OSS project has a number of lurkers who know the devels and project well, but tend to not develop just hang around and help with misc. tasks, one of which is user-support.
Ask those guys, you'll generally get a much nicer response.
I know this is a probably obvious and cliched comment, but OSS is not commercial software, you can't exactly expect the same kind of responses to things like requests for support.
The problem with the RTFM responce is that the community doesn't learn as a community. Each user is fragmented from the community in terms of learning. When someone has a problem they are to in no polite terms to RTFM. While the answer may be in there somewhere it doesn't help the user as they are asking most likely because they have looked for the answer and were unable to find it. As a result they are either left out in the cold to wither and die (return to Windows), or they must experiemnt make mistakes and reinvent the wheel. By not helping new users we in the community are hurting ourselves in terms of user base and rate of developement. Even really talented indiviuals get stuck on a problem from time to time and I must wonder how many of these talented people have be turned off by the countless RTFM assholes out there. If you don't know the answer or don't have time to find the answer then say so in a polite way.
Unfortunately the people who are jerks to the noobs give a bad taste to those who aren't sure whether or not to leave Windows and make the switch...often enough, too many responses from the snobs could cause the person thinking of switching to just give up and stay with Windows. It's people like the jerks who make Linux almost as bad as Microsoft in the support area. "Oh, my distro and config works, yours doesn't? Well it's obviously on your side so don't waste our time cause we can't help you."
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
Mac users are happy to answer noob questions. ... But maybe that's because there's so few questions compared to windows/*nix.
Well, based on my own experiences, the barriers for Linux adoption are the same ones that have always been around, but just to a lesser extent: People like to stick what they're familiar with, especially when they've learned through experience with other products that "new" is hardly ever "improved". It's human nature to support the status quo.
If Windows has the applications that they're familiar with, and it works with the hardware they have, then they aren't going to look elsewhere - unless they feel they're getting screwed by the PC maker. Then they'll just change vendors. But since Microsoft controls all major OEMs with punitive pricing, what they get will always be running Windows.
The first question people ask is always: Will it run [popular software name]? Followed by: Will it work with [popular hardware device]? Manuals? Come on, no one ever reads them. Not that I was in the habit of doing it, but I don't recommend they RTFM, because the manuals are non-existant most of the time. I don't even tell them to use 'help' features, because those are generally unhelpful, and written for 5-year-olds.
Thanks for saying it.
Maybe Linux firms need to offer something like an MVP, trying to entice people to give up hours of free support in the hopes of being randomly selected.
I'm not arrogant. Now get your damn Windows laptop out of my face!
DISCLAIMER: I would never say that to my Mom.
Half the time I'm right, the other half you're wrong.
Moderators, do your job properly. Parent is hardly a troll, just because one of the repliers disagrees with parent doesn't mean you should mod it way down. Sort it out.
RTFM = Return to freaking Microsoft
The problem, I think, is that there are two groups of Linux users, and they have different expectations as well as different definitions for "ease of use". The more traditional Linux user defines "ease of use" as "what is the best way to get this job done". To this user, the only thing a GUI is good for is to bring up multiple command line windows on screen at the same time.
The other group of users includes most of the people just starting out with Linux. To this group, "ease of use" means "how can I get this job done with the least effort, and the least amount of training". Almost by definition, this precludes using the command line at all. To this group, even using the "man" pages is painful, as they often bring up more questions than answers. These people are known to declare "I don't want to be a programmer -- I just want to get my work done."
So, you have two groups that don't speak the same language, and who find the other's point of view very frustrating. The potential here for friction is so great, that I'm surprised it hasn't resulted in major flame wars.
To the first group, it's easier to type a line of arcane commands into a shell. For the second group, it's easier to follow a twisted maze of GUI menus and dialog boxes. Each side thinks the other is just plain nuts for doing it their way.
Each side needs to understand that this cultural gap exists, and be more understanding when asking or answering questions. Both sides need to change.
Is Linux ready for the desktop? Absolutely. Is the Linux *community* ready for the desktop? Absolutely not. I gave my wife, who had never used a computer before in her life, a laptop loaded with Suse 10. She had no problem with any of it. Of course, she had me to come to with questions or problems. Heaven help her if she had to find an answer from IRC. A little patience and a kind word makes all the difference.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
I had a similar experience dealing with Firefox. I was trying to install some extensions, and I kept getting a vague bar at the top of my browser saying that I was not allowing software to be installed, and to fix the problem by checking the option in Settings. Really descriptive.
So apparently the option used to be there. I discovered this by joining the firefox support IRC channel, and asking. One guy (I forget his name) was very helpful and let me know about the hidden config menu. I made a comment about it not being very intuitive, seeing as the pop-up bar told me to look for an option that no longer existed. I fully understand why it may have been removed, but either it needs to be there--or the pop-up needs to change it's message.
Well, another individual chimed in about it being removed for a reason, and a very good reason, and blah blah blah. Well, I don't disagree... but that doesn't change the fact that it's NOT INTUITIVE! Cheers to the fellow who helped out, jeers to the "snobs" out there.
Starmen.net
Back in the days, when linux was young and new (read: 92ish), you couldn't even RTFM. There was no FM. We waded through source (and thiiiiis high was the snow. And we had to go uphill. BOTH WAYS. Without shoes!).
Linux was a system for people With The Clue (tm). Without, you were doomed. You had to know more about TCP/IP than that it isn't the Chinese Secret Service to get it working. We turned bitter and jaded, but at the same time, we became really good at what we're doing. We were happy in our little world, flying up on cloud number 9 and look down at the barbarians and illiterates using Windows, who have no clue and get heart attacks when an illegal instruction is encountered and they wonder if the special forces are gonna break down their door for doing something illegal.
Of course, with Windows we could have done the same. In less time. Well, not really, but it was mostly dick waving and about feeling better. Hey, we have The Clue! You, little peon, cannot even THINK about running Linux.
Now, Linux has matured. It grew. vi isn't anymore THE editor. No, neither is emacs, you misguided emacs followers! It's some notepad-ish thingamajig that runs on X. Imagine! Needing X! What decent program dares to refuse running on shell?
Along comes newbie bob. He's seen Linux, he thinks it doesn't look that bad and he decides to give it a shot. A barbarian invading our sacred halls. And he is asking those questions. You know, THOSE. THOSE questions that you've heard a million times before. Those questions that you simply know he will find if he only typed something cryptic (but completely logical for you) into google. Fu.., are you too stupid to google?
Nope. He just doesn't even know what to look for. And, worse, he can't "read" the answer.
The problem lies on both sides of the trench. The old masters and gurus get tired, being asked the same questions over and over, from people who don't even bother looking stuff up and if, don't understand and want EVERYTHING right NOW and WITHOUT wasting a moment to learn. Of course, if you happen to be someone who wants to learn and are unlucky enough to ask the very same question, you will be lumped into the same pot and get a "RTFM, moron".
On the other side are the clueless people who just heard that Linux is Oh So Cool, that you can do "stuff" you can't do with Windows, and who want to do it too. Unfortunately, they're looking for the fast pass. No learning, no understanding, I want a button to click! And the number will rise with the advent of DRM and the promise that Linux might cure this disease.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But first do some research...learn the basics...there's only about a million books on the subject and reams of good, free info online to educate yourself.
Test out a distro or three on an older system you don't mind making mistakes on, then, after you gain a certain level of knowledge and experience, you can ask more intelligent questions of the community. But of course, you're going to run into the occasional idiot, so matter what the point of interest is. Linux doesn't own the market on arrogance and rudeness, unfortunately, that attitude pervades a lot of computer culture in general, since some very skilled and knowledgable computer geeks have no other life and it's the only authority they have and they weld it ruthlessly sometimes. Pity these folks...it's easy to be rude while you're hiding behind a keyboard in your Mom's basement.
The problem isn't entirely the fault of the Linux community. What I mean is that as GNU/Linux software is often independant, not all coders give support to their software. Tech support is (often) a boring job. Most developper don't have time/will to spend time on support. And users often tend to ask questions to developpers when they only address they can find in their quest for support is the coder's e-mail. Asking a good question to the wrong people does give discouraging answers. So we need independent projects to give support.
Others on the list agreeing with the posting. This is a problem I have heard over and over and over again from people who tried Linux, but when they went to their local LUG they were told to RTFM and to google it before asking questions (oh...and mention that you are trying to find the answer in Google usually fends off another flame from someone.
I sat nex to a woman on the plane the other day who had tried to get Linux running (she was successful in getting it installed but she wanted to get Apache up and running (I know...a simple task) and get a streaming media server going for her music and movies. After much grief from the LUG she said "Screw Linux" and bought W2K3 Standard server, two clicks of a mouse later she has a streaming media server.
I switched from Linux to Mac at home because, well, Mac just works...and it works well. At my office I no longer use Linux...I use Windows XP because it is the corporate standard...and I don't have much of a choice. The funny thing is, we were on the verge of switching to a Linux desktop in myu department (development) but when the GIS desktop management people got hooked up with their local lugs and were greeted with the same love described by the article and by a few people here, they said "at least Microsft does't tell me to read the fine manual or talk down to me like I'm an idiot. I had my fair share of run-ins with the snobs referred to here, and to be sure, MANY that I know are not snobs and in fact are more than willing to help because they want others to learn and see the value in Linux.
Frankly, I'm over the Linux thing (but I can't change my login name to MacBoyDave). I've been a Linux guy since 1997 and since I boought my first Mac, I've bought two more. I still use Firefox and Thunderbird, To be sure though, I'll never recommend Linux as a desktop to anyone again. I said it at a LUG meeting (and was told to leave) and I'll say it again (and earn the troll mod, I'm sure)...Linux people are their own worst enemy.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
As someone who moved from five years with one fringe OS (OS/2) to linux in 2001, the contrast was impressive.
It could be maturity. Toward the end of OS/2's life cycle one survey had the typical OS/2 user pegged as a 45 year old Russian.
It's also true that documentation and support aren't exactly the sexy parts of a project.
But I've always wondered whether it is an element of the open source process. You're getting the creator's treasure for free. The least you can do is be "worthy" to receive it. Unfortunately, a counterproductive attitude.
LOL
I would've said "losing my virginity" was my most memorable college experience but if you consider a Linux install to be your most memorable then you probably are correct.
Completely OT, but regarding your sig:
The question of randomness, and the existence / non-existence of God has absolutely no bearing on the truthfulness of "Ancient Writings". Contemporary writings to an event are empirical evidence of a kind, but you have to weigh them critically against other contemporary accounts, think about the biases of the author and audience, etc. This is something that most people who take the Bible literally fail to do, ie think critically about what they are reading.
It is perfectly conceivable to me that God exists and yet no human being knows a thing about the true nature of God. Which would render all those "Ancient Writings" into the category of bullshit people made up, while still not invalidating the existence of God.
I am a manager at PCMech [pcmech.com], and we recently published a very straightforward, windows-user-friendly install and transition guide for Ubuntu Linux. This guide has gotten thousands of hits in just a few weeks, and the author has gotten more than 100 responses to it. The reason it works is that the guide is not so technical that you have to be a linux user to install it. That's a big problem out there - guides assume you know what you are doing. We got one person who complained that he didn't try and build on the wiki, instead writing something of personal interest instead of helping the community. Really, what they are doing is *hurting* the community by not making such resources availible. The guides can be found here: http://www.pcmech.com/show//903/ [unbuntu install guide http://pcmech.com/show/os/917/ [windows to linux transition guide]
One of the resaons that Ubuntu is so popular is that there is a large community of people willing to help on the Ubuntu Forums. From noobs to people setting up clusters, someone will be willing to help you. It's one of the distro's greatest strengths. http://ubuntuforums.org/
Bill Gates, whether you believe he is the anti-Christ or otherwise, has tremendous vision. No not technical vision - business vision. His goal was "A computer on every desktop" - and low and behold - here we are with a computer (or two or three) on(under, over) just about every desktop(laptop, palmtop) running one version of MS-Windows or another. It was his *arrogance* that lead to the current state we are in. Not in spite of it. The point being that arrogance by itself is not preventing Linux from enjoying wide spread adoptance. It IS vision that has stiffled the wide ranging exceptance. It is interesting that Linux has been able to really dominate the Web Server (and in many shops *Servers) and also has been able to conqure much of the imbedded world. Why is that? Because the those users are technically more adapt at picking the right OS for the job. Bill Gates vision has always been to target the lay person. Maybe a manager, maybe a teacher, maybe a construction worker - never assuming that they were computer savy. (Jobs had the same vision in terms of target, but not in terms of world domination. Jobs' vision was to create a brand that was synomsis with great design - which is what Apple is - along with price tags to match (at least traditionally) - and his assumption is that "if you design it (right) they will come" - and many do). Gates vision was not to get hung up on the design - just make it "good enough" - and figure out how to force people to use MS-Windows on their desktop. Competitor attracting a sizeable market? - copy them - buy them - assimilate them. It's all about his vision. But arrogance can certainly keep a technology down. Look at Perl - it's received wide-ranging adoption in the *nix world - especially for web-based scripting. Without a doubt that camp is the most arrogant in the history of computing. Where are they now? Being surpassed by PHP and MS-* despite being the de-facto web application language for so long. The PHP and MS* communities are just friendlier and the vision is to make those languages friendly, easy to use, and widely adopted. The Perl philosophy is that you should use it "because it's cool damn it" - but there is not concerted effort to bring it to wider audience - and therefore will not enjoy a wider audience. -CF
While I have never been snubbed, I have seen others get snubbed when asking simple questions. I do believe that newbies should do a little work on their own getting down the basics, the UNIX community could be more helpful.
This also shows in what passes for documentation of some of the programs. It is always assumed that the person knows how to compile and install the program.....even when the program does something that is not normally done. I have always been able to figure out what the programmer did and I can compile and install 90 percent of the programs I find but I do feel for new users. They are missing some quite good software and maybe even a program that they could use where no other exists.
However I must say that Windows users are even more snobby bunch. Some Windows users will harass anyone who does not uses Windows or anyone who thinks Windows is a crappy OS. Even when they are wrong on some of the facts about Windows they will think they are right and you are wrong just for taking a different view.
I would rather ask a question or answer one from a UNIX user than a Windows user any say of the week.
If Linux, or any of the free OSes want to make it to the big time, the gurus have to learn to thinks like consultants.
Question:How to I get XYZ running on Foobar Linux 1704030.54738?
Answer:That's a most excellent question. In order to maximize utility and have an n-fold increase in productivity I highly recomend that you buy our services at $400/hour (Plus expenses). We're the leading provider of enterprise strength application knowledge and experience in XYZ.
There's absolutly no reason to insult the noobs. Hit them between the eyes with an astonishingly large bill, yes, but never, ever, insult them.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
If someone is lost, you can always tell them to go look at a map.
However, only a human will be able to tell you the best road to take for each individual.
Those who use Linux because Linux rules and those who use Linux because they need to get some work done.
The first group, which make up most of the Linux developers, rarely seems to understand that, to the second group, the OS is merely a means to an end.
I used to care about the underlying technology too, putting up with a lot of crap in order to get something working and tweaking my hardware/software on a daily basis.
These days I keep my system minimal and working because I'd rather spend my time working or entertaining myself.
It's the reason why many people use FrontPage (Linux zealots going "You can't say that word on slashdot!"). Not because it's so übercool, nor because it has unique features or because the HTML is so standards compliant. None of these are even remotely true. But because it just works.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I live with a Linux, PHP, Mysgl, super techocratic snob. Anytime I run into a problem he has info to solve it that he could convey in less than a minute. Yet he make the whole situation so discomforting in the idea of him being bothered that I would rather be draged through a jungle of broken glass than ask for help.
Common answer from him is "if you dont know there is no reason for me to tell you. I learned through research, why dont you do the same"
Windows is the only desktop OS that is not also a religion.
and shared how his meeting with a number of Linux "pros" turned to a bash Windows, bash him and bash everything he said gathering.
Bash is always a good starter for a shell. I don't see the problem here.
Turn based strategy game that runs over XMPP. Phalanx
Attitude is a big issue for Linux, in the Kernel. Linux is all about a big, messy kernel where all the high profile action takes place. Nearly everything gets shoved into the kernel, so the kernel is now this huge morass of tens of thousands of integrated features that takes way too long to compile and can make performance problems and bugs difficult to isolate. After coming from Windows, one look at this situation and FreeBSD seems like the Promised Land.
I mean, doesn't anyone feel the same way? It feels kinda good. No one says "...the elite masses of Windows users..." - Generally, that expression is reservered for the "elite few," as in, "...the elite few of Linux users..." - I like being apart of that group. If a person is a unaware, they will ramble on about some cool Windoze setup they have and then try to shine me on about asking what I have at home. When I say, "I don't run Windows" - the familiar confounded and confused reaction ensues, "...you don't run Windows??" they say. Actually, it gets me out of a lot of free troubleshooting! They will tell me about some problem and go on and on... then after thier problem description and eventual solicitation for advice/help.. I'll just say, "I don't run Windows! Sorry!" That excuse would no longer be valid if Linux were popular! So please, for the sake of many of us out here that don't want to bother with these clueless 1users... keep Linux SACRED!
I'm sensing the same transition stress in OSS now. Hoardes of new Windows users jumping on to OSS like they just discovered the Promised Land. Many businesses trying OSS solutions without bothering to actually hire someone who knows what they're doing, throwing their MCSE's to the chat room wolves and sometimes it does get testy. They'll come barging in with a problem and expect the rest of the world to drop what they're doing and help, then disappear. Not helping others in turn, not contributing to the group discussions. Just showing up when they need a question answered but not feeling like they owe any other contribution. They want free support besides free software on their terms.
So, yeah, sometimes the long time users do come off a little snobby but it's not always without cause. I can see the other side of this equation. If you're having a problem and are willing to pay for support you might find solutions happen faster.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The one question that should be asked here is, "Do you think that Windows advocates would be any politer or nicer if newbies were switching to their OS?"
The answer is obviously: no. First of all, there are crazies in all bunches. Second of all, whenever you get advocates of anything together there tends to be a high degree of conformity with an accompanying low tolerance of heresy (this is a common problem with organized religion and pretty much explains why I'd rather die than live in Utah) .
So the real difference is not "Windows advocates vs. Linux advocates". The real difference is the MS markets windows and regular Joes market linux. There is no company to high a marketing department to introduce the world to linux. Companies with a vested interest (like IBM) do their part on the fringes to advocate for Linux (and this is vital to its growing business acceptance) but in general if you want to switch to linux you talk to a random techie and not a marketing guy.
Windows, on the other hand, has MS behind it to ensure continuity of message, polish, etc. If you're considering the merits of Windows you may end up on some forum with a bunch of MS advocates (and if you do you're experience will be no better than it is with Linux advocates, I'd wager) but you're more likely to get your information from people educated and paid to make sure you like the experience of getting the information.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
UNIX was in a way a revolt against the snobbery of the mainframe culture. UNIX was named in contrast with MULTICS -- MULTICS was this massive time-sharing mainframe OS coming out of MIT which was supposed to have all kinds of whizbang security and protection features. UNIX was to be the single-user (at least initially) "personal" counterpart to the time-sharing Borg hive of MULTICS. UNIX ran on a PDP 11 minicomputer while MULTICS required a ponderous Burroughs mainframe.
The MS-DOS PC along with the Windows follow-on was a revolt against UNIX. UNIX had become the OS of choice for VAXen and had become the ossified mainframe OS of its day against which the PC was the revolt.
I don't think you will have people who are complete noobs having any issues with a *nix -- people are perfectly happy with OS-X. The people you will have trouble with are the people who cut their teeth on DOS and later Windows, who have memories of what they went through in the VAX days, and any hint of inadvertent condensension from Linux gurus is enough to give them flashbacks of their old tormenters.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's another possibile explantion one should mention:
I think the computer corallary to rule that "once you save someone's life they become your responsibility" is: "once you help someone with a computer-related problem, you become their IS guy". Perhaps this is what some of the gruffer responses are trying to prevent. Not that they couldn't be socially inept or smug on top of that.
I'm not endorsing this behavior, just mentioning it . . .
I am not a crackpot.
Yea. I have had more than one run-in with debates with Linux snobs. I my experience trying to deal with the hard core Linux cult, they are an angry, hostile bunch of people. The most vocal ones do the most damage to hurt Linux. I actually like Linux and have installed several distributions over the years on Mac and PC. It's a shame the hostile hard core Linux trolls take on such an arrogant air about themselves. If you've ever installed Linux to run Ardour, or other audio apps you'll know what I mean. There are SO many dependencies that must be installed in a certain order that you spend your entire time under the hood and never use the audio app you downloaded. And the documentation. Good grief!! There are so many variables to account for, so many shades of gray or "if this kernel version is running then go to this website for a tweak that (insert name) worked out, if you have this particular soundcard, (insert name here) has done a kernel tweak but in order to use the kernel tweak you must first blah, blah, blah"
A longish time ago (about 8 years) I asked around in my university's computer user's club about what this Debian thing is I keep bumping into. I never got a straight answer; the most memorable non-answer I got was:
(Disheveled CS guy #1): "It makes your computer run better!"
(Disheveled CS guy #2): "Guffaw! That's a good one!"
So, it took me about 6 years after that before I installed it on my home box. Huzzah for Linux advocacy!
Part of the problem is that the user wants the answer to his question. While the elitists want to teach the user to learn on his own. What makes me successful at my job is not what I know, but how well I can learn and adopt. Most Geeks try to teach this instead of simply answering the question. They won't tell you exactly what you need to know, but they will try to lead you in the direction to find it, and lots of other useful bits of information.
But, there are some down right jerks who just get off on thinking they know it all. All I know, is that I have a lot more to learn everyday.
I have experienced the same thing when my company started using Qt. Their documentation is excellent, but not perfect.
Over the course of three years working with Qt 2 and 3 I only sent a few emails to Trolltech support. That was after having perused for hours over the forums and the rest of the web for some sort of answer. Every single time I emailed them I recieved what was basically a RTFM response.
We were paying for that support, and they only ever actually helped me once. Every other time I just had to find some workaround on my own.
I would have to say it's the Linux snob mentality over there, too, unfortunately.
I've been a newbie before.
I'm now also an experienced linux user.
in order to get help from the appropriate sources, you need to know how to tread.
the first question any linux guy worth his salt will ask you is, "did you read the docs?"
the climate is less of linux snobs and more of linux fishermen.
give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.
linux newbies have a problem, they come to ask a question before turning to the docs.
they want instant satisfaction. they don't want to be bothered in looking up the answer themselves.
most of these people are not technical. they expect a technical person to come to their ignorant rescue.
you can't blame the experienced users for a little disdain.
that being said, how do you foster the adoption of linux to non-technical people?
that is the real question.
the OS just has to work. The documentation needs to be spot on. There needs to be a lay-person's version of the linux documentation.
a non-technical distro on the surface but a finely tuned geek opus underneath.
solution?
ubuntu (not that I use it) but it just works.
there should be a stock response in lieu of RTFM.
such as: If you're not willing to read the docs, maybe you should try a less technical distro such as ubuntu.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Although the article does bring up a valid point about non-obvious barriers to entry for linux, it also fails to mention that Linux (or any *nix) system has an inherently steeper learning curve than other operating systems like Windows or OSX.
Add to that the fact that almost anybody you talk to that uses Linux would have had to, themselves, learn it on their own through reading docs, figuring stuff out through trial and error, or digging deeper into how things work etc. It's not to hard to see that self education as part of a well earned level of status.
Often times, I feel that when you're forced to learn something on your own, you gain more than enough knowledge to be comfortable using that knowledge, as well as improving on that on a regular basis. Not limited only to computers, but to any field.
If you teach somebody only the minimum required to do something, then you have to keep teaching them over and over (basically watching over them) if anything changes down the road. Whereas, if they're forced to learn it on their own, and then most probably have to learn the fundamentals and digg deeper into how to use those fundamentals to get what they want done, then when something changes, they will be able to figure out what to do without having to bother other people. Effectively teaching them how to fish instead of giving them a fish. Except that, with Linux, you get so many options on how to fish, what to fish, where to fish, with what to fish with, techniques of fishing, etc, that even trivial activities require more base knowledge to accomplish compared to something like Windows, because half the time, new users won't even know what they want.
It seems so often these days, that many many people expect others to take the time to hold their hand through things that may or may not be trivial. Expecting quick answers to mundane questions that may have their answers easily available. People may find themselves bombarded with questions, and as a result start putting up personal barriers such as 'RTFM' to quickly get people off their back whether or not they're valid questions.
Everybody likes exploring or making stuff but nobody likes offering free support. It's just unintersting and, at times, frustrating.
If you're going to blame anything as a barrier to entry, it'd probably be safer to blame the fact that there will always be a clash between the culture of people spending extra effort learning things on their own, and the ones that aren't bothered to put in that effort themselves.
And then you have the poor souls in the middle, that want to put in the time to learn, but can't seem to find the little help needed to get them on their way to self gratification. And either they get lucky and ask the right person in a generously helpful mood, or they get lucky and ask the wrong person in the grumpy morning getting a kick from 'reading the /. article on Linux Snobs, The Real Barriers to Entry' attitude because they woke up 3 hours earlier than normal this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, and just answer question after question with short simple answers that may contain a lot of information but don't really seem nice to a newbie.
"I want to change some setting to this program." /doc directory or INSTALL or something."
"Is there documentation that says how to do what you want?"
"No."
"Did you look?"
"I can't find anything."
"Do you know where to look?"
"No."
"That's why you can't find anything. Look for a README, or a
"I think I found it."
"Ok what does it say?"
"I don't know how to read it."
"Use a text editor, or 'cat' it, or 'more' it or something."
"What text editor can I use?"
"Try vim or emacs or pico or joe or something."
"Ok I loaded vim. It didn't answer my question and now I don't know how to quit. How do I quit?"
"colon q enter"
"what? ahhh the file is going crazy. What's going on? I only did what you told me to do."
"what did you do exactly?"
"I t
No sooner do I post the question than I find the answer myself since I never stopped looking for answers elsewhere. So then I am faced with the question: Should I attempt to retract my posting or should I reply to my own question with the solution?
Do the latter! I wish more people would... that way, the next guy Googling for your problem will find your solutionRemember the old axiom "there are no stupid questions." A t-shirt I once saw added a disclaimer to this: "but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots". Both comments have elements of truth. Remember that most computer users don't know a CPU from a GUI and when you tell them to RTFM they glaze over and dream of a BLT on rye. Lesson number 1 is talk to newbies in newbie terms. We all hope that newbies will take time to learn the linux lexicon, but we have to keep in mind that most non-geeks only look for support when things go wrong. Even the geeks among us don't take the time to learn the technical terms for everything we come across. (Otherwise we'd all know how MDRTB differs from MRSA and how neither requires an EEG to assign an ICD9 code.)
So, using language that newbies understand ("monitor?, you mean the lizard?") let's try to answer their questions directly. Sure, mention ways for them to search for solutions to their own problems, but directly answer the question as well. Does it really take more effort to type "127.0.0.1 is the number your computer uses to talk to itself" as opposed to "google TCP/IP and RTFM, hope that helps"? People tend to be more receptive to learning once they have fixed the broken thingamajig. If we find ourselves getting frustrated with the newbies, what makes "RTFM n00b, or SFTU" a better response than "you're asking the same question, please see above" or, better yet, not answering at all!? We are under no obligation to answer any question, so if we CHOOSE to answer, let's try to be a little more civil - else leave the "assistance" to somebody else. For those of you who will insist on protesting that they're annoying you on your #noobhelp irc channel: either place the offender on ignore without answering (leave the question to someone else), or, preferably, go to a different channel to discuss the history of Plan9 and how it's so much cooler than BeOS.
Let's sum up today's lesson: 1) Newbies ask questions. 2) Newbies have never heard of man pages and don't know what /etc, /var/log, or man pages are. 3) Newbies know that their doohickey is broken and want it fixed. 4) Linux user /= geek. 5) If you can't contribute (civilly) directly to the noob's problem, STFU. They'll find google on their own if you don't say a word. 6) ANSWER THE QUESTION. If you feel you're being repetetive, post a FAQ on your home page and link to that. 7) If you went on the defensive after reading the article, then you qualify as a linux snob. Leave the "teaching" to those of us who said "oh no! people are being scared off!" and ran to the keyboard to type a calm and helpful response.
He who would be a man, must be a nonconformist. -- Emerson
But it's not just linux, many others OS's are on the same lists. But I do find that unix users seem to have the worst additude. Lets face it folks... all OS's are made by inperfect humans. Hence, they ALL have their good and bad points. Can't we all just get along and try and make the best OS a human can make ???? and stop slamming the other guys and learn from the it. Lets face it, since the begining of computers we have been taking idea's from other OS's and adding it too ours. Linux rocks, drop the additude and maybe it would go much farther
Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!
If I had mod points I would mod this insightful.
Microsoft probably has the best marketing people in the world working for them. Regardless of the quality of their products, they can sell them. *nix, generally speaking, does not have this luxury.
There's a LOT of snobbery out there. A lot of the time problems are deemed to be the user's fault for having the wrong hardware, not enough memory, not a fast enough processor, wrong kernel...I once got told in #cedega on freenode that I would need at least a gig of RAM to run Half-Life 2 on Linux; this is a game that comfortably runs under 384MB of ram under Windows. It's not Cedega's fault that it gives crappy performance, it's my fault for having an old PC.
Then there's the RTFM thing...man pages are just about impenetrable, alright? They're a pain in the fucking ass. They do not give simple instructions, they give lists of command line switches. And TLDP is stupidly out of date. It still refers to kernel 2.2 for christ's sake.
I'll give kudos to FreeBSD here, the handbook is very up to date and gives step by step handholding guides to just about everything, from how UNIX works to setting up a firewall using pf. There's not an answer I couldn't find in there. Compared to that, Linux's documentation is utterly terrible.
As a whole, there's a dichotomy. You hear a lot about Linux on the desktop, but nobody wants to face facts and realise that the way things are isn't even near satisfactory. The UNIX filesystem layout is confusing to new users, but if someone raises this point there will inevitably be a stream of replies that it's far more logical than the Windows way of doing things (perish the thought that drives be given simple identifiers, like letters!) Being told you have to upgrade your hardware to use an OS which everyone says is faster and more reliable than what you have currently is ridiculous...nobody will go for that.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
First RTFM. It is not limited to linux or for that matter computers. When person A says to person B when A says "RTFM" he basically says, "I am tired off constantly helping everyone who can't be bothered to first try it for themselves forcing me to explain the same thing over and over and over again".
Parents are very familiar with this feeling. The reason teachers are payed such a lot of money (HA!) is because they can put up with it.
There are plenty of doctor jokes where the doctor fed up with constantly being asked for free medical advice gives a witty reply instead. Same with computer geeks replying to a request for free technical support with a counter request for free whatever-the-person-does-for-a-living.
The point is that most of us are not your parents or teacher and are only willing to do so much hand-holding. Go past this limit and you will be told to take your questions elsewhere. Imagine someone on the street asked you for directions. You give them then the person asks you to repeat yourselve. How many times would you do it before you tell them to Read The Fucking Map? Congrats, your are an arrgogant RTFM asshole.
Second The second part of the problem is the gap between the askers and the givers. It is most obvious in online games, FPS or MMO doesn't matter, where you can make a very safe bet someone will ask how to do something bloody obvious like how to reload your weapon.
The problem here is simple, the asker can't apperently be bothered to check the options for the key configuration instead presuming that others will do the work for him. In itself not a problem. Except that you run into the same problem as with non-seeding torrenters. If 9 out of 10 people decide not to upload their torrent downloads then 1 out of 10 people will have to do all the uploading. It usually is 1 person who gets to answer all those stupid questions. Even if the question is genuine, the person may be new to games and unfamiliar with how to check wich key to press, it is rare for a "wich key do I press" person to then turn into an answer giver for other askers.
Or to put it simply, most students can't be arsed to become teachers. This puts yet more strain on the few people willing to answer questions.
Third
Basic manners are often lacking. This may show my age but I have always been taught that the person who wants somebody is polite to the person they are requesting from. This includes a thank you after getting what you want.
Offcourse the problem is that the irritation over impolite assholes may very well explode over a polite asker who just happens to ask at the wrong time.
But the most important "error" made in the parent article
Arrogance. Well I can certainly see arrogance being a problem BUT it is with the poster, not with the "linux crowd". Why? Well apperently he seems convinced the Linux crowd gives a fuck about his opinion. That is real arrogance. Imagine the following scenario.
Player A: "What key do I press to reload"
Player B: "RTFM"
Player A: "You such an asshole I am not going to play this game".
Player B-Z: "So?"
Player A makes the arrogant mistake that anybody cares. This is very important, if you ask me directions am I arrogant for not giving a fuck wether you can find it or not? No.
To many people presume that the rest of the world owns them something. It doesn't.
A lot of people are willing to spend their own time helping others but that doesn't make it some kind of right you deserve.
Conclusion
When you are told to "RTFM" check wether the following may be true.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn."
For a long time this defined the culture on the newsgroup comp.lang.perl.misc I'll bet this had something to do with the creation of Python.
The guy that wrote that note was probably just another fucked-up American with an oversized ego and attitude.There are a lot of other people from other nationalities available to ask for help. I have helped numerous newbies day and night. I also believe that the more people there are who know linux and are interested in learning more the better. So, mod me down once again, but sadly that will not change the arrogant attitude of most Americans. To all Newbies: Ask questions! If someone refuse to help you, ask someone else! A teacher who is unwilling to teach is not worth asking anyway.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
The real barrier to Linux adoption is the BSA (business software alliance) that sues any high school that sets up a Linux lab. Microsoft recently announced that it was "dnagerous" to buy a PC without a licensed Microsoft OS.
The real solution is to shoot the bastards, but we have a temprorary fix: http://www.knopper.net/
Knoppix Linux allows us little people to demonstrate Linux to our students in (almost) complete safety. Microsoft and the BSA still get their protection money, and we get to boot off a DVD to demonstrate Linux. It recognized keychain drives, and saves your desktop settings to any decently sized secondary storage (e.g., 256mb keychain drive, CF card, or SD card.)
I'm a college professor, and I'm handing out hundreds of Knoppix DVDs every week to local high schools to spread cpomuter literacy amoung out incoming freshmen.
Andy Out!
I installed UNIX off punch cards.
/me eyeshifts.
On a 486.
In 1993.
Don't you be judgin' me!
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Comparing the support one receives on a $100 piece of software versus the response someone receives on a random forum for a free distribution if absurd. There are plenty of supported distros available for users who need it, and plenty of very helpful forums out there for people using the free distributions. It is unfortunate that some users ran into some bad apples. I am certain you could find similar examples if you went through random windows forums.
Although both the article's author and you responders are seeing and describing some very real trees, nobody seems interested in figuring out if this little patch of reality is just a closet full of trees or part of a much larger forest.
Pick an interest, any interest, about which you are fully ignorant but would like to become involved in. Find a forum somewhere on the web, or go to a gathering of its passionate adherents. Ask any question that is reasonably fair and simple for which the answer could be found if you only know where to look (which you don't, which is why you are asking). Repeat this innocent activity many times in any activity, and you'll notice that the ratio of arrogant/snob/jerk/meathead to patient/helpful types will be the same. That's just people, folks. Most are dumb tools, other are trying hard not to be dumb tools. Knowledge about Linux doesn't correlate heavily in favor of one type or the other. I think that the problem is one of a steep learning curve, which encourages the dillusion that it's the community that's the pain.
Want to be loved and coddled by a community as a newbie? Find one that wants to sell you something. Those tools are the Apple store are soooooo nice compared to those Linux users/jerks.
I found the Ubuntu Absolute Beginner Talk forum friendly and helpful
What?
Of course they are. Welcome to society. People are suspicious of newcomers. They're held to higher standards until the existing group becomes used to them. If you don't like it, you're free to cryogenically freeze yourself and wait and see if evolution removes these traits from the human psyche.
Anyone allowing business decisions to be influenced by treatment they receive from a casual community of unpaid acquaintances is a dumbass and deserves to go out of business. Maybe if paid-for tech support told you to go RTFM, I'd be interested. Otherwise, you're just asking the wrong people.
The right people, if anyone cares to know, are to be found at linuxquestions.org. That's the epicentre of Linux users helping each other. Nobody who isn't interested in helping will even read your post.
One last thing: I'm getting a little sick of this obsession with amassing more users. This snobbery thing is an issue, absolutely. But not every issue has to be seen in terms of how it affects Linux adoption.
Seriously. Apple and yes even Microsoft (don't laugh!) has had lots of success in listening to non-technical users and trying to meet there needs. Both companies get users in front of software, ask them to use it, ask them questions, and learn from them. Now, they all fall short (it's hard to meet everybody's demands), but they know that the simplest questions can lead to great insights and opportunities.
If a user can't figure out how to do something, that is a problem to be dealt with. The reason that MS is overhauling Office 2007 so radically is based on user feedback and studies. Granted, it may not work, but if it does, it will keep Office on top of the heap (and may lead to some interesting ideas in other applications). When a user has a hard time doing something, it is a chance to make something better, more effective, and maybe, just maybe, to learn something new.
The problem is that too many open source projects seem to exist to reinforce one's view on what software should be and must be. So, negative feedback is just reinforcement that the developers "really get it", and that these "newbies" don't. After all, why bother making software anybody can use? If the cool people are using it, and want to join the club, what else do you want? How better to prove you are smarter, better, more of a hacker, whatever than to make people jump through hoops to provide they have what it takes.
I think OS projects have done a good job in attracting coders and developers, but sometimes, it takes more than that to make a successful piece of software, and too many projects suffer from a myopic mindset of what makes a piece of software work or not.
Finally, I think too many people have a overdeveloped sense of superiority from the mere fact that they use an a particular OS, browser, tool, etc. Sure, it's understandable, but meanwhile, there are tons of people that just want to do something at work or at home, and could care less if the software is open source or not, because it doesn't add any value for them. And until this mindset is address, the RTFM responses will continue.
I feel that I must make a comment on this story because is is so true. The reality of the Linux-snob mentality is far beyond what this story notes. Linux users are so into trashing MS for its arrogance, but their own arrogance is equivalent. Corporate arrogance or personal arrogance is still arrogance. It is childish, obvious, and sickening. I'm glad that a Slashdot editor had the balls to post the story.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
There is a certain amount of 3733t12t attitude when it comes to Linux. Its is warranted in many cases. People that spend 20 solid hours configuring an email server and compiling kernels and video card drivers deserve to have a bit of an attitude, and be defensive about their prized OS.
Still the biggest problem with the adoption of Linux isn't snobby geeks. About once a year, I pick up the Linux flavour of the month (Ubuntu this time) and try it out. My questions, "Can I use it as a replacement of Windows? What benefits over Windows will it feature? What features am I getting that I can't find in Windows? How easy it is to install? Does it support naively all my hardware?"
It is surprising that after 10 years of trying different flavours of Linux out, none have ever answered those basic questions. Mostly the problems I have had over the last 3 years is that it doesn't support my hardware properly. Currently Ubuntu has problems with some hardware in my current laptop. I can't change the laptop hardware, so I have to change the OS, back to Windows. Problems in the past have been, significant problems getting Internet to work on Linux, hardware support, installation fiascoes, ease of use, and general lack of appeal for most applications that start with G or have GNU in them.
All told, what prevents people from adopting Linux is just a general sense of futility in the effort. Why should some newbie be forced to ask a comment board about how to learn to use Linux. An OS should be intuitive, period! My computer illiterate parents picked up on Windows XP quickly enough, without having to RTFM or post endless questions on comment boards. Heck, my father had Firefox 1.5 installed before I even knew it existed for release. He installed an ethernet card and set up his Cable Modem and Internet in 15 minutes when I couldn't get my ethernet card recognized in a Linux distro for 2 days before I had to modify some cryptic scripts after seeing some obscure message board comments.
What Linux Gurus lord over Windows users is that they feel they know how to use a computer better because they spend hours tweaking it, writing scripts, compiling drivers and kernels, setting up email and web servers, spend most of their time with a blinking command prompt. I know one guy that got off on the fact he set up multiple servers on a single Linux based computer and could VPN between them. When he claims I am a mindless lemming for continuing to use Windows, I just smile and nod. Have fun with VPN'ing with yourself. Then he upgraded his Linux kernel, and spent 2 days rewriting scripts and recompiling this and that to get his self contained VPN system up and running, cursing Linux every step of the say. Yeah, I am a mindless lemming.
Real computer users don't write scripts for hours, they just use the computer, period.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Seen it. Had it said to me. I'm a 8+ year linux/unix user/admin but I must confess my m@d $k11lz with routing (think ospf and bgp) arent quite at the "routing god" level yet. Last year routing for my /28 got busted. One of the other admins (who knew more about routing) busted it. When I tried, and failed, to correct the problem I asked him for help. He said, and I quote; "Its a problem with ospf .. I'll leave this one as an exercise for the reader." .... after about six hours (im serious) of reading low-level crap at his advice which turned out to have nothing to do with routing, I finally found the problem and corrected it. He had made a typo.
The whole time, the "RTFM" guy was in the same room trying not to laugh.
Many of these people (admittedly, myself included) sometimes dont have the social sense NOT to tell people to RTFM right to thier face.... even fellow *nix users.
Have I tried Linux...yes. I am actually waiting for Ubuntu 6.06 to release in hopes the hardware in both my desktop and laptop will work. For some reason, when I install the drivers for my video card, the re-compiling of the kernel likes to get rid of my wireless card from the network settings. When I get the card back in, guess what, no support for WEP encryption and my video drivers took a crap. And don't even try to get ATI drivers to work. From what I hear, thats a nightmare in itself. As for my wifi showing up again, I then have to use WPA...but oh ya, if you want WPA, you have to put it in the OS manually. Any new user to Linux would look at that and just say, oh crap, I formatted my hard drive for this. Then he/she would shudder, cry and put his/her WinXP CD in the drive and continue with Windows. Oh ya, and good luck with finding out how to install your video card drivers, re-enable your Wifi adapter and figure out what WPA is. I am very proficient with Windows and can pretty much do whatever it is I need to do at any time. So when these issues arose for me, I was able to find the answer though it took some digging to find them all.
People that buy the $400 desktop system from CompUSA will not know how to do this and will never do it.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Most of the way through the article the author says the following:
"So the point of all this is to say, although most people don't choose technology based on personality, often personality can influence important decisions such as business expenditures."
Have to disagree strongly. Personality--how sexy is that iPod Nano, how cute is that Mini Cooper, how smart will you look running Linux--is the prime mover behind a huge number of technology purchases.
Unfortunately, the personality lesson many people learn from installing Linux is this: if you get stuck, you will be made to feel very, very stupid, and--bonus!--your experience will remain online for others to boggle over forever.
No sooner do I post the question than I find the answer myself since I never stopped looking for answers elsewhere. So then I am faced with the question: Should I attempt to retract my posting or should I reply to my own question with the solution? Most of the time, I decide to do the later. Even though it makes me seem like an idiot answering my own question, I am always hopeful that someone else asks the same question but doesn't find the answer on their own.
From all of us using Google to solve our issues to people like you: "You rock."
Honestly, there's nothing more frustrating than finding a post from someone who's had the EXACT SAME PROBLEM as you that was never answered. People who actually go back and tell their answer help the rest of us out a lot.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Here's my little story.
- I haven't used Linux/Unix since 10 years ago
- I tried to get my feet wet with Gentoo (yes, Gentoo!)
- Nobody ever on the forum told me to go fuck myself
- Nobody ever snubbed me even when I had to ask the most obvious questions
- Same thing happened when I switched to Debian (for personal reasons)
Perhaps I'm a lucky bastard. Or perhaps, that's because:
a) I read the FAQs in each forum I subscribe too
b) I try to search before I ask
c) When I ask, I do it politely understanding that people don't get paid to help me
What's so wrong with the above? The 3 above rules are dead simple and all over the place. Give me a fucking break...
<before>now</before>
I was an OSS newbie only a few years back, and I'm still entering new communities, but I don't think I've ever encountered such rudeness. I'm not sure if the article is wholly accurate or not, but all the people I've met have been nice and helpful. One thing which is lacking however, is documentation. There aren't many helpful "go here for help with _this_" notices, especially around IRC channels or with the larger software projects. Everybody has bad days, and if it weren't for the fact they're paid and would be out of a job otherwise, support employees from software companies such as Microsoft and Apple would probably yell at users regularly. The problem is that most users do not look at the documentation, and I think this is a problem on both sides: the users need to stop running to mummy for help, and the software projects need to make better and more readily-available help. One organisation I think is very good at helping newbies is Mozilla. The patience of some of the guys in IRC and on usenet astounds me, especially when pestered with repeat questions and accusations such as "FierFox is rubish because its got huge memmory leaks!1!".
OK, so I feel a little dirty for using ndiswrapper, but really, it's been around for a while and defaults your wireless ethernet to be called wlan0. Now guess what device name isn't recognised by the Fedora (redhat) network config tool. How hard is that to fix? Trivial; then why do I get the feeling it isn't going to be fixed any-time soon?
I'm going to install the Nvidia binary driver just to spite them. You'll see.
Is the attitude here towards MySQL! Look in any topic about MySQL, and you'll see the amazing arrogant attitude many posters here have. They don't care that it works well and does everything you need. They only care about their preconceived notions.
We moved a set of systems with 1.1 million total lines of C code and shell scripts used by over 4 million customers that runs on 20 servers from Oracle to MySQL starting seven years ago. While doing it, we converted from C to PHP. We have had zero problems with MySQL. Before that, we averaged (wild guess) four or five support calls to Oracle each year. We lost data several times with Oracle over the 15 years we used it. With MySQL the worst problem we've had is with mysqlcheck deleting a few rows after a server hardware crash. The MyISAM files are very simple and very robust. They just work.
The same thing is also true to a lesser extent about PHP here. I've been flamed more times than I can remember when mentioning how well PHP has worked for us. We replaced 15 years of C code in two years with fewer programmers and with only 1/4 the code. I personally converted a 250k line accounting system that had no spec or manual to PHP, and I'm an EE and not a programmer. Most of the programs now have a web interface, but many also use a console interface to serial terminals or a GUI interface with PHP-GTK. PHP isn't perfect, but I'd rather have programs that work 99.9% than programs in C that are 100% but take 10 times as long and twice the number of programmers. I've programed in C for over 25 years and I love the language, but most companies just can't afford the time and money it takes to create software in C. PHP was a necessary compromise for us.
Disclaimer: Since MySQL doesn't have foreign keys unless you use a non-standard file format (and even that was only recently), we have to do all of our date integrity checks in our PHP code. Often when we have a new programmer or a new complicated program we end-up having to delete data orphans or update ID #'s by hand. That's bad, but it's better than being out of business since we simply couldn't afford the 20 Oracle licenses and faster systems required to support Oracle. Once you get your code perfect, their lack is not a problem. Basically you invest money in better programmers rather than in more expensive databases. It's not perfect, but it works more than well enough for us.
It didn't used to be this way. Back when I was the proverbial linux noob, I could count on Linux IRC channels and internet forums to basically be the most helpful places around. Yes, I had to RTFM before I could expect to get any help, but people were also pretty cognizant of when TFM was FU (useless), or when my question clearly went beyond what TFM covered. Compared to my experiences in just about any other venue -- in particular my ill-conceived ventures into gaming forums -- it was pleasant, helpful, and generally convinced me that Linux had some of the best tech support anywhere, for free.
I think a lot of the attitude of the users came from the fact that Linux was hard to use and get running, and nobody got it running without a bit of a struggle on their own part and were thus sympathetic to others. Like you say, we were all newbs once. This is why I'm sympathetic myself to claims of people getting snubbed by Linux forum goers.
Yet I'll admit that I'm also naturally sceptical, call it snobish if you will, just because it seems that half the time the person who is saying they're not getting the help they need is getting the help they need and only some of the responses are "RTFM idiot", or the person doesn't have and doesn't want to get necessary information and refuses to meet anyone halfway. A recent and extreme example was some guy who posted here crying about how he was treated on the Ubuntu forums. Now Ubuntu apparently borked his boot loader, which I have the deepest sympathies for. Yet after browsing the thread he posted to, I found out he was being a dick from the word go. He responded to every offer for help (usually requiring some action on his part, this not being a problem that just fixes itself) with sarcasm and "Why should I be expected to do/know that? Just fix my problem! 'Linux for humans' my ass!" and eventually people tired of this and he got told off, and these posts became his selected samples of why Linux users suck.
Now, for the rest of the people who sincerely wanted help but got the finger instead, I don't know what to say. It didn't used to be that way. Personally I think it's a result of Linux's growing popularity. The user population has grown, so that a previously select population now obeys more general rules of humanity, i.e. most people are cockmongers -- see the afforementioned gaming forums for an example. Linux has gotten much easier to install and use, so some people have no problems at all, and some of these people are cockmongers, and thus they think anyone who did have a problem must be an idiot. Basically, because they never really had to fight their way out of newbie status, they don't have the perspective previous users did, and thus have disdain for any newbie who can't blindly stumble their way through.
Or maybe it's the other way around. The users who used to be helpful, now being innundated with requests for help from the much larger linux community, some of the usual decent kind but of course a good number coming from cockmongers, they've become bitter, jaded, and yes snobish. That'd be a shame. Free software and Linux specifically are scaling wonderfully as a system and development model. Yet it is quite probable that the previously wonderful free support is not scaleable, and the failure mode is apparent snobbery.
The enemies of Democracy are
Using Linux is rather like driving an old classic car. When you drive into a gas station, you have people come over and talk to you about your car. They want to share their stories more often than they want to hear yours, but they mean well. Two kinds of people drive old classic cars: people who really love them and people who want to look down on the common folk. The former welcomes the duffers who come over to chat and the latter brushes them off and warns them not to touch their car.
Linux users come in many more than two flavors, but they can be grouped in the helpful and the arrogant varieties, too. One of the things I used to love about Open Source was the ability to send a terse question or two to the developers - and get a prompt courteous answer. That is rarer these days than of yore, but it still is more prevalent than COTS software support.
I agree wholeheartedly with you. I've had my share of "gorilla gurus" who are not above intellectual bullying when someone asks a question.
I am reminded of the attitudes displayed in Ray Bradbury's story "The Other Foot," in which (for those who may not recall) a town full of black people who emigrated to Mars en masse shortly before World War III find out that they will be receiving white refugees. Their immediate impulse is to start putting "Blacks Only" signs on restaurants and hotels, thus re-creating the situation that they had fled years before, only with themselves at the top.
Many of these "gorilla gurus" have most likely been on the receiving end of derision and scorn for not working with Windows, and have also either been given the same treatment when they started learning about Linux. It becomes like the geek version of the stereotypical fraternity, where these people associate poor manners with the rights of the "initiated," and now that they find themselves in a position of relative power are prepared to make those under them pay and pay and pay.
So much for a possible cause. A solution? Perhaps reminding these people that the same attitudes pervaded the Commodore 64 user groups... and where are they now?
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Oh yeah, this is going to get people running to Linux and Firefox--don't use our software unless you know how to code. This wasn't a simple "change the max version" issue. It was something in the code.
This is not always true...not for me at least.
When I was a noobie, I got full and detailed answers for everything I posted, along with encouragment...
I only think that those RTFM people do not have the right to vote yet...
Don't ask the underage gurus!!!!Ask the proffesionals...They have the old GNU spirit!
As I observe business model changes around the OSS I come to think perfectly this type "harsh" attitude is actually beneficial, to say the least.
The "professional", "corporate" attitude that forces us to be polite to most stupid people for sake of being reasonable and make things "just work"(TM) leads to bazilions of new type, mixed corporate/OSS admins who are afraid of recompiling the kernel because Oracle says no.
Linux looses its edge. In fact, taking this kernel compiling example, it actually fails behind other unixes in terms of usability, scalability, stability ...
"Reasonable"/"polite" attitude might be the main factor
At fault you ask? How could that be?
For one, timing. The proper way to introduce yourself to new technology (notice that I said technology, because this is not at all specific to Linux or Windows, it's just good practice) is to do it on non important hardware when you have time to spare. I know this seems obvious to both Windows and Linux admins alike here, but I can't count the number of times I've read posts from jackasses that decided it was a good idea to deploy some Linux distro + application that they've never tested in production. Their posts always look something like this "OMG HELP ME!!!!1111!one" "THIS MUST BE WORKING BY 9AM WHEN CEO GET TO WORK!!!!111!one!" "PLEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEE HELP"
I just have a really hard time putting myself out in that sort of case where the jackass should have known better and done a test install before hosing his production environment.
Did anyone look at http://www.linux.org/ ?? It is a monster from the 1980's It should look somewhat like the site of ubuntu-linux, or it should just redirect to ubuntu-linux.
Entering the Linux world reminded me very much of my experience in the Marine Corps.
You're introduced with verbal abuse and treated like a complete sub-human moron. Then, you gradually get promoted and you pass on the tradition of bashing newbies.
As with any "geeky" culture, the Linux crowd has a tendency to attract people with some issues:
-socially challenged individuals ignorant or apathetic toward others
-marginalized zealots of a "cult" technology (misunderstood or cast aside by the dominant paradigm)
-insecure, passive-aggressive people with a chip on their shoulder
Not all Linux-heads are like this, but like religious fanatics, it only takes one or two loudmouths to misrepresent the whole movement to newcomers or outsiders.
Now, if you want to reply with a flame or you feel a little defensive about what I've typed here, you might want to evaluate the motives behind your emotional response. I'm not talking about everyone in the linux community, I'm just making an observation about the types of people I've worked with in IT and the linux community over the last 15 years and these are some tendencies of my own as well as those around me. Some, if not most, are helpful and encouraging.
If you're one of those jerks (I've seen alot of them here on Slashdot), get help. Learn to be patient. Don't continue the chain of abuse, grasshopper.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
You're being trolled, you dumbasses.
So you have hearby volunteerd to sit in an irc channel and answer any and all questions.
oh wait, you can't be arsed? Figures.
We need to be able to include everyone in this community.
Why?
Just that. Why?
As for noob. It is more then being a newbie. Everyone is new to something at least once. There is nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong with expecting others to do your learning for you.
You claim "we" (does that include you) do not entire news users very well. Mmm, odd. You were new once. So was I. So were millions of others. How can that be?
When I was still new to unix (yes I am old) I received plenty of help as well when I later switched to linux. I never been told to RTFM.
Either I was lucky, or polite enough or I showed that I had spent time trying to figure it out on my own before resorting to pestering someone else with it.
I always approach asking for help like asking for directions. I am male. Death first! Well urban male, so being lost for half an hour in freezing weather is about my limit but the idea is, only ask for help as a last resort.
But hey, if your willing to jump in and start asking all the lazy questions I am sure there is a project waiting for your help. Welcome to unpaid tech support hell.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
[Devotees] just will NOT criticize [anything] they're emotionally involved with. It's the most ridiculous thing I've seen... these theoretically intelligent, rational [people] that become absolutely insane when you suggest [the object of their affection] is imperfect.
This more generalized statement applies not just to software, but to politics, religion, sports teams, brands of cars, etc., etc. Nationalists, religious zealots, OS zealots, hardcore fans, etc. are all the same kind of person -- someone who cannot handle objectivel criticism of something they love because they think that criticism and disdain are equal. They have a "mommy is never wrong" kind of love instead of a "my kid's not perfect, but I'm still proud of him" attitude.
These people drive me insane in every arena of life that I encounter them in.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The most common excuse for RTFMism is the attitude "reading and learning how will do them more good than if I just give them the answer. Let him learn how to fish and be fed tomorrow when he has the next problem" ... as if a guy asking for help would be able to update the documentation... The "RTFM" or "UTSL" is often so reflexive that they dont even check to see if the FM exists before saying it .....
The problem with this is varied. Firstly, not everyone learns well from reading overly dry technical documentation (which is true of almost all computer documentation, not just linux stuff). Some people learn best by being shown, or told. Some people learn best by tinkering. Others learn well from charts and graphs. The point is, barking at someone to RTFM doesnt help them at all if the FM is gibberish to them. The FM being gibberish shouldnt preclude them from using Linux!
Secondly, simply is time constraints. Many people asking on IRC or mailing lists (usually IRC) are doing so because they are in a hurry. I used to work as phone-support/sys-admin at a small two-town dialup ISP which ran exclusivly off of FreeBSD. The owner and other been-there-longer-than-me admins were very far into the "RTFM" category. So far in fact that many times while I had a customer on hold (OR IN THE OFFICE!!!) and I needed some minor help to fix the problem (how to change an email alias, reset passwords, basic stuff.. I was new-ish then) I would be given zero assistance except for one of them to point (or more often blankly stare) at the office bookshelf. While a customer was on hold. Now you can argue that I was incompotant and shouldnt have had my job, but that isnt the point; the point is to illustrate the degree and severity of the "unix snob" mentality that many of the most experienced users have. We often joked (of the owner) that if the building was burning down and we asked him where the fire extingisher was kept, he'd refer us to the building blueprints.
Third problem is the FM's themselves... many times the FM is outdated or non-existant, but trying to inform RTFMguy of this usually draws more flame, or "then update it!" comments
OK, I gave helping hand to convert wannabees, and some people ended up using linux, because they were willing to READ and LEARN.
...
However some people expected me to fix their system over and over and over, and at the end when I refused I was the ass, the reason of everything wrong. Not their non-willingness to RTFM.
I went as far as I bought a book on Linux - the kind of learn Linux in 14 days or something- to a family member, and went to his house to fix all the problems with the mouse, the retarded USB modem, and spent a whole afternoon teaching "this program is for doing this, and that is for that"...... Since then he is using windows. The book was long, I did not install enough crap on it, or he just simply wasn't up to READING and LEARNING.
Most people are not up to READING and LEARNING. But you do not have to use Linux to face that. I fix family computers with the stupidest repeated problems. Starting from: I flipped my screen upside down, to what is my password.
I was an idiot enough to give mail service to part of my family, so I get the "what is my password" question. And yes, with time you turn to be an A-hole: "the password for what?", "oh mozilla (meaning my mail server), I don't know, but if you need to reset it it will take 2 days, or you can find it, you wrote it down I remember" - and then they find it usually....
Anyway, when intelligent people do not sign up for paypal (a rather complicated process), because I am such an ass and never help them (a couple of business owners, teacher and architect), for me it is a clear indication, that they simply refuse to READ and UNDERSTAND the instructions "e.g. sign up, we charge your card, call your bank (or online bank) and check the number next to the charge, put it here and press submit. (this explanation on half a page)
People are not stupid, they are just damn lazy....
We elete coders shouldn't have to be tech support for clueless lusers. Farm that off to India or something leaving us to write code, delete documentation and when it's time to party, pwn some noobs.
I've been using Linux for various tasks and on various PCs since 1998. I joined a local LUG and still attend meetings. I and others help newbies with installs, problems and direct people to resources and answers. I know our group is not the only one out there that does this. I've gotten and given help on many forums, IRC channels and via email. Help is out there.
Sure people say off the cuff to RTFM. A lot of us have done user support at work which requires a ton of hand-holding and making it "just work", ending with very little appreciation and grumbling that computers are just too complicated. Even MS products don't work as expected for Joe Average user out of the box or they make it very easy to screw things up in new and creative ways. Point is, if you are moving to a Linux system, you are attempting to have a sea-change to the system, even if the interface is user friendly. you may actually have to learn something. You may discover all kinds of cool stuff without even knowing that you wanted to know.
What is needed is for every Linux supporter that really wants to help the situation is to read the Advocacy howto, to learn to communicate clearly and to chill the hell out if someone asks a question. It's not that big of an inconvienience to answer a question. For the newbie, there ought to be a copy on every distro of "How To Ask Intelligent Questions", they need to learn to communicate clearly and they need to chill the hell out. Unpaid support is not as fast as paid support, sometimes. But mosttimes it is a hell of a lot faster. And more accurate if the person giving the support is passionate about it. THAT is a very big difference between Windows and Linux. Linux users I know are so passionate about it, that they can't wait to have you up and running on your shiny new system, so you can enjoy the freedom and passion that they have. That is community at work.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
the only reason you really need to know about why you should switch to linux
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
http://www.brightonnewmedia.org/archives/2002-Augu st/014751.html
u st/014748.html
w ww.matrixlist.com/pipermail/swgpl-main/2001-July/0 00710.html+richard+morrell+smoothwall&hl=en&gl=uk& ct=clnk&cd=12
http://www.brightonnewmedia.org/archives/2002-Aug
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:-euUWj99AwwJ:
Well done Richard Morrell.
- Alan
I get the same crap when asking for help with Linux, Windows, MacOS or any other OS you care to mention. It is NOT a problem relating only to Linux users. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who use their OS of choice as a [substitute your favourite reproductive organ here] extension, just remember the guy who told you to f--k off and RTFM in the free forum is probably someone whose ass you would be kicking in the real world :-)
In my experience, however if you have spent a good amount of time trying to resolve the issue yourself and at least have a good start you will suddenly find people being a lot more helpful. It is important to remember that many of these forums are free and they get asked the same questions over and over.
But when one of the supposed strengths of Linux is COMMUNITY support, it doesn't make much sense for the COMMUNITY to be dicks.
And make no mistake, they are.
So either stop touting the advantages of the Linux "community" or stop being dicks.
As a suggestion to you personally, I'd go with stop being a dick, but as you said you didn't "abruptly become kind, generous, patient and accomodating" so why should we expect anything else?
If you think most people are wired like yourself, then you really need to log off for a few months and live in the real world. If you want world domination, then you gotta understand how the world works.
It's as simple as that.
Stop the brainwash
I've experienced this throughout the years, and I must say this attitude did force me to become highly experienced in all sorts of open source software, though I wouldn't wish it on anybody else. So a few years of professional Linux experience later and I'm the one dishing out advice and explanations to noobs, happy to share the knowledge I gained, even doing the google search legwork for some less inclined noobies when I was unsure or unexperienced in the area of their inquiries.
So do what I do, go out of your way to prove to everyone that you both know what the hell you are talking about and are willing to share it with anyone of any level. When you run across a RTFMer, tell them to STFU and quit being a waste of bandwidth if they don't have anything useful to say. This may not be the most mature way to handle it, but I think it serves two purposes well. The first is to show the noobs that there are experts out there willing to help and even defend them, Linux isn't just for elitist assholes, the second is to show the elitist that his attitude is unappreciated and unaccepted by his peers or even his "superiors".
So everyone out there that can, adopt a noob! Send him on the right path and guide him to the road you took to get where you are. Protect him from the elitist empire. Show them the right way to get the answers they are looking for, and the proper way to ask a question. Let them know there are more good guys out there than bad guys and you'll have contributed something almost as important as the code itself.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I've great help and advice over the last seven years with Linux, (and OpenBSD and FreeBSD too in the last five) from enthusiasts I've met at jobs along the way. Maybe all we're proving is that assholes spend alot of time in IRC and forums making themselves feel important putting others down. But maybe things go better when you spend some time making some friends, whether online or even better the old fashioned way, and then you can talk about struggling with various projects and get help and good ideas. works for me.
It's by no means unique to Linux. Programming skills and social skills do not always go together (in fact many of the best coders I know might be considered quite socially disfunctional by some...)
The difference is that closed source companies keep these people locked away in cubicles and doesn't let them within ranting distance of customers.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
The reason people are snubbed on the help channels isn't simply because they haven't RTFM. If you know NOTHING about what you were trying to do, then you don't know enough to ask the right questions. You learn through trial and error. *I will use Gentoo as an example of a steep learning curve for MS junkies* Whereas some distros (mandrake, ubuntu, or most any frontend install) coddle the user with a simple and effective interface, the only way to learn how to do a stage 1 install of gentoo is to screw-up a few times and read the manual word-for-word. Former windows users (such as myself) are pre-conditioned to skim through 'help' for the information we need. If you do that with the gentoo handbook, just entering lines of code, you're gonna break something. Most linux gurus take the POV that if you don't know how to use it, you shouldn't be using it. Users take issue with that because they want to use a program or tool, when in reality they might be better off using something more simple or avoid it altogether. We expect others to RTFM, try it, break it, google it, and ask their friends before bothering us because they'll get more out of finding the solution than they would if they were handed the solution.
"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
nothing new here....
I work at a technology incubator in Japan with some very smart people, with a decent command of English, who are freaking terrified of having to get support from non-Japanese Linux geeks. I asked why once. Here's a real gem from a user mailing list for some package: our research asked "Excuse me, wonder how to use [package] with output to USB memory key". Yep, I know, this "sounds funny" and asks a question which is not specifically about the package the mailing list is about, but rather something pretty trivial if you can mount a drive and redirect output in the shell. Goodness gracious, the responses he got back (four of them) would curl your toes (to paraphrase: serves you and you're $#"#$"#$ing outsourcing buddies right, Chinaman / lol n00b keke / etc). Kind of ironic for a project which, last time I checked, owed a wee bit to the non-English speaking world. I can understand "Well, thats not so much a question about our project but really a question about how to mount your USB key, after which you can treat it like any other path on your system. Why don't you take a gander at the man page for your mount command?", but, crimety folks, its hard to sell the decisionmaker on "Say, how about we do the development for this product on Linux? Cheap, the wave of the future, free tech support 24/7 if we need it" when the decisionmaker audibly laughs at that last bit.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I'm helping someone out with her web site at the moment. The web designer she tried to work with previously threw a hissy fit because he didn't want to work with a site someone else had designed; that was beneath him, apparently.
I'm told I'm unusual in that I actually explain how stuff works, and try to educate the site owner to be as self sufficient as possible. If something is hard to do, I explain why.
I've helped people with Mac and Linux problems too. The main barrier I find to offering assistance to Linux users is that I don't do Windows, and most newbies who want to use Linux, want to dual-boot. But if someone has a spare PC to dedicate to Linux, I'm all over that--I'll help with picking a distro, install and config, explaining how stuff works, and so on.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Is that when using Linux, it's very easy to customize it to the point that it deviates significantly from the 'standards'.
/usr/local/apache2/htdocs and who points it to /var/www/html.
We run into this all the time at work. Who built Apache in this dir, or that dir, or who points it to
It goes further than that, how about recommended LDAP schemas that have morphed to the unrecognizable. Or non-existent answers to some question, instead getting things like "Install mail toaster" or "use google".
I wouldn't be asking the question if I hadn't googled it first and gotten a confusing list of garbage. Because by and large, that's what is out there. Granted, there are a few good sites but they're few and far between.
I'd rate myself as intermediate with regard to the Linux world. I've run it on the desktop, but my expereience is more in the server realm. I've installed and used Samba, setup Apache, MySQL, done NFS shares etc. But some things still confound me.
What's missing is a clear documentation standard. MAN pages are ok for the most part but even the LDP is woefully short on information. Some of us don't have time to try to backstep and figure things out.
Is this always a bad thing?
An encounter with a linux snob (or any computer snob) won't drive away anyone who has a serious intention of learning it. In fact, in my case, it only helped me.
How? I asked plenty of dumb, n00b questions on forums and channels, etc, and of course got the same snobby answers. Was I discouraged? No, rather it just made me see how much I did not know and how much I could know. I admired them, not for their arrogance of course, but for their knowledge. Seeing how much someone could know about Linux only motivated to learn even faster how it worked. Sure it's not going to be the same reaction for everyone, but for anyone who is really committed to something, it's not going to matter.
Do not mark in this space. For official office use only.
Yeah, I see this attitude a lot. It doesn't stop me, because I don't associate problems with installing/using an OS with its jerkier adherents, but I can see where it would definitely turn some people off.
I do try to help newbies all the time, but...
I can't really do a damn thing about the people who keep spewing RTFM.
You run into the same problems with any platform, but the disadvantage is, no one's going to be driven away from Windows or Mac because of snobs, even though there are far more of them. On Linux, the snobs tend to make people say "I'd love to use Linux, but the community is so hostile that I couldn't get any of my questions answered, so I went back to Windows."
And the conspiracy theory part of my brain wonders if the snobs are MS plants. If so, it's working.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Sure, the developers have an arrogant attitude, but why is it NOT considered arrogant to assume that you should have their undivided attention to answer questions that are answered in the freely available documentation?
i was determined to rid my PCs of Windows, i only rarely asked for help, what i leared to do is simple detective work and a little RTFM helped too. by too much hand-holding the new user is just bringing the same bad habits to the Linux world of being dependant on others to solve thier problems, when just a little logic and detective work and some reading will do it all...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I think the note I left on the talk page is instructive as to how even someone who does eventually work out how things go together can feel:
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
if you want real support...buy it from redhat, novell, IBM, Xandros, etc.
if you want to do things on the cheap, you have to set your expectations accordingly. this is like complaining that you walk into walmart to buy your $20 dvd player from China and the staff in the blue aprons won't explain to you how to set up a home theatre with 7.1 surround sound, tivo, and whatever.
personally, i use Debian exclusively on all my machines. there are some horrible people in Debian (i've been flamed in the debian IRC channel for HELPING people for god's sake) but there are also some wonderful people. kind of like the rest of the universe. but i get more than enough out of Debian to make it a rewarding experience.
you have to choose the solution that suits your mentality. i don't have a problem installing my own windows in my house, repairing my own clothes dryer, wiring my own switches etc. because i choose to buy some books on home improvement and read up on it (and i am an arts major). i've decided that i like to be self-sufficient and save money to spend on more interesting things. i don't expect someone to tell me how to do everything for free.
Snobs?
"Hey, you're one of those condescending Unix computer users!"
"Here's a nickel, kid, go buy yourself a better computer."
Whenever you have a niche market, you attract those people who are most willing to overcome the barriers of entry. They are the people who are most fanatically interested in the topic. And they are going to be jaded toward the general population.
For example, a Libertarian must always be on the defensive because people ask questions alike "Did you vote for Bush or Kerry?" and they have to explain why those weren't the only two options and why you might want to consider an alternative. It's frustrating and wearying to try to champion something. Thus, they tend to be defensive, judgemental, and don't want to waste their time on people who aren't obviously going to join their camp.
A Mac user won't bother explaining to a gamer why Macs are better. A green-party member won't waste their time trying to persuade a Texas Baptist why Ralph Nader is cool. An Indie musician isn't going to explain to a Britney Spears fan why the Sony and the RIAA are bad.
That said, if the fan wants to grow the fan base, they need to appeal to the wider audience.
Coincidentally, just before seeing this story, I was looking for some advice on a wireless problem I was having with Ubuntu. I found this thread on the Ubuntu forums.
Give it a quick glance and you'll see that the user is a complete newbie, but he's asking nicely. The responses are polite, encouraging, informative. When the user asks for clarification he is provided with it (and not in the form of "here's some links, go read" -- they're making a genuine effort to explain it to him on his level; even if they get carried away sometimes it looked like the guy was learning). It's a bunch of people who, for no gain of their own, are doing their best to help this guy out,
I didn't go out of my way to find this example to disprove the article. I found it when I was looking for help (though that particular article had nothing to do with my problem).
Maybe it is distro wars in a sense. Someone a few posts back was griping about arrogant Gentoo users. Gentoo is largely populated by those types who want to compile every little thing for "maximum optimization" and performance and squeezing every bit of use out of every spare cycle. Ubuntu is largely populated by those types who want a user-friendly GUI on top of an OS that Just Works right out of the box, and nevermind if it's precompiled binaries or optimally compiled for your machine.
I know which group I'd rather go to with questions.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
that was good ! made me laugh :)
I declare a flamewar!!! There is no Linux snob snobbier than I. Let me begin. Haha, you Linux still used the command line. That is so 80's. Wake up and smell the 21st century. Gnome, you call that ugly piece of crap, a window manger. Where is the bouncing icons? Get a mac, you can still used the cli because if you haven't heard "it works well in both centuries" Haha. As for Window users, just shutdown the computer now and use it to keep the door open on windy days. Haha. Read the sig for any more inspiration.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
This could just relate to level of experience.
;)
Beautiful. I think this explains the situation very well. When I do support and get payed to do it, I still get annoyed at people asking me stuff covered in the FAQ (still no rude response though).
The n00bs won't know any better, how can they? Hell, I don't think I've ever read any type of manual for Windows; and I used it for about 10 years before trying Linux.
I don't see how the developers, or uber-nerds, expect them to know right away where to look for this information.. I mean, this happens ALOT (obviously). Even if they don't walk the n00b through it, you'd still expect them to reply like they had some type of dignity, being a representative to the software.
Hrm, maybe all of the different software developers should have a mandatory "get out an socialize" day. On second thought, that sounds like it would do more harm than good.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
Whoever that fuckwad is that replied to that guy must be a total assclown and makes the rest of us look like complete shitheads. He needs to STFU.
There definitely are Linux snobs out there, but there are even more Microsoft snobs. The ones that are already talking about how a new Microsoft product is so awesome, before it has even been released. The IT guys that treat you like dirt if you don't have the Microsoft certificate, even though you've been fighting Microsoft problems for over a decade and their cert dates back a couple of months. You know them. They exist. Arrogant snobs are everywhere. They do not know any boundaries as simple as product, company, or political affiliations.
;)
I'm sure Frued could help us out on this one.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
From the getgo, I absolutely agree that there are leeches running rampant in the world who just want you to tell them every single button to press to make their system do what they want it to, regardless of what system that is. I've seen plenty of questions that go, "How do I set up Active Directory?"
I have some limited experience with Linux recently (I've set up Fedora Core 4, Knoppix, DSL, Debian, Kubuntu - not very extensively, just to get my feet wet), and extensive experience with Microsoft products (many years supporting MS machines and the domains they live in).
When I need to find out (for example) how to migrate NT4 and Exchange 5.5 to Windows Server 2003 SBS, Microsoft has all sorts of easily discoverable resources for me to read, and they're 95% accurate for my needs. When I need to find out (for example) how to configure a WLAN card in DSL, I have to wander around user forums until I find a little reference to something that's kind of what I need, I think, and fool around with it until it magically works and I'm not exactly sure why.
I've pulled out the most distinct examples here. Maybe DSL isn't the distribution with the best documentation. Maybe my greater experience with MS makes it easier for me to find the MS resources I need. Maybe with some more experience using Linux I'll get used to how finding configuration information is different, and be able to find what I need easier.
That said, the sense that I get now is that "RTFM" with Linux is easier said than done. You have to FindTFM first. I know that at some point I'm going to need someone with greater experience than I have to point me in the right direction, not having found what I need via Google. Many Linux n00bs, present company included, don't need handholding through configuration. We just want to know where TFM is so we can R it.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
When I started using Linux in the 90's it was fairly unheard of. Linux was unexplored territory. The beauty of unexplored territory is that you are a hero if you go in there and setup house and survive. So in general, anyone who vaguely knew of Linux was impressed by anyone who was actually able to use it proficiently. I think that bred a generation of people who built their ego system on just running and maintaining an operating system. Now after years of these same people saying "Linux is far superior to Windows. Why aren't you running it?" to flex those egos, lots of people ARE now switching to Linux. The unexplored terrirory is becoming a comfy suburb and the original settlers are desperately looking for something to cling to so they can maintain their superiority over the soccer moms and dads down the street. What better way to prove it, when pressed into a corner, than by banging your chest and shouting alot. "Go away, remain ignorant, let me stay important!". The symptoms are basically described in the article. Spewing arcanum about the subject at hand (file locking in databases), repeatedly declaring self value ("you could learn alot from me"), and of course the shouting and hand waving. So usually, this just points to massive insecurity. I won't invoke the phrase "get a life". For one its inflamatory and for two probably most incorrect. What they need to do is realise the do have usefull skills, realize other people can have different opinions, and work on promoting their own opinions without turning it into religous lecture. Easier said than done.
I've had this problem too, trying to learn a little more about OS X. I mean, I'm asking how to do a simple thing, and I don't really want to be told to read the MAN page...
Anyway, this is the opposite of what I've found with Mac users, who are usually happy to help, no doubt to help out a user in distress, or (when applicable) to convert a Windows user to the Mac fold. Honestly, I started my company with a Filemaker Pro for Dummies book and the web address for the old Filemaker list server, and between the two, a newbie like me was able to successfully build a real company, making heavy use of free help from helpful people online. It was exactly the right decision for me to make, and I'm very glad, looking back.
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
One thing that i have found works well in online gaming is to designate a noob server (e.g. Counterstrike noob server - we suck). I generally find that there are a number of experienced players that join in addition to the noobs because they genuinely want to help... If they reply using zeros and ones you're allowed to boot them
Just my 2 as a communications guy. General users do not care about the same details as developers. They only want to know one thing: Can I do what I need to do on Linux as well as or better than Windows? And the answer they want is in the form of "Yes, here is software X, it is better because of ____, and the files it produces can be sent to and used by Windows users." Or, "No, not yet."
They really don't give a crap about reliability, speed, bloat, or anything. Windows users are used to rebooting and crashing, and they don't give a shit because they have everything they want and need and then some. Ignorance? Maybe. Stupidity? I'm not so sure.
From my own personal experience as a musician, my brother was telling me about all of this free pro audio stuff for Linux, and it sounded awesome, so I got him to give me a Linux partition and installed that stuff, but my experience simply didn't present me a good enough reason to switch my OS and take the hit on getting back up to speed and finding my favorite substitutes for all of my old reliable Windows software. It was _okay_, but not some kind of epiphany. All the reliability, stability, security, and efficient memory usage would not have made a difference. It was just underwhelming.
These Linux snobs from TFA are probably chomping at the bit to tell me how stupid I am that I didn't give it a chance, or why didn't I use this or that software, etc., but I know my Windows software, and it does what I need it to do. The tech side of me can understand many of the points about Linux superiority, but as a user I say "Neat. But I don't care."
THE POINT BEING: Can the superiority speech; show don't tell, and be open to crossover users--when they're really ready to get away from Windows, they will have crap that they need to get done and will need your help.
Some people just don't read the manual or don't want to take time to read or learn on their own. And that gets irritating.
God know I'm not linux king, but I'm not too bad and I don't mind teaching or helping someone who wants to get into it, but I perfer they tried some on their own and actually make an attempt to educate themselves.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Am I a snob? Yep. Why? I use Linux because it's not Windows. If Linux takes over the desktop world, I'll go use AROS in production. I mean it, forgot ODF. IFF for everything!!!!
;o)
As for stupid questions... It's ridiculous. Every newsgroup/mailing list/forum/etc. of every piece of open source software is full of idiots asking obvious questions. And you just know they haven't read the manual, because the answer is usually on the first page. And if they have a problem? Take a stack trace, investigate the code, find the problem is due to local mis-configuration? No. They go and post a "It doesn't work. Please help now. Sory my englsih is bad. Boss will kill if I can not make work now."
Anyway, in fairness this is software for free. Don't expect anything. It's different if you paid for a piece of crap and some support drone dises you, you have the right to shout at, demean and belittle the drone. As for open source programmers: you have no claims over them and never will. And guess what? They don't have to be nice to you. You know why? Because they don't need you. If they did, they would provide professional "chargeable" support and make you pay for complements.
By the way, I've used Linux for around 10 years and never asked a question from anybody. Usually cause some other idiot already asked it. Thanks you guys!
"Ceilean Súil an ní ná feiceann..."
My feelings: we'll just hang out here on /., passing out new versions of Windows rootkits, viruses, trojans and worms until every Windows system in the world is so totally bollixed up and infested with ticks that they HAVE to RTFM and move to UNIX/Linux. Then the Internet will once again belong to it's rightful owners: UNIX and Linux users.
Sure, buddy, sure you've RTFM! Problem is you can't R and probably can't F either, even M'ly.
First, there are jerks, and there are nice people. They may not be especially evenly distributed, but both are widespread, and sometimes they exist in the same human bodies.
1) People like to have exclusive knowledge: how to wear clothes "correctly" (to whatever standard one cares about) isn't intuitive; hip nightclubs are only hip when they're on the cusp between unknown and widely known, so people can know that they know what other people know. Not *all* other people, that is -- just the ones who you want to know that they're either your social equals or social inferiors.
2) People vary in their ability to grasp particular bodies of knowledge or particular skills; some people (not me!) find long command-line incancations "natural" or at least "easy." Of that select group, some of them are friendly, pleasant, helpful and grasp that not everyone shares identical interests, skills or thus-far life experiences; others are flat out jerks to others.
3) People are curious and contentious; they like to be right on a given topic, and to engage in argument when they think someone else is wrong. That's why Slashdot exists.
3) Familiarity, group membership and certain knowledge are all psyschologically comforting, whether it's defined by in-group status or out-group status. Hence religion, and "religious" arguments over silly things. Regular Slashdot readers know that people (not all the *same* people, though many are trolls who'd be willing to hurt anyone handy, just for fun) are willing to say nasty things about Windows; about Linux; about GNOME / KDE / WindowMaker / Anything with a GUI; about particular text editors. Some of these arguments are lighthearted, some of them seem like the products of bad, angry childhood experiences.
4) I've seen arrogant, dismissive vitriol from Windows users, from Linux users, and from people with a broad, cross-platform interest in supreme jerkdom. My experience has been mostly good in seeking help from those in the free software world, and my personal experience with other than non-free software is usually lousy not because of fellow users, but because of annoying software. But that's because various preferences keep me from using much other than free software.
In fact, one reason (not the top or best one, but a real one) I don't like to use Windows is that I've seen from Windows users so much of the same arrogance and exclusion that people seem to be attributing here to Linux users. There's arrogance aplenty in the computer world like any other domain of life; some people's self-esteem hinges on making sure that others around them are kept down and aware of their inferiority. (Or, phrased more positively, people enjoy the in-jokes and belonging of being w/ similar fellows, which exludes others aside from malice.)
timmothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Many of the comments I've read on this article are actually proving the point. I can understand people getting annoyed by what would seem like a stupid question. But "stupid questions" are in the eye of the beholder so to speak.
I mean, it amazes me. There's an old "rule" that says, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything". It's NOT that hard of a rule to follow, particularly online. I'm a long time linux user (since 1995 starting with slackware) and I even have times with the docs sometimes. I usually manage to muddle through, but that's me with over 11 years of Linux experience. Not some guy/gal just picking it up for the first time or who has only used it for a little while.
Granted the IRC channels are usually the WORST place to go to try and get help as you can usually find your answers online with a relevant search, but that doesn't change the fact that the user doesn't need to be treated like crap just because they are stuck. I also understand why help in an IRC channel is usually denied. Those channels are usually used for development, not support. If support gets started there, pretty soon the next thing you know the devs can't dev.
HOWEVER! It goes the other way too. There are quite a few times the person asking for the help doesn't exactly go about it politely or it's plainly obvious they didn't bother to read the documentation because their problem is addressed on the first page of the docs. But do we have to say, "RTFM jerk-off!!!" We COULD say sometime along the lines of, "That problem is addressed in the INSTALL.TXT file, have a look there". OOOOOR maybe even taking it a bit further and say something along the lines of, "I don't mean to sound rude, but you'll get a much better response for assistance if you atleast try to read the documentation first". That kind of a line will give them a subtle point that you should always read the docs before bothering something when an answer is readily available if they just look.
It's all about courtesy. It's something that we (I mean MOST people not just people dealing with computer issues) seem to be lacking these days. It doesn't kill someone to take a few extra seconds to be nice to someone else. Thank you, please, appreciate it, would you mind, you're welcome. I typed all those in about 30 seconds. How many times have you seen people too involved in their own world to move out of the fast lane, or cut someone off so they can get out in traffice 4 seconds faster? How many times have you seen some little ol' lady or man struggling with a door or to get up stairs carrying something and noone even bothered to offer help?
Either rate, I'm going to get off my rant now, I think I made my point.
The way to handle a Linux n00b is to help them get the system started, then tell them to RTFM. Give them the URL's to helpful wikis and forums and tell them to find out for themselves how to do things and then help them when they are hopelessly stuck after having tried themselves and perhaps learned a thing or two. I recently helped a n00b get into Ubuntu. I gave him a quick lesson on BASH commands, how to install stuff and then left him to his own devices. 2 weeks later he is a happy Linux user and has few questions for me to answer.
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This shrillness may be attributed to a variety of causes, including social ineptitude, feelings of intellectual/moral/fiscal superority, attempted concealment of their own limited knowledge, etc., but there is just no excuse for this sort of behavior.
Bingo! Well said.
In my 15+ year career in the computer industry, I have not met ruder, more conceited, more self-centered, people per capita than IT people. And I echo your remarks on why this is apparantly so. For whatever reason, many feel their IT intelligence is so superior over non-IT people, and, thus, are of a higher standing in society (maybe the faux sense of supriority you alluded to). What's funny is that THEY THEMSELVES don't even realize they STILL sit far below the food chain. So they can keep their arrogant attitude, and can come begging to their boss (me) when they want a raise next year.
I tell people to RTFM because often I don't even know... nor do I care... so why should I go figure it out, if they're perfectly smart enough to figure it out on their own?
People get lazy and rely on the computer guy to go figure out things for them... they leverage his ego by telling him he's smarter.
BS. They're just lazy and exploiting you.
That's the difference between Linux/Windows users. Linux guys are just smarter enough to realize they're being taken for a ride.
-judging another only defines yourself
Many years ago when I got into the whole open source universe, a wise random person on IRC gave me an advice that got me very far:
"If you want to know something very n00b-like, go into the channel and say: Linux sucks cause in windows I can X and I can't X on Linux"
Seconds later I have 10 ppl cooking up al sorts of answers for me.
This avoids giving the impression that Linux is technologically retarded (which it clearly is not), whilst avoiding the insinuation that the responder is an "apologist".
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Checkov!?!?
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On the Bookshelf
An article saying that people are jerks in digg replies is hardly worth any kind of conclusion.
Free help is all great .. but lets face it .. its FREE. I frequent message boards and I, along with others, help many people. People who expect IRC or a message board to be the first source for problem resolution will generally be disappointed at the results.
If people are not willing to do some reading and self study to understand a topic should *really* consider paying someone to do it for them. This might be a paid enterprise distro like Red Hat or local consultant/LUG.
The expectation that you should get top priority (ie have someone chat with you in real-time about an issue) for FREE is ridiculous.
If you want free support, be understanding of the person providing it to you. They are not getting paid:
1. Understand the platform. There are lots of books on basics of Linux. FreeBSD has the excellent Freebsd Handbook. If you don't understand the underlying platform, your in for some issues. Getting up to speed on *nix fundamentals is important.
2. RTFM. Most applications at minimum will come with some form of installation/configuration docs. Use them to install your software.
Assuming there is a issue with #2 -- do a google search for the problem. If you have an error message, use that as your search term. Many times I'll find a thread on a mailing list that provides some additional clarification/resolution details.
If the search fails, be as concise as possible about your problem and post it to a forum that addresses that issue (ie subforum or mailing list for the particular application). Tell people what you have done so far, where the issue occurred and what you attempted to do to resolve it.
If you are in a position where you cannot wait a few days for the reply, I'd strongly recommend looking for paid support.
Will you get your problem resolved for free? Maybe not, but if you show that you are personally committed to resolving the issue then your chances of having the issue resolved will increase.
This reminds me of my time spent trying to learn Cubase, an audio sequencing program. This was a few years ago and there was definitely an attitude of RTFM there. In addition to that, the snobs would also occasionally pull out the "you're using a hacked version" card. I had someone tell me that once, something along the lines of, "I'm sick of supporting people like you using hacked versions." I sent him a picture of me and my paid-for version of the program, but still couldn't elicit an apology out of him.
What I've found is actually helpful for noobs is this: if you're going to tell them to RTFM, at least tell them where in the FM to look. Something like "page 78" or "the chapter on whatever" can really be helpful sometimes.
Documentation isn't the fun part, it's the tedious part. Everyone who wants to do something tedious without compensation, raise your hands right now.
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Definitely, definitely, answer your own question if you can.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Around 2000 after I got broadband I started playing with various distros of Linux. I bought a big fat 1000 page FM (which is also available online), read it twice, settled on Mandrake and installed.
The Linux community (or most of it) was very helpful. Sure, there were a few asshats, but with six billion people on the planet one or two are bound to be less than helpful.
Alas, I haven't used Linux since I swapped out my MB and vid card, has the Linux community changed that much since then?
BTW, try getting support for XP from ANYBODY, inclucing MS itself. Impossible. I had an issue with a piece of software that XP disabled the drivers for, I uninstalled the damned program and every time I booted it would STILL tell me it had disabled my drivers.
Then a Windows update left me without net connectivity. GAH! I gave up and reinstalled XP after an FDISK.
God, but I miss Linux. I should buy some parts...
Some commentators say that this arrogance can be found everywhere and that it's the same across the board. But so far as I know the open source community is the originator of the use of "snob" as an term of merit. Perhaps it's starting to go out of fashion now, but freequently on newsgroups I used to encounter people happy to describe themselves as linux snobs. In doing so they acknowledged that perhaps snobbery is not a good thing, but in the case of linux it was OK because Linux really was a superior OS and the snobbery entailed promoting linux as intrinsically better in some normative sense.
No one argues that windows is better for some deep religious reason. If it's better, they say it's better for some down-to-earth practical reason to do with meeting their direct needs. Linux, it can be argued, is better for just those same kinds of reason. And if that is the case, then there is every reason to be happy with it and to use it, but none to look down on those who don't. The looking down derives from some sense of moral superiority in both the use and the user of the software. Does such moral superiority really exist in a piece of software, in what is, after all, a machine, a tool designed for some perfectly mundane purpose?
I doubt it. And I doubt that _this_ kind of superiority, deriving as it does from the sense of moral superiority intrinsic to the software itself, can really be said to belong to the much more populous world of windows. "This may be", I hear you say, "but that's because Windows is a commercial product lacking any higher ideals of freedom or communal effort or popular control. There really is nothing idealistic about Windows or any other commercial product. It is just there to be bought or not as people see fit." But if this is the case, are we to conclude that the linux snob and the normative sense in which linux is seen as "better" than other OS's are inextricably linked? And does it mean that the snobbery the article criticizes will always be a part of the linux experience as long as it is seen to be this quasi-religion seated a little closer to the gods.
At the very least, opponents of this view have to answer how "I am a linux snob", said apparently without much sense of irony or shame, can have become such a familiar refrain in linux or open source discussion groups in particular, but without much evidence of its correlate appearing in the parallel commercial universe, if snobbery and its attendant arrogance are equally distributed between products and all avenues of life.
I've found that this elitist attitude is everywhere. It's just more prevalent (and upfront laced with profanities) online. Some of the worst examples I've seen personally:
(and not in any order)
1)Apple engineers
- What bug?
2)OpenSSH developers
- Fix it yourself.
3)Comcast corporate forums and fanboys
- How dare you ask a technical question or make a request that puts Comcast in a bad light.
4)Slashdot
- We're wearing red shirts today, where's yours?
5)SprintPCS
- Don't like our nonworking towers? You just complain too much.
6)SBC
- Our DSL always works. We don't sell modems with security flaws either.
7)Police officers
- I've been here 25 years and what the law says isn't what the law is. I know the law and you don't.
8)Hardware manufacturers
- It's your software.
I think the problem is that no one wants to do any problem-solving anymore. When confronted with undeniable evidence, many just start ignoring the situation, hoping you'll move on. If there's even just one weak, anecdotal piece that they interpret in their favor, they'll latch onto that, instead of looking at your mountain of evidence. And here's where what I'll say will soothe (what's left of) the consciences of the bad people and prove the previous statement: not every example above has been 100% bad; some good people do exist.
On most of the mailing lists and forums I frequent, I have noticed this from a lot of newbies:
...And unsurprisingly the people who write fluent English are the worse.
1. They are unable to use google
2. They are unable to use the search facility on forums and mailing list archives.
3. They are unable/unwilling to provide specific details about their problem i.e. the graphic card they are using
4. They are unable/unwilling to type a command into a terminal and paste/type the output as requested by the person who is trying to help them.
The newbie then flames the entire board/list or the person trying to help them simply because of their inability to search and find their question has been asked 10 times already with answers they have not tried, or because they cannot follow simple instructions.
I'm actually surprised that so many linux users bother to spend their FREE time replying to so many posts in the polite way they do.
Also a lot of newbies post their messages to the wrong forum or list, and then get upset if their messages are moved or they are told this is the wrong list.
Yeah, I guess I just expect better from Linux people. They're smart enough to write an amazing system and a huge universe of free software. I suppose the hypersensitive ones may not be the same crowd that's actually writing the software... it's easy to lump disparate groups of people using Linux into the same 'community' and treat them as a whole.
There are lots of great people in the Linux community, but the 'blame the user!' contingent really sucks.
Usually in the afternoon, any authors of, "...Hi jackass, RTFM...", are esscorted to the front door and told never to return again. I think the there is some smoke being blown in my eyes.
FC4 was my first linux distro and I still use it on my laptop. I spent a great deal of time in the fedora forums and have never ran into any snobbery.
However I had to do some things they couldn't help me with. Like getting LEAP authentication to work with my laptop so I could connect to the wireless network at college. I joined a few mailing lists to try and get help. That was 4 months ago. It still doesn't work. Why? Because I tried posting some initial questions and just got crap in response. I tried following the documentation and got most of the way, but it sort of breaks down around LEAP. While they include multiple examples of various other protocols and how to configure them, the only LEAP example includes using another protocol at the same time and its not exactly clear what you have to do to get it to work.
If anyone knows how to do this.. it'd be super..
Admittedly, the answer could be better than, "You jackass..." but it is important to note that there is no reasonable answer to the user's question short of "Try 'em both and see which you like."
As an aside, I never, ever, ever recommend Linux to someone who does not enjoy tinkering with computers. To do so is completely irresponsible. I use it myself, but I'm a tinkerer. The way people around here insist on evangelizing Linux, you'd think they enjoy questions like, "Ok, I just installed linux, now how do I open my Quicken? I've gotta pay some bills today." And before you look, Quicken doesn't run for shit under wine. "Oh, you use Linux now. You have to learn gnucash. But don't worry. It runs just fine on an ancient version of gnome. Good luck!" Puh-leeze.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Why try to learn Lin-Sux. Li-Sux Sux. At Least on windows, I can run a scandisk to fix my hard drive. Lin-sux will never be able to do that!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
looks like the writer needs to RTF Dictionary. I believe the word he was looking for is "sensible".
My first experience with windows was trying to get Doom to run on a 486 with 16mb ram. Seams I had some issue with no enough memory or some such and I had to create a DOS boot disk to skip all those memory hogging DOS files that usually started with win 3.1.
:)
I gave up, it was too hard fo me
I then had to use Windows for work, I was able to perform basic functions like email, chat, and word processing. All pretty much just extensions of the word processor I used before (a typewriter).
3 Years later I land a job that requires excel, all is good for 2 years then my HD crashes. I ask the IT tech to help me out, but seams he was too busy going through the CEO's email for information to blakmail him with. So he hands me a hard drive the OS disk, and a floppy a week later I have Windows 95 up and running with office and AV.
I have been struggling with Linux for about 5 years now, trying it off and on and making a ton of mistakes. If my job depended on me getting a linux box up and running with a basic working OS no problem. If that job required me to configure Wine to run x windows app, or business app I'd be screaming on a Message board or IRC channel with the rest of the Linux noob idjits.
Over all the linux kernal (see I'm learning) and all the different Flavors of distributions are well documented. The only issue I had had when searching for help is that once you find that help I usually need the verbose directions for getting a job done, and most people only give the basics while forgetting that many of us windows users are still looking for the run command to give us a cmd screen!
After all, Ubuntu is making so much headway. 5.10 is a 100% install with the exception of 3D acceleration, just by inserting the liveCD (at least, this is the case on MY computer, which happens to run two sound cards and three different networking devices, and the LiveCD works with it all.) Ubuntu is becoming such a joy, I'm waiting for them to make a flexible GUI approach to adjusting system settings and hardware configurations (I still say force sudo password input first to prevent unauthorized system fiddling, just in case,) instead of having to edit a conf file manually. Add a couple of other things, and Ubuntu should easily surpass Vista within two release versions.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If Microsoft users could easily locate the correct conference room on the Microsoft campus and walk into a meeting and ask questions, I'm sure they would be yelled at plenty and told to get out the meetings and rtfm. It would actually be worse if often enough somebody at the meeting, instead of yelling, would say "oh yea I know what that is, you do this and this to fix it" and thus answered the question 100 times faster than any other method, thus encouraging the user to face the abuse because the odds are that the results will be better.
Microsoft does not have this problem because you need to get past security to get into the conference room. Linux can't implement this because people will just say they are getting *more* snobbish.
But there is a more important problem. In Linux it literally is 1000 or more times easier to find and walk into that conference room than to find the documentation or call the support line. Real, usable documentation has got to be easily locatable, just by knowing the name of the program you are trying to use. Unfortunatley "man" pages are still the best, if "man xyz" does not say "no documentation available" it will actually produce the information I need. I have yet to see this with any html system or google where you can spend hours searching (ie a clear "you will not find what you are looking for" would help).
Also the command line needs some work. It is not unfriendly because it is not a GUI, but because it is lacking some stuff that too many programmers think is "gui stuff". A previous poster complained about the difficulty in telling somebody how to read a README, getting them stuck in less or vi. But the "noobie" apparently was able to locate the README file easily using the command line. They knew it was there, but not how to read it. They were told "try vim or cat or less", but that is just stupid. Why doesn't the command line let you type the name of the damn file (ie type "README") and it then acts exactly like those GUIs and open the file in the GUI text editor. Too many idiots think that somehow this function is impossible unless there is a mouse and you push the button twice. Get with it.,
The real problem here is the complete lack of a standard installation. I think most of the time questions are not *able* to be answered due to the wealth of info the user would need to provide to even begin to get meaningful assistance. This is the real root of the perceived "snobbishness."
Sure there are always your run of the mill asshats, but I know I would try to help newbs out if it was possible to have some baseline to work from. Choice is great, and advanced users need that choice, but what we need is a standardized basic set of applications, kernel, directory structure, FS, etc. for regular installations.
Imagine if Windows could be installed any which way and with all different options and applications... no one could troubleshot anything there either. Same for OSX. Standards and limiting choice at the outset is "A Good Thing" now if we could just do it instead of tossing the entire box of spaghetti at the wall right off the bat and having a million different possible outcomes.
Food for thought.
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> UNIX of course was as commercial a product as anything else,
UNIX was, originally, NOT a commercial project. A '50s legal ruling prevented AT&T from entering the computer hardware/software industry, so Ken Thompson & Dennis Ritchie were allowed to give away the Unix source code and binaries to anyone who asked for them. The liberal terms and the support for a popular platform (the PDP-11) were the two greatest reasons for Unix's success at universities and later industries. After the government split it up, AT&T was allowed to enter the software industry, and it began selling Unix as a commercial product, called System III, that did not include the source code. The Unix Time-Share System was certainly a reaction against the mainframe priesthood, though.
> while MULTICS required a ponderous Burroughs mainframe.
Multics was initially developed for the GE (General Electric) 645 mainframe and was later ported to the Honeywell 6180 series. The only OS, that I know of, that ran on the Burroughs machines was the MCP or "Master Control Program."
> UNIX had become the OS of choice for VAXen
Unix was very popular on the VAXen, but I still think that VMS had a larger marketshare on the VAX, since it was actually supported. Unix marketshare might have increased when DEC started to support it, but that was near the end-of-life for the VAX, I think.
> The people you will have trouble with are the people who cut their teeth on DOS and later Windows, who have memories of what they went through in the VAX days, and any hint of inadvertent condensension from Linux gurus is enough to give them flashbacks of their old tormenters.
Why would Unix users torment PC users? I do not think that microcomputers could access the internet very easily, so PC & Unix users were probably separate communities. It is not that I do not believe you (I know how condescending people can be when they think they have some superior system), but could you give some examples?
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
It is not snobbish and snubbish to tell someone to RTFM. It is snobbish and snubbish to tell someone to RTFM without telling where to RTFM.
4 55#post924455) which I should have gotten from the help on the system.
And why isn't this RTFM directly installed on the system itself? I just played around a little with the new Ubuntu system and tried to figure out how to burn a CD. Because I couldn't find out how I accessed the help. Sure enough there isn't the slightest hint, worse there isn't any info on how to get further assistance. Fine, let's go to the Ubuntu website into the documentation. I can tell you I couldn't find anything nor locate a help feature nor any hint on how to proceed further. A newbie would at least here give up but I went to the forums where a got all the answers (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=924
IMO it's essential for Linux that the help on the system gets into a usable state.
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
...isn't snobism - it's that people don't understand Linux because it's just bazaar.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
As I move from newbie to barely productive to competent I try to turn right around and participate in a forum that matches my previous skill level. I find that very often there are other people struggling with the same thing I just painstakingly figured out.
I think if more support fourms were somehow structured into levels and more people would participate at the level of expertise they possess it would help. It is frustrating to deal with the same first-time user questions over and over again, but a structured forum that includes a level for extreme beginners not only gives the beginners a place to feel safe to ask stupid questions, it gives those slightly more knowledgeable a place to feel like a useful part of the community support process.
Ticket entered for "snobbish attitude".
See unresolved ticket for dressing poorly.
The manuals exist for a reason. The developers generally don't have the time or ambition to develop software, write documentation, and be your on-call support team. Something must give, and since the developers are donating their time and you're asking them for a favor (they didn't ask you to use their free software, remember...), the developers get to prioritize how to spend their limited resources.
Better developers will help users help themselves (to a large degree) - user-editable Wiki-based documentation. Mailing lists. IRC channels. Forums. All signs of a vibrant community.
The problem with users *not* R'ing TFMs is that there is a huge disparity between the number of developers vs. the number of potential users. Helping each case individually is impractical. This becomes infuriating if the question has been answered before and could be found in 5 minutes using Google. You're wasting my time, and I value my donated time.
Rather than putting all of the onus on the developers to provide free software, free support, free documentation, free bug fixes, and free enhancements, the users must also buy into the community mindset. If you get help on some previously unanswered topic, take it upon yourself to document it in the project's Wiki. You too can be a producer, rather than just a consumer. Rather than taking up the community's resources without contributing anything back, please stop being leeches and contribute to the FOSS community where you can. The community only works if we all work toward a common goal, and whining about developers' lack of free time or bad attitude isn't going to help anything. Thanks.
Furthermore, I don't give a shit. Really! If you want to use linux, use it, if you don't, then don't! I read manuals, I ask questions, sometimes I get answers from reading sometimes people answer my questions. Sometimes I don't find the answer at all, so what?
Linux is free. I don't spend much time maintaining it and I spend close to zero time shopping for applications for it because almost everything I need is in a repository. Hence, I don't feel the need to bitch about people not wanting to handhold beginners.
At the end of the day, I like what it does for me and I like it's tech-centric focus. If you aren't a techie I don't think you should "try" linux. Just forget about it and use windows, it won't be much different for you if you aren't already frustrated with windows and it will probably frustrate you with things like sound, graphics, and streaming media.
It isn't a cool club for you to join, it's just an operating system that works well for software developers, technical people, and basic computer users. If you are the typical windows user who loves your web junk you'll just be frustrated, save yourself the headache and don't bother.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Yes, but this isn't just a syndrome that affects open-source. A lot of closed-source applications have absolute crapulance for documentation: it's there, it's big, and it's completely f*'ing unreadable to anyone who didn't write the damn thing.
Also, have you tried a "tech support" helpline recently? Some of them are good, but many have you spending 15-30 minutes speaking to automated voice agents, punching option numbers in your phone, and/or talking to some guy with a thick accent living in a foreign country reading a script telling you to uninstall and reinstall... just before he transfers you to another department where you get hung up on.
If you don't mind me asking, where did you go for support? It sounds to me like you went to /. Well, /. is NOT a support site, it's a tech blog. A tech blog full of people who like to troll and flame people. They're not here to help you, they're here to read tech articles and ridicule other users. Yes, some of us will help you if we can, but most /. users. . . probably not. I'd say coming here for support is almost asking to be ridiculed.
You should go to a Linux help site if you want help with Linux. If you want (good, helpful, useful) Linux support you should go to http://www.linuxquestions.org/. That's where I've been going all these years.
www.linuxpenguin.net
Use Ubuntu and come hang out in #ubuntu (on freenode). There aren't any snobs there. :D
just my 2 bytes
When they were a computer noob (for those who started out with Windows) how did they get their questions answered? They asked the guy in the next cube, or a friend, or the know "Power User" for help. If you don't know how to create a particular formula in Excel, you ask an Excel-knowledgeable person.
:-)
With Windows users, the set of people who have your answer runs the gamut from people who just learned what you want to know (who are interested in sharing it) to long-time power users who are used to being asked obscure questions about Windows applications. Heck, I once interviewed at a company where the position they were advertising was actually a "Office Expert" position. The interviewer wanted to know if I was willing to be the MS Office tech support guy--which is not the position I applied for
When you ask a question on a Linux forum (or IRC, or mailing list) you are almost certainly dealing with a smaller group who is less used to answering "noob" questions than your average Windows user. Not only that, but the population tend to include a higher proportion of geeks, who aren't known for being the most socially adept. In that sense, you're asking your question of an elite group, not used to answering them. And you can expect some responses that may seem like snobbery.
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I consider myself a fairly advanced Linux user. I've used it exclusively as a desktop and as a programming workstation since 2000. Even I have difficulty finding answers to simple questions. The most difficult obstacle I face is that my Google searches are polluted by web sites with identical copies of man pages and even more so by forums filled with the blind leading the blind, often resulting in more questions than answers for the inexperienced. If these sites simply disallowed search engine spiders from indexing the worthless threads (e.g. when a solution is found, move it to a "Working Solutions" forum and only index that), the simple solutions to simple questions could be found much more easily. This would result in fewer duplicate posts to mailing lists and an all around better experience for the newbies and the pros.
People took a great deal of time writing a manual precisely because we don't all have the time to run free training classes in Linux usage. I certainly understand the "snobs" frustration. And there is a tiny segment of the Linux using population that believes their little OS should not be used by the "average idiot". And that Microsoft sells their "crappy" OS to the "idiots" for a reason. The initiate often forgets that to outsiders "RTFM" isn't a cute little quip, it's actually quite rough and offensive. yes, I know RTFM is extremely good advice, but if you're dying to say RTFM please include which FM and maybe which page/section of the FM.
I'm guessing there is 1 out of 50 people who knows the answer who is willing to help, and 25 out of those 50 who are at least willing to take the time to reply to a person. And we all know how unlikely someone is to replay "I don't know. sorry". It's mostly "RTMF. You lazy stupid blithering penguin's wart".
Here's a suggestion: STFU.
--
If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Look, if you go into some random forum and start asking questions that have been answered before, without contributing anything back, of course you're going to get flamed. Not to mention that those truly qualified to help, and the ones most likely to help are not listening on those forums, they are working on the software. So what does this boil down to? People asking questions that have already been answered, getting answers from assholes who have nothing to do with the project. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft or other proprietary competitors to GNU/Linux aren't hiring people to be assholes in Linux support forums. They FUD and astroturf here at slashdot, why not support forums as well?
To come back to the original topic, too many people don't realize that they are asking for *free* support for *free* software. It's like trying to wring that last drop of blood from a stone that you used to bash the developers' heads in with.
Another thing to consider, which has been mentioned by others here, is that you should at least put some effort into learning something before asking questions to those who probably won't help you anyway. By asking questions of others first, you are basically stating that you are too lazy to do your own research and want someone else to do it for you.
Another couple of things:
Money *is* time, the only difference being you can always get more money, you can't get more time. You can pay for support, or you can spend some time learning, or maybe, just *maybe* try the idea that open source was built around: when someone contributes to the community, everybody benefits, so if you get some benefit from open source, consider what you have contributed to it. Quid pro quo and all that. That, and don't listen to the flamers, they're not real GNU/Linux users.
Nathan's blog
I have to say, Lisp has the same problem. It's the snobs that screw it up. Lisp is a truely great language, but try lurking on comp.lang.lisp for a little while. For real freak-show entertainment value, look up "naggum-mine" in comp.lang.lisp on google groups.
I don't think Naggum hangs out there any more, so it might not be quite as bad any more. Still, for a language that's been around as long as Lisp, you'd think the group would be a little more tolerant of newcommers.
"Eye halve a spelling chequer, It came with my pea sea, It plainly marques four my revue, Miss steaks eye kin knot sea"
[+] truth, linux, flamebait, troll, fud (tagging beta)
Ok I might even get the 'fud' but troll/flamebait? Something's seriously wrong with these people.
Some may call that snobbery. I didn't really see it that way. To become a guru able to answer forum requests requires a level of experience that SHOULDN'T be dismissed. I abhor stupid questions and try to avoid asking them at all costs. If that means reading for two days then so be it. Every Newb to Linux should be told in no uncertain terms the "Support rules".
FIRST. Read the Fscking Manual
SECOND. RE-READ The Docs.
THIRD. Google your problem.
FOURTH. Scan the Forums for your problem and then Ask Informed Questions that demonstrate the above.
FIFTH. Share your knowledge when you find THE answer, Everywhere you asked the question.
The biggest problem for the "Guru" is a bunch of already addressed issues clouding up a very active community. After the fourth time you answer the same question that is posted as a sticky in the forum you start to get annoyed. True, we shouldn't take it out on new users, but people are people.
I discovered these rules on my own. I challenge myself with every broken dist-upgrade or NVIDIA Upgrade for what seems like forever and I rarely have to ask for help. I don't want to ask. That's the point, I should be able to fix it myself. If I wanted Support I would have bought my DISTRO and Support Package. (or OSX or WIN) I actually feel kind of defeated if I get to step/Rule 4. Uh, Oh this one's new to the scene, may take a few days.
My experience is there are assholes everywhere. FOSS is no different, but sometimes, the asshole is right and the answer IS in the F'n Manual.
Currently at home, I am working through a Kanotix/Debian Sid Xorg7 dist-upgrade Snafu that happened last night.
Thank GNU for elinks.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
I hear that complaint from a lot from Windows users. But I don't think it's justified. I think the article's publisher is merely hyping the snob angle as a marketing ploy to drive click-through to his Linux-help blog. Nearly ever so-called Linux snob I've ever met has been an ex-Windows snob. If Linux users were such snobs why is there so much free documentation written by Linux users @ http://www.tldp.org/? Did I also mention the article's blog hypes a Linux help book?
Yeah, well, Ruby people aren't going to tell you to RTFM, because for most of the code there is no fscking documentation...
As for Debian, the users are fine, the arrogance there mostly seems to be restricted to the developers.
[I run Debian and write documentation for Ruby.]
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The problem often is that There Is No Fucking Manual!
Installing software is often a trip through several man pages, web forums, and WIKIs. Ask a question on a forum, and you always have some asshole who's thinks he's being clever, and instead of answering your question, points you to some nntp news article that was 1) written before he was born and 2) has absolutely nothing to do with what you asked because he didn't bother to RTFQ!
And that's not getting into Kernel trap errors.
And actually, I'd like to add another thing that keeps Linux from being accepted: over-selling. If software has bugs, don't say it's stable. If it's got a new feature that doesn't work yet, don't tell everyone to switch to it because "now it does X just like the commercial software." Oh, and if it doesn't support X hardware, for the love of god don't tell some newbie to write a driver. Just get over it, and admit that linux doesn't support it.
When you ask questions to people who know a great deal about the subject, and you know nothing about the subject, of coarse they are going to get a bit tired/annoyed by trying to explain things that will take you years to comprehend, especially if it's some IRC channel. *what do you expect?*
.NET, LAMP, ROR, AJAX, J2EE, Oracle, or even SAP, you are bound to find SOME individuals with self richeous attitudes.
Whether it's a Windows/*nix,
Who Cares!
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
About a year and a half ago I was using GAIM and ran into a glitch. I checked there site and a new version had come out. I upgraded to the new version on my Win98 system. Yeah I know but, the accounting package our company had didn't work right on anything else at the time.
The new version crashed upon startup. The website hadn't had anything posted about upgrade problems. So I went to the IRC channel for GAIM and asked them if there was an issue. The channel had the usual 'Welcome to GAIM' text. Two developers were in the channel at the time.
One developer told me to read the site about and check that channel. Again, neither had been updated. The second developers called me an idiot, and said I should know more about GTK. The GAIM project has just updated to GTK 2.6 from 2.4; 2.6 is not Win98 compatible.
So I asked if there was work around. The next 20 minutes the second developer berated me for asking such stupid questions with the first developer 'Amen-ing' everything he said.
Finally a third developer who came into the channel and flipped out at the immature attitude of the first two. #3 told me the whole story about the new version and GTK. The third developer changed the title on the channel and left to put a note on GAIM.
While that person was away I asked if they have been a lot of problems with GTK for while. I was then told that they were thinking about dropping development on Windows because to many Windows people were using GAIM, and not enough Linux people.
After all that I left the channel, changed my name, and came back to see what was going on. Two more people came in with same basic questions on GAIM and GTK. I was able to divert the wrath of the cruel developers and actually give the people some help.
So there's my horror story with OSS and OSS tech support. I still use GAIM on occasion, but I and most of my friends are moving over to Google Talk
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
-
Check out what is in front of me, i.e., read the readme, see what foo -help says, look carefully at the command/menu options, etc. Half the time, I made a wrong assumption about how the controls worked and this step is a remedy.
-
Record the error codes, check the log files, etc. and then google thoroughly. Odds are, someone has had this problem before; and, the symptoms and solution are already posted somewhere. This takes care of the problem 49% of the time.
-
Ask for help from the community. This means saying, I've looked at the documentation, googled the error codes, and tried the suggested resolutions. Taking the time to carefully and accurately describe the problem and the steps I have taken before bugging someone else seems to prevent rude or careless responses.
Basically, if you ask your question as an intelligent, thoughtful person would, you tend to get responses in kind. Saying angry or careless things begs for angry, careless responses. Since, however, MS techs can get fired for replying as the care to, you mostly see this type of response from volunteers. And, volunteers are the heart of the FOSS community.WARNING: Smoking this sig may cause lowered IQ, insanity or short term memory loss. It is also really bad for your monit
This article is mostly bullshit. Most sane people wouldn't make a judgment
on an OS according to a comment from some asshole on a newsgroup.
When you make comments or ask technical question there is always the
possibility that a retard would either think your wasting his time,
insulting him or asking stupid questions.
You will find these lunatic all over, on linux, windows, cats or dog newsgroups.
I posted a question on a windows XP newsgroup to see if anyone would be informed
enough to give me a clue on how to resolve a problem and ended up getting
flamed by the local head asshole (this was a female on that newsgroup).
Because I stated my opinion of the Microsoft Firewall she took it as a
personal insult and started to make comments that could piss off a
Linux fanatic. Standard windows fanatic crap messages.
I never got an answer on the question at hand. I wonder if there is
someone on this message thread that knows a solution since I could
never get one on a windows newsgroup and there is no obvious
newsgroup where that would not be off topic.
I use a GHS C Compiler with a dongle that connects to the parallel port.
If the microsoft firewall is enable and the dongle had been disconnected
before but is now connected I have a serious problem if I try to access
it. The Firewall comes in and tells me that it successfully blocked it
and ask me if I want to allow it to use the port. It doesn't really matter
at that point whether or not I tell windows to allow it to work, the PC
will soon crash and reset. If I am lucky it may only take one reboot for
the system to work. If the Firewall is disabled I never have any problem.
Where the problem comes in is that once in the while that Firewall is
reenabled by some microsoft application or setup. Whenever I play with
the sharing it seems to reenable the firewall. I'm not sure what other
shitware would also do it.
I asked on a windows newsgroup if there was a way to disable that Trojan
permanently. The head bitch saw that as personal insult since she never
had problem with that firewall and seemed to think that it was the best
thing since slice bread.
I couldn't care less about firewalls on that machine since all the users are
me and I would never connect it to the internet considering the lack of
security on windows with or without firewall. A firewall on a work machine
that keeps me from working is nothing but a Trojan.
When you have a $4000 toy you want to be able to use it without the PC
crashing when you do. I can understand a messed up firewall keeping me
from accessing certain things, but to crash the PC to keep me from
doing so, this borders the insanity or stupidity.
Compare to "I don't buy macs because I hate those stuckup mac users".
Which is of course a very bad reason not to buy macs. But if you can't buy a mac without having at one point or another to deal with snubby mac users, it can be a real issue for some. Nowadays that isn't an issue anymore. You can buy wherever you like and don't have to suffer macdom anywhere in any form.
Same goes for Linux. If I can't install, use and troubleshoot without having to deal with people who are stuckup, impatiant with dumb users and whatever, then suddenly the Linux community at large becomes an issue. For some distro's and programs this isn't really an issue. Most really widespread FOSS projects have good manuals, are simple and have nice support.
But hey, you know it happens, you know "they" are out there...
So while I don't at all agree with the article, there is a certain grain of truth burried in the bull.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
For example:
Making a purchase order for a desktop deployment which requires PCI 802.11g wireless, what precise wireless card to I put on the order, from what vendor, and with what guarantees that the card specified will have linux drivers, and what guarantees that future orders for the same card will also have linux drivers?
Ask that question and invariably, numerous people will point you to the linux wireless HOWTO and its compatability list. And all you can really deduce from that list is that there is no such thing, even though the list looks like there are some options.
Press the issue, and the buck gets passed to nobody, because nobody can actually fix the problem. And that ends the argument for deploying linux in the situation I described.
Okay, so maybe wireless support is a corner case, but it's a major source of discomfort for me.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
A community is not under any obligation to provide anyone with free support. Those that contribute either money or assistance to other members of any community are always quickly helped whenever they run into a problem. GPL relies on this principle, it's ostensibly free for those who don't contribute either patches or funds, but these people aren't going to get new features they want any time soon, frequent contributors on the other hand are immediately acknowledged when they have a need the software does not have yet. The moral is that you have to earn the community's respect and friendship. You wouldn't run into a garage and demand they tell you how to fix your car because they have tire irons for just your kind of moron.
The vast majority of OSS software for neophytes are carefully documented in the man pages or via supplemental books available at the local bookstore or library. Contribute to the community, do the preliminary leg work and then ask for help if all else fails. This will increase your chances of being helped, but won't guarantee it. If a pay for use software company like MS charges you for help, why do you expect the devs who give you the software for free to spend even more time helping you out?
I was banned from #linux at undernet because I say that Netbeans ran much slower on linux than on windows. Banned! And sadly I was not trolling, because is 100% true.
Btw someone knows how to make java swing applications run faster in linux? I am still chained to vmware...
I there was such a thing as a Windows community, it would be much worse. Condiser getting help from Microsoft vs. getting help from the Linux community: Mcrosoft: Please give me your credit card number ...
Linux zealot: Newb! Google first before coming here!
Which do you prefer?
In fact most folks learn Windows the hard way, by trial and error because they refuse to pay someone to teach them. As a result, most Windows users are completely computer illiterate.
Folks looking to switch to Linux perceive an easy answer by applying to the 'community' to solve their problems.
The net is a wonderful place, and there are milions of people willing to help. Find them, but please, do not assume that a net citizen is your true friend. He is not and cannot be. Work within those limits, and the community is yours.
I think the barriers to entry into the open source world are good and should be present in getting into computing in general. Honesty, all the knowledge I need to be a capable *BSD admin and reasonably adept linux power user doesn't take up much space in my head and didn't take more than a few hundred hours to pick up. In the 5 or so years since, I've been able to make better use of PCs and similar tools in pursuit of non-tech endeavors. In fact, I'm POSITIVE I've saved myself mmore than a few hundred hours of sitting around waiting for someone else to tell me what to do/how to do it/how to fix my machine, networking, etc... It's worth it for everyone to go through that initial furstrating time that will earn them a lifetime of independence from support and improved productivity. I don't think people should make it TOO easy for others to get into open source. Look at what apple did. Tried to make it super easy, and now we have a bunch of momrons who think they know how to use a computer asking stupid questions and generally being the most annoying time drain ever.
How many people would contact a member of a project team to ask for help anyway? That doesn't represent the average computer user; the average computer user just gives up when something doesn't work.
The reason Linux remains so marginal is that there is no single Linux OS that works on every machine but rather dozens of distros which all have their problems. Most people who are interested in trying Linux lose their interest right away because they don't know which distro to pick. Those who decide to just try one randomly usually discover that this or that device doesn't work with it properly, and give up.
I've definitely observed very different experiences with my journey into FreeBSD. A friend at work turned me on to it and I became his padawan. After I started figuring out what I was doing, I then took on an apprentice. There're now actually 5 generations of this Master/Padawan pairings in my office. Maybe its just because a lot of FreeBSD users are also large advocates but I've found most #FreeBSD channels and mailing lists to be VERY helpful with relatively little STFU n00b responses.
I agree completely with the snobish behavior... I am *far* from a n00b in general, but I am just barely above n00b level when it comes to *nix. So I've run into my fair share of a**holes when I was just trying to get a solution to something.
But, there is an underlying problem that is the reason for the snobishness, and Star Trek illustrates it fantastically...
Watch ST:TNG for a while... notice how powerful the computers are? Notice how the crew interacts with them seemlessly? You barely even realize its a computer. It is just a tool, a perfect tool that does exactly what a tool is supposed to do: extend the capabilities of the user with less (or at worst, no extra) effort on the user's part.
Now, then you have Geordi and Data who have to ocassionally rewrite the antimatter injector subroutines and such. Can't live without 'em!
Most of the world wants to be the crew, not Goerdi and Data. This fundamental truth is what seems to escape so many Linux pundits. It is also the fact that the Geordis and Datas of the world are indispensible that gives rise to the bad attitudes.
Linux endows those that have the knowledge and ability a sense of self-worth, and there's nothing wrong with that, UNLESS that self-worth comes at the expense of diminishing others'. You never see Geordi or Data attacking Deanna for not knowing her way around the Enterprises' kernel, do you?
This is one place where Microsoft has it absolutely right (even if you don't like the execution): they understand that people do not want to know all the details of how a computer works, they just want to be able to be more productive, and they do not derive their self-esteem from being able to recompile a kernel or get CUPS configured.
When the Linux crowd finally comes to that realization and gets over themselves, there is no doubt in my mind that Linux can evolve to dominate. There is far too much talent floating around for that not to happen. But without the right mindset this can never happen, and that mindset is that (a) users are not inherently stupid, they just inherently, for the most part, don't care about the underlying details of a complex system, and (b) you are not better than the user simply because you know more about the technology. You are valuable to be sure, but not inherently better.
Let Star Trek be the guiding light! Evolve Linux to be completely unobtrusive to the average user. Evolve it so that only the engineering team need know the details (most of the time anyway... Captain Picard knew a thing or two about engineering too!). And most of all, come down from the high horse that many of you sit upon just because you have some knowledge that others do not. Computers are tools, and not everyone has to know how the tool works in exquisite detail to be effective using it... IF it's a well-designed tool!
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
We shall continue to disseminate these pearls of wisdom ... No matter how many fake email address, no
matter how many open proxies - we shall prevail!
The goal is to make the lists look as described, unfriendly and rude. They do this with their own rude posts and heckling.
They also aim at self censorship. By calling people rude all day long, they hope to keep people from unfavorably describing their crap. Describing Windoze as second rate is not rude, it's an overwhelming statement of fact and it's easy to present in a way that does not insult the user.
These efforts are co-ordinated and they have been from the very beginning. Microsoft knows the power of word of mouth and seeks to influence it:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050313031916/http:/ /www.kickassgear.com/Articles/Microsoft.htm
Bullshit floated on those lists is usually echoed by shills in the Wintel press. Their "ambassador" program at universities is another extension of this program. Given their technical inferiority to most competition, hype, deception and insults are all M$ has to work with. They are losing traction.
It does not work on the local lists, of course, because free software is all about sharing and they still don't have enough resources. Rude people are ignored, technical questions are still answered and newbies are directed to anwsers. The LUG has two newbie efforts, it's own list and volunteers at the local computer club where classes are offered once a month. Those classes are filled and growing.
The end result for Microsoft is a loser in any case because lying does not work. Everytime they get caught doing it, they undermine their reputation further. This is why they have one of the worst reputations in world. Everyone knows they are a bunch of dishonest bullies with second and third rate software.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Why would I want to help anyone use my program ?
I want my program to be popular.
I want to get paid for my work.
I'm a nice person.
Nope none of the above, so rtfm and if that doesn't work you can read the source code.
I'm not working against you, i'm just not helping you.
And if you can't make head or tails of my specific taste in spagethi code, why is that my problem?
Sometimes there are people who are unnecessarily rude to newcomers. That happens but then there are some newcomers who are just plain asshats.
Sometimes people ask questions that are answered in section 1.1 of TFM.
Newbie-"Hey, how do you launch programs in this XWindows thingie?"
The thing that really bother me though is that when people answer questions that you didn't ask.
Newbie-"Do you guys know and good online manuals for LILO?"
Snob-"Why are you using LILO, use Grub and be done with it you can find a Grub manual at http://whatever.com/"
Or how about this...
NotSoNewbie-"I'm thinking about setting up an encrypted filesystem that can be mounted as a loopback device and I was wondering if anyone knows of a good howto."
Snob-"Why are you going through all of that trouble, just use a thumbdrive and you can carry it with you, that's REAL security."
This isn't really anything to do with Linux. It's "Computer Geek Syndrome," plain and simple -- the feeling of superiority a nerdy, introverted person gets when he realizes he understands something better than someone else does. Some people who only ever use Windows have this same anti-n00b attitude. The only difference is that they don't scare anybody away from using Windows, because all the computers come with Windows installed. Thus, you either put up with that obnoxious nerd when you have computer problems, or you go looking for nicer, knowledgable friends.
Breakfast served all day!
Which brings me to point out the obvious: you really don't need to RTFM with Windows. I have never even cracked the cover on a Windows manual, which of course goes a long way to explaining why I'm a computer retard ... then again, I can still somehow manage to post here with html tags. For the majority of everyday computer-illiterate non-power users like me (all billion of us), it simply isn't necessary to RTFM to use Windows.
Maybe - just maybe - that is one of the secrets to Windows' successful domination of the market, though I suppose I could be wrong.
A-Bomb
I am a FreeBSD user but I started with Linux. I have also in my newbie days asked a few lame questions that were plainly stated in man, some book, some website, or some buried thread. Today, I try my best to put myself in the noobs position and answer the question in a civil way. Another point to make is that Linux manuals aren't always the clearest manuals. They will list the command and all the options but not how to put them together. An example is encoding to xvid. mencoder will have options like -ovc but not show you how to -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1000, etc.
:p. Obviously Linux isn't for everyone, but if the Linux community puts forth an image as being helpful caring and supportive as a community, it will draw new enthusiasts who can contribute, and in more ways than one. Some sort of obscure x hardware used by someone in the world could suddenly be supported because you answered some basic question on how linux handles usb!
the way I see it, is that every Linux/bsd newbie is one more reason for commercial hardware companies to provide hardware support, games companies to provide game binaries, websites to support other browsers, applications to support open source formats, and ipods to support OGG
Driving people away by elitism will keep Linux in the "geeks toy" category, that it currently assumed to be. I will not ague what Linux is or isn't, what I am referring to by saying "geeks toy", is the perception of the system.
As described by Jason, the engineer began to mock Windows users, declared that Jason was "obviously ignorant and inexperienced" and continued by giving his personal opinions on various topics from religion to political philosophy.
Wow! He got to meet with ESR?
That is all.
"Are newbie's now required to show greater grace, more patience and richer respect than those already in the community? I'm not sure that's a better way."
Why yes, yes they should - in much the same way younger people should respect their elders. A lot of older generations will criticize the youth, and of course the youtful think that the stodgy old folks don't get it because they don't see the "new way" but every now and then you get that one old person that sits down, has a chat, and enlightens a few generations by the action.
I read this and I am not ignorant enough to see that the underlying point of this persons views has merit; it's just that this person gives to much weight to it. The thing that struck my nerve was that not only should newbies not be responsible for their actions but the more priviledged knowledgeable ones should make accomodations and concessions for the newbies. I can assure you that if you read the original article it sounds likes the "Linux gurus" went ape shit but the part that was left out was the same person blasting the same questions in every channel, message board, and newsgroup over and over. It also neglected the part where the person who went ballistic actually has 10+ years experience and has to listen to someone who knows nothing argue about something they know nothing about. Not one time did this person take the time to google and see Results 1 - 10 of about 25,600,000 for setting up webserver linux. (0.29 seconds) That's a lot of hits...And what's more is that a good portion of it is duplicated thus proving my point about people even trying.
I can honestly say that there isn't a single question I have asked or could have asked on IRC that isn't answered by a quick visit to google. All that being said I will still help someone that displays the smallest amount of effort on their part...And surprise - no flames with it.
Beggers can't be choosers. (If you have nothing to offer you shouldn't be demanding)
Anything worth having requires work. (You learn to apreciate and value that which takes effort)
Never take any one source as Bible. (Learn to expand your own mind by being open to ideas)
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
Software companies, like most other companies, have more than just an engineering department. There is HR, PR, and of course support. Because the goal of companies is to make profits, the purchasers of their products are usually their top priority. This usually means support for their products. We all know that this support is not always the greatest, but it is not often that I have had a tech support rep attempt to berate me over the phone, in fact they would never even direct me to RTFM even in its most polite form.
If the Linux community wishes to see its market share grow appreciably its members need to start thinking of the whole open source experience. In effect everyone involved in the community needs to see themselves as ambassadors for the whole community. Sure maybe 90% of the Linux community spends their working day in IT or writing code, but when it comes to acting as a community member you need to fill all those (positive) parts of the corporate model that are missing in the open source one.
I'm sure there are some who would prefer to keep Linux for themselves and people like themselves and if that's what they want they can continue to act like those described in the article. However for the rest of us the issue goes beyond basic decency in support forums, the Linux community needs to start providing more than just a product as-is but a whole experience and it needs to be much more positive and inviting one than it is now.
What is amazing to me is that the commercial computer business is built on making people think that they are stupid. "Buy Windows. Because you are too stupid to use GNU/Linux. And you can't afford expert help." Is it wrong to assume that, if you are using GNU/Linux, that you don't think that you are stupid? And therefore, that you are self-reliant, and willing to figure out even the toughest problems by yourself?
Having said that, the attitudes on mailing lists, wikis, and IRC channels are the same as they have been on netnews for 20 years. "RTFM lUser", "STFU", "USTFU", "You 5UX0RZ", "With your mouth", &c.
Maybe TFA explained this, but what does "RTFM" stand for? :)
Part of the problem is that "RTFM-ing" is becoming more and more intractable. There is way too much bad information out there on the web. If you want to find out how to do something, you google it and come up with 90% bullshit, then much of the remaining stuff that looks promising is incomplete, or assumes some unstated context.
Man pages don't help either. In much the same way that you can't learn a language by reading a dictionary, you can't always learn how to do something in linux by reading the man pages for the involved commands-- especially if you might not even know which commands apply.
In many cases, it makes sense to ask on a newsgroup/forum. In fact, I think the really good distros got that way because they have active and friendly forums where people can ask questions-- yes, even questions that have been already asked.
I think these are the same type of folks who don't view user friendly desktops for Linux a necessity or that vi is the only editor needed.
And before everyone gives all the need ways to use vi or command line...It still comes don't to keeping things simple.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
I had some chick today tell me that she loved her Sidekick and that she hated resistors, capacitors and and inductors in the sam econ versation---she is currently taking PHYS 102.
It is this sort of attitude that will slow migration. Currently most GNU/Linux distros require you to have a basic understanding of what you are doing. Mandrivia does a good job of letting you get everything up and running while you're still learning.
Although the article does have a point; I was saw AOTS recommend Debian to noobs. At the time, Debian still had major installer problems---no real hardware detection. That sort of thing is outrageous when you have SUSE, Mandrake, PCLinuxOS, and the like. Kubuntu might shape up into something working right-out-of-the-box (or they could send you a properly detected soundcard with the CD). But if you are willing to type a couple of lines into the shell, the Linux community will get you up and running (HINT: use the forum link included in your browser; those Gentoo ricers can be jerks).
If /. will post this story, why won't they post my story about how when I flip the switch, my lamp turns on?
Linux is for people that _like _ computers. You have to enjoy beating a piece of hardware into submission. The new user has to learn to hack and noone can tell you how.
... Standards and Practices !
"Run and find out" Kipling
PenGun
Do What Now ???
There is no offical face of Linux, and that's one of the things Linux users like about it. It's a community effort and that is emphasized time and time again. Ok, great, but that means people come to the community for help and if those people are dicks, well then it turns them off.
It's different with something like Windows or OS-X because there is a company backing it, that's the central face. Both Microsoft and Apple will waste no time on their sites telling you how smart you are for picking their solution, and how much easier it will make your life, and so on. If it's true or not is another matter, they make you feel welcome. Also, the provide centralized support. If I get a Windows error, I don't go looking on mailing lists, I go punch it in to Microsoft's search. 99% or more of the time, I get a KB article with the information I need.
So that's the problem. MS and Apple are associated with Windows and OS-X repsectively, and they put a good face forward for users. They talk about what a good decision it is to use their products, they provide centralised support (that's quite good) andm if it comes to the "you should pay for that level of support" they themselves will sell it to you. Linux lacks something like that, and people are told that the support comes form the community. So they turn to newsgroups and such (as they are instructed). When their experience there is abrasive, that turns them off to Linux. They have been told that the "openess" and "community" is what makes it wonderful, but in their opinion the community is a bunch of dicks. First imrpessions are usually lasting impressions.
Not neccessarily the mentor's fault. My CS professors, one in particular, was hell bent on making sure the class always documented their code correctly. Even after four years of that my documentation is often somewhere between poor and nonexistant.
The problem is, that they DON'T think about whom they're dealing with. "Linux snobs" (only a subset of the set of "Linux users" I should add) are typical of the type of person who is well-informed and even highly-developed in their understanding of only a narrow range of things, and hopelessly inept outside that range.
This is not unusual in human beings generally. For instance, there are brilliant physicians who have the bedside manner of a fruit-bat--they just don't interact well at all with the people that they ostensibly are there to help. It is in everyone's best interest if they improve, but they'll never be naturally gregarious.
So it is with a lot of "computer geek" types of which the "Linux snob" is comprised. They aren't too comfortable with interpersonal relationships to begin with, and many of them are positive social misfits. Their natural response to having to deal with someone "inferior" is to be, well, a "snob."
FWIW, there was a time in the early days of "microcomputers" when nearly everyone was a hobbyist and an elitist snob. Somehow, the community overcame that, and computers moved into the mainstream, so that even the "un-nerdiest" among us are well acquainted with their use.
Therefore, I disagree with the premise of the Article: I think that technical streamlining is the key to wider acceptance. The snobs can be overcome now as they were before.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
It's false to infer that the reaction to "snobbery" is "anti-snobbery."
More likely, it is a reaction to the "snobbery that excludes me and my friends" by creating a "snobbery that INCLUDES me and my friends--and to hell with everybody else."
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
The linux community isn't without it's friendly and helpful crowd don't get me wrong. But the biggest barrier for myself getting into this world has to be getting help that's not covered within the scope of written doccumentation.
Further, not everyone knows where to go to find the docs, or even how to find someone to ask where to find them. To the common folk Linux is still reguarded as a "hacker" platform or "geek toy". A snobish community unwilling to help widends that gap and basically shoots it'self in the foot.
I've been a victim of "uber" users who call me all kinds of names for asking a stupid question. I didn't much like it and generally moved on to other stuff. The most recent example was trying to get WoW to run in Linux. I had questions about Wine, and I got run out on a rail.
I ended up getting it to work at 1fps and threw in the towel. Microsoft might suck but atleast stuff works most of the time and you don't have to hack/emulate it...
I can't help but think about being microsoft free tho. I was really close.
-Duff
These kind of posts make me laugh everytime, but I can understand some politically-incorrect replies from "snobs":
:( ;((
Forum: Linux Hardware Problems
Subject: HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Author: b1llsUcks
I am using Linux i can not start Mozilla because Micro$oft Internet exploiter sucks!!!!!11 LOL i want to start Mozila my icon disappeared from the bar on the top of the screen!!!!
I love LINUX!!!111 LOLOLOLOLloloL!!!1!11!11! thanx!!!!11!!!!
b1llsUcks
------------------------
Live free or die / 640 Kb is plenty of memory - Bill Gates.
[[***SYSTEM SPECS Intel Pentium 4 / 2.8GHz 512MB DDR RAM, 1 Maxtor 300GB OC radeon 9800 200W POWER!***]]
Hey before we get too crazy here, I have to say that when administering a win/mac office and we'd run into some kind of problem with a server or a RAID array or a whatever, ANY time I called either a hardware manufacturer or software supplier I had to go through a lot of hoop jumping saying, "yes, we're running it as it was sold to us." "yes we've not installed [whatever thing we shouldn't ever install, evaR]." or the 'humbling' "Yes, I have [virus protection] [veritas] [non-Exchange mailserver] [any software that they've never heard of] installed on this machine. Yes, I know that means we've custom configured our box. Yes, I know you can't support THAT application, I'm asking you if you think YOUR crap is what's giving me crap today, please!!"
Windows and OEMs were, in my experience, especially bad about playing hot potato with my problem. "What you're gonna want to do is call the manufacturer..." "You're gonna wanna call the software company..." "You shouldn't install ...almost anything..." So Linux snobbery isn't the only bugbear here, there's also a lot of blame-the-user mentality in the industry. Hell, I blamed our own users whenever I could while I was administering our system and performing support.
I wish we could get off this crazy train.
yes. that's all I'm going to say in all comments from now on.
Excellent article. This is a huge problem, in user groups, schools, and in the work place. It is plain wrong not to help people who want to learn, it is plain wrong to be sarcastic to other people who want to find out more. They may or may not be the next guru, but they may also be the next manager or journalist who supports open source over proprietary software. Or they may share their knowledge with the next person who comes along.
On SD we about how to raise support for it, make it grow. Maybe open source doesnt need any great tech evangelists out there because its the quiet truth that wont go away. Maybe so, but still, everybody who engages in putting people down sarcastically for asking newb questions is KILLING OPEN SOURCE.
So stop killing open source software by being a jerk. Make the industry grow instead by sharing what you know with other people. Start user groups, give talks, write tutorials, but dont friggin kill the industry with your stupid egos. Learn some people skills while you are at it!!!
Being a noob to linux I read this part of the thread with interest. I'd love to see that list of e-books and resources. I love learning. So I followed the above link to:
/dev/dvd)."
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
That's pretty funny. Not the best place for a newbie. I want to make a sandwich and you send me to a lab to genetically engineer my own special franken-wheat with which to make bread!
On the other hand I posted a similar comment here recently and got two helpful tips. One explained in very fine and incomprehensible detail what I should do and the other gave me a link to something that would do it for me.
The REAL barrier to widespread adoption of linux is that the divide between the geeks and the rest of the world is far deeper than anyone cares to admit. With linux I am a noob, but I've had a computer since I was 9 (1979) and I've been on the internet since 1988. Everyone I know comes to ME for tech support. I find myself saying... "right click on the... uh well there are two buttons on your mouse put the cursor... yeh the pointer on the icon... you know the picture of the folder. that's right and right click on it. see the context menu? select properties and then read it to me" Those people will never install linux on anything. "Download the iso and burn the image to a CD" might as well be in greek, and THAT's trivial compared to, "You need to install libdvdcss2 and may need to use hdparm to enable dma (hdparm -d 1
-- QED
I'm a bit of a Linux snob, rebuffing requests of my home time for GoToMeeting and Skype sessions, citing incompatibility.
Even for someone fairly technically adept, getting help is no easy task. The fact that I could have any arrangement of kernel, drivers, distro, X, WM, etc. is part of it, and simply finding people who have an answer for me is the other.
OSS community touts linux as having low TCO because there are all these wonderful communities of Linux users who can help you out. Except that's a bunch of bullshit. Most Linux users are busy with device drivers for poorly supported hardware and esoteric mesh networks or some other project to answer your problem with how to get apt-get unfucked so you can get needed packages or why you can't get GDM to work. Still others don't think they should give it away for free.
RTFM? That's rich, since there is plenty of poorly documented Linux and OSS apps, as well as plenty of *un*documented and arcanely documented materials. Most people nowadays whinging "RTFM" don't even know of an FM to R.
Most of the OSS community's desire for broader use of Linux is a selfish one; so that the greater consumer base will encourage vendors to support it. They don't actually want to *help* this happen in any way that would be effective.
Clearly, everyone in the world needs to know C, assembler, and understand caching and pipelining in order to use a computer. Then everyone would be capable of running Linux, and unfucking it themselves when it gets into a messy state.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
> Lovely little encouragement. This particular Windows user was a newbie to Linux
> but had been in the I.T. industry for years. His question, regarding "how do I
> start process daemons like a web server" was reasonable, not childish. His reaction
> to the Linux "guru" was also reasonable. He basically said that he doesn't have time
> to deal with people so fanatic and terse they reject questions on message boards created
> to answer questions.
No one who has "been in the IT industry for years" has any business going into ANY support forum and asking such a basic question. One part of being in this industry is being able to adapt to new technologies and new features in old products. This particular user should be able to fend for himself. It is highly RUDE for him to be so lazy as to waste other people's time when there are genuine novices out there that may need help. This person is infact a selfish, self-centered jackass or simply an complete idiot.
This person doesn't appear to have any redeeming characteristics that might indicate helping him would be other than a complete waste of time.
This isn't some poor little lamb that finds themselves over their head with Linux. This is someone that's supposed to be a professional unable or unwilling to do even the slightest bit of initial legwork.
I don't even let my 3 year old get away with this sort of helpless mentality.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That's pretty much it. Thank God for Linspire.
MadOgre.com
I've worked in I.T. in a small to medium business for 15 years. I've seen all kinds of "snobs" as described in this article, and not just I.T. people.
Years ago, the stereotype belonged to UNIX gurus. But, along the way, I've seen almost every kind of contractor act in similar ways, some worse than others. The difference is those contractors are preceded by nice, friendly salespeople. Usually if the contractor is an ass, you can just go back to the salesperson and request you never have to hear from that contractor again. That pretty much guarantees an attitude adjustment on the part of the ass in question.
The problem here is generally those Linux gurus are not preceded by nice, friendly sales reps. But, if they work for a company in the same way as I described above, you just go through the same thing to get him banned from ever coming back to your company. Unfortunately, the article doesn't detail how these people came into contact with the snobs in the first place.
If you come into contact with one of these guys just based on what you heard, it probably will be hit-and-miss, just like any other contractors. Those independent guys won't get much business because they don't have nice salespeople to deal with customers who had to talk to them on their bad days. Face it, all of us technical people have bad days when we don't work/play well with others.
If you are an independent Linux guru, you ALWAYS have to remember when dealing with customers considering Linux that you are also the salesperson. It's just like the bad-old days when the only people selling the greatness of the Mac were advocates like me.
Based on my experience with colleagues in other companies in the last year, we are entering/in a golden time for Linux growth in a big way. Auditors and consultants everywhere are actually rewarding I.T. people like me for moving away from Windows toward Linux. Some are actually recommending it.
I haven't seen the current level of pro-UNIX (now basically pro-Linux) attitude in probably 8 or more years in I.T. -- 4 years ago, these people were attacking us for using UNIX anywhere instead of Windows, so I was constantly on the defensive. Today, it seems to mostly be a no-brainer that we want our mission-critical apps to run on Linux or UNIX.
When I told service vendors (IKON, for example, but many others) 2 years ago that I wanted their server or appliance apps running in Linux/UNIX instead of Windows, they were surprised and said they'd try but most of the solutions were Windows-only. Today, when I tell them the same thing, their response is that they are porting their apps to Linux, and it's only a matter of time. When I ask when, their selling point ends up being the release date of their app on Linux.
All I can say as a past and current Mac OS X/Linux/UNIX advocate is to remember why you work on Linux in the first place, and set your attitude accordingly when dealing with potential new "customers" of Linux. Hopefully I'm not wrong in assuming that Linux "gurus" work in Linux because they love it and/or open source. You show that attitude to newbies, and you can't go wrong. And in the end, we're all better off.
As a recent convert to Linux, I can say from my own experience that it wasn't the coolest new version of some package that got me interested. It was surfing the ubuntuforums.org community. When I saw the level of support and the way users clearly had a common goal, I realized it was time to leave windows behind. And best of all its been a succesful transition due to the great support I recieved when I had problems. There is no one simple Linux users manual. Most people dont have a freind they can ask for help, like with Windows. There are truly brilliant people out there, and I would as them, istead of feeling great that you have more knowledge than others, try feeling great by helping others and furthering something that is truly important: a community that believes in free software, that believes information and the access to it should never be restricted or controlled. Adopt a newbie today!!!
I solve this linux snob issue by running OpenBSD. They are all happy-happy-joy-joy folks there.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
> In internet forums some Linuxers will tell you to RTFM, and some Windowsers will tell
> you they don't consult for free. I don't see a heck of a lot of difference
The difference is social graces.
It's like if you're visiting two cities and ask for street directions. In city W, people who don't help you say "I'm sorry, I can't help you." I city L, people say "FUCKING TOURIST GET THE HELL OUT OF MY CITY!".
Technically, these statements are functionally equivalent in terms of giving you directions, but which city do you think is going to leave a better impression on visitors? There's more to human communication than the number of bits of relevant information transferred.
thats one of the things i loved so much about gentoo is the user support community was generally very helpful, the #gentoo channel on freenode, and forums.gentoo.org i still use as a resource for linux questions even though i now use ubuntu.. ubuntu's support forums suck.. most of the time you never get a response and its buried quickly, it seems on the ubuntu forums there are way more people asking questions than answering any, so as a result anything you ask becomes quickly buried and never seen
another of the biggest problems is if you have a COMMON PROBLEM and search and find all kinds of mailing list archives and forum posts about the exact same problem and discussions about it they usually end in the person who brought up the question saying 'oh nevermind i figured it out' but they never SHARE what they figured out!! they just assume everyone else will also or what?
so on at least a few dozen problems that ive had, that i search online for, and found several references to the exact same problem i never managed to find an answer on those same discussion threads because the people who get the answers never share them!! thats just annoying.. thats why i always make sure to post any answers i find on any threads i post bringing up the problem
ANOTHER major problem is when you do find information in on message boards or mailing list archives it is usually not clear WHAT VERSIONS its for! with linux software constantly changing and growing and branching alot of times config options and syntaxes change. like with xfree86,xorg its changed over(xfree86 -> xorg=6.8)) and over(xorg6.8 heavily patched) and over (6.9) and over (7.0) again in like 1-2 years time.. without the version and relevant patch information you have no idea if the configs your reading about will still work (most likely they WONT) you basically have to be IN the linux scene for years before you can even keep track of half the important changes that you need to know about to keep compitent with linux.. which is obviously a massive barrier to entry
those are some of the biggest problems facing people who switch i think.. so many applications written by so many different people means SO MANY different implimentations. you have to read mountains of documentation, nothing is intuitive, most apps config options are unique and non-obvious and some are poorly documented, certain people you might ask will be flat out jerks about it. others wont know! looking on the internet in mailing lists often finds you grossly outdated or incomplete information. No version is given so you dont know if the information still holds true..
I think linux has come a HUUUUGE way though and continues to become better and better ever year. i think its already passed windows in power, reliability, and security. now if only it could pass windows in popularity and usability. i think as more people get into it there will be more people who are in it for practical reasons rather than to be leet or different and it will shape up into a more practical operating system (that means more GUIs!! and more integrated documentation, like context sensative help, instead of SEPERATE web docs/manpages)
> Seriously, if people are so adamant about making other people aware of the advantages of Linux
But many of the worst offenders aren't all that interested in spreading the benefits of Linux, and are mostly interested in feeling smugly superior.
This isn't a problem confined to Linux users either, though - I've know people in certain cult-like evangelical Christian groups who---while they claimed to want to spread Christianity---mostly just enjoyed feeling smugly superior because only they had the real Christianity.
Basically, some people are dicks, and an opportunity to be different---which they can delude themselves into thinking means "better"---attracts them like flies to feces. They're loud and make quite an impression, so frankly the onus is on the rest of their broader community to either muzzle them or distance them from the community.
I didn't get a chance to read all 650+ comments (and probably no one will read mine since it's posted so late). But a common theme in the 200 or so comments I read was that people ask a question after they already RTFM and are told to RTFM and they get mad. What you really need to do when you ask a question is tell people what you already did. It does two things 1) it lets them know that you are trying to solve the problem - not just expecting to be given the answer and 2) it let them know not to waste their time telling you something you already know. We may think ESR is crazy, but there are two things I really agree with him on 1) his opinion of guns and gun control, and 2) how to ask quesions: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html . It not just in the linux world that you do this, but anytime you need to ask an expert for help - you tell them what you tried and what didn't work. e.g. when I take my car into the shop for a problem I can't fix I tell the mechanic what I already tried and what the results were, they're usually very appreciatve because it saves them time and they can get to the real problem (and it saves me money in hourly labor charges!).
As a recent convert to Linux, I can say from my own experience that it wasn't the coolest new version of some package that awoke my interest. It was the ubuntuforums.org community. When I saw the level of support and the way users clearly had a common goal, I realized it was time to leave windows behind. And best of all its been a succesful transition due to the great support I recieved when I had problems. There is no one simple Linux users manual. Most people dont have a freind they can ask for help, like with Windows. There are truly brilliant people out there, and I would as them, istead of feeling great that you have more knowledge than others, try feeling great by helping others and furthering something that is truly important: a community that believes in free software, that believes information and the access to it should never be restricted or controlled. Adopt a newbie today!!!
I had a similar experience trying to resolve a problem with the original pwc webcam driver. I contacted the author with a problem that I had never seen before. I already had 4 setups running with his driver. He responded like I was a clueless idiot. I guess I should be happy I got any response, but I had to resolve the issue on my own. History eventually showed that he was jerk anyway when Kroah-Hartman removed his driver from the kernel.
Besides this one particular incident, I can name dozens where I was pointed in the right direction or given help freely and generously. I have had developers graciously send patches and fixes for problems I have discovered in their software. On the whole, I would say that the open source people are much easier to approach and way more generous with their time.
Try to get help from Microsoft to fix one of their problems some time. You better have a credit card in hand and be prepared for a long wait to talk to somebody. Oh yeah... Don't expect to actually resolve the problem, but at least you can count on being charged for it.
Recently, the vendor of a piece of $5,000 modelling software (Windows based) absolutely lied to my boss. I cost $200 and several hours work and the problem is still there. We proved his solution was crap. We "worked around" the problem with a clean XP install on VMWare.
> Most people want everything handed to them
No - most people just don't care about computers all that much.
Do you expect people to tinker with their cars?
Do you expect people to tinker with their television's wiring?
Do you expect people to tinker with their plumbing?
Then why would you expect people to tinker with their computers? For most people, a computer is an appliance, and deserving of no more tinkering than a tv. You can whine about people being "not ready" for computers all you want, but that won't change the basic fact that mature technologies don't need to be babied to function properly.
It isn't people that aren't ready; it's computers.
It was in the August issue of South Africa Computer Magazine. I put some scans of it up on my blog a few months later, I think they're still up there.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
I don't know the first thing about LEAP... I'll google for it in a bit. But I'd like to suggest that FC5 is ripe for use on a laptop. I have been running Fedora Core on my Inspiron 8600 since FC2. Initially, FC2 needed god-awful amounts of tweaking to get features and performance out of the machine. With each release, fewer and fewer tweaks are needed. With FC5, EVERYTHING works. Suspend to RAM, suspend to disk, EVERYTHING. I still need to use the proprietary ATI drivers and I need to acquire the firmware for the IPW2200 wireless, but that's pretty much it. It's easier to configure than WindowsXP, the OS the machine was designed to run. ...now I'm off to seek information about this LEAP thing you mentioned...
I've met quite a few arrogant stuck-in-their-ways windows zealots in my time. This is just twaddle!
Arrogant people are arrogant people and just as many can be found on either side of the fence.
In my experience as a developer I have found it much much easier to get Linux/OSS related help and support from free forums, internet sites and oss project maintainers, for my own development problems and also for oss software that I use. I simply havent found or experienced these levels of assistance for my Windows related problems - I ususally find that when I encounter a problem with something windows related somebody wants to sell me something to solve the problem i am encountering. For me the Linux and open source community is a much friendlier place than this article seems to suggest, and if i can - I always reciprocate this helpfull to others who might be struggling with a Linux problem.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
...I've had interactions with both Windows and unix/linux snobs.
I prefer the linux snobs, as the typical answer from the windows snobs regards money, new hardware and college (if you're so smart, why don't you have wealthy parents?). RTFM is something I can do better than most, so Linux oriented pinheads actually spur me to learn.
RTFM is often the best answer after all is said and done, though. TFM is usually the best way to find out how to do what you want to do, in the least time. Here's a reasonable guide to asking people questions without hitting their 'asshole' button, while making yourself less vulnerable to people who invest their egos unwisely.
But are they really snobs, or are they sick of holding someone's hand while they learn to do a job they're being paid for? 'A little effort' doesn't solely consist of asking questions in forums or blogs, you might seriously want to try reading about your topic of interest, there IS a lot of documentation on a wide range of topics and applications.
In fact though, I've met few real snobs from either camp, most folks seem to be pretty helpful most of the time.
Just today I was on #fedora on irc.freenode.net to get assistance / make sure I was doing things "the right way" to install Java support in RedHat Fedora Core 5. Mind you, Fedora Core is for "developers" or those who want more cutting edge and don't want to pay for RH Enterprise Linux, so it is going to have a bit of a learning curve which you always have to keep up with as things change.
I'd already done some homework in researching at a popular Fedora FAQ website. However, as with many things with Linux, things were out of date, or talking about the wrong version (in this case, that FAQ is still for Fedora Core 4, not FC5).
I checked in at #fedora and asked, "Is the method to install Java at http://www.fedorafaq.org/#java still the best way?" A few folks said yes, another guy (ignacio, who is the classic example of a linux snob with a, "Live free or die" attitude) said, "Not best, use gij" to which someone else fought the battle for me and asked, "Is there plugin support with gij?" and ignacio had to reply, "No." Well, pointless, as the only reason I need Java is for plugin support with my online bank.
So, what I did wrong was that I should have know to ask, "Is this the best way to install Sun's Java?" You already have to almost know the answer to ask the question with some folks. While I can understand trying to do a bit of research and be prepared, it's not that simple. Googling sometimes gives you the answers, but again, there is always that out of date / old version problem that gets in the way. You could spend hours following the "old" method with old versions that don't apply and won't work anymore.
Anyway, I ended up just taking the original FC4 Java install notes and modifying them and put them on my own site for others to hopefully find via my webpage when searching for Fedora Core 5 and Sun's Java: http://jason.roysdon.net/?p=819
To me it seems like any question you ask, you get a snappy response or someone trying to make you look like a fool. As a person who's been using computers in some capacity for over 15 years, it's quite irritating to my senses. To linux snobs, it doesn't matter how much you know if you are just beginning in linux, because you are a linux n00b that's worthless and should "go back to windows." Another thing I really hate is the insistance that Windows is the wrong application in every place. I was having a candid discussion about how I was reinstalling windows on my laptop because I couldn't get the resolution to go past 800x600 in linux and I didn't feel like farting around with it anymore. I got berated by people telling me how awful it was to do this, no suggestions otherwise of how to fix my particular problem besides general FAQs which I had already gone through and saw fail, and looked at as a hater of OSS. Well, I run linux on my second computer, and I would love to transition my main computer to linux but the support just really isn't there and I don't get a great deal of pleasure farting around with my computer when I can just use the free windows I have installed and get some real use out of it. To Linux nazis like the ones I encountered tho, there is no in between. If you are running windows on anything you are an ignoramous who knows nothing about computers... If you want people to use things, this is hardly the way to go about it.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
write an email to bill gates complaining that something in windows doesn't work...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
I've generally found Linux users to be genuinely helpful and friendly. Generally, not always.
With OpenBSD it is generally the opposite. You get complete dicks who are unwilling to help their own mother cross the street much less help someone who knows less than them about something.
Nope, I've found NetBSD and Linux users to be pretty good. Solais and HP-UX and AIX, too. I haven't mucked around with FreeBSD, but seeing as Theo was essentially ejected from FreeBSD I suspect they are good guys.
My brother knows almost nothing about Linux and Unix, I set him up with an old computer and he took to it quickly installing different distros of Linux, and asked questions in forums and got decent and helpful answers.
It's pretty simple. There are a huge number of questions and if I see you have done the work and have got hung up on some detail I will help you. If you want me to do the work for you I will very rarely respond.
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
Conversely, I found Gentoo to be the most informative of distros for learning Linux.
I do have a certain level of familiarity with computers, having been a developer on Windows for some years, as well as a hobbyist back as far as the Commodore PET.
Because installing Gentoo (especially from Stage 1) requires you to hit the command-line and tinker with things, it's a great way to learn Linux in general. After basing my MythTV box on Gentoo, I'd gone from a n00b to someone who "got" most of the underlying workings of the OS and had even contributed a small patch to the kernel.
So there should be sites for noobs that all the folks annoyed by them
Linux was established as an os for Programmers, among other things. Asking noobs to learn two complex technical subjects at the same time is over the heads of some. Many don't even get the concept of an email list. Many are not college graduates, and haven't been to school in a while.
I'll have to write it up someday, but there is a way to model human interface procedures based entirely on modem protocals.
The Human Interface Protocol includes things like error correction (for misduplication of data), continuous handshaking until viability of the data stream is verified, and procedures for buffer overflows (this is too much information, will robinson)
It works well. Let's face it, some folks are 14.4 modems in a broadband world. Adjust your dataflow protocols appropriately.
Learn to be H.I.P. - use and update your Human Interface Protocol.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Someone who has always impressed me as a class act is Wietse Venema. When someone on the Postfix mailing list asks a question that's already answered in the man pages, his response is polite and concise: "The answer to your question can be found in the (postconf|postfix|postsuper) man page". It's a response that is neither insulting nor dismissive, and it shows that Wietse thought about your question long enough to determine which man page has the answer, and maybe even asked himself if the explanation in the man page is sufficient.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
You should use a distro like Mandriva and check out their compatible hardware lists before buying new kit (I assume they still have that, they did when they were Mandrake).
... it enables sound on my desktop machine when Windows doesn't seem able. I expect Ubuntu would be quite good too.
LinuxQuestions.org has a good hardware compatibility list.
I know it's harder than looking for the "works with WinXP" on the box, but then you're getting the whole distro and countless other apps for free, a tiny bit of extra leg work should be expected.
Incidentally I've found Knoppix to be pretty good at detecting and configuring hardware
I am surprised that this is portrayed as a "This could only happen in Linux" as M$ would have you believe. I think it is as far from reality as possible, I can remember back in the win3.1 days... heck... clear back to dos if you want to go that far ;) Even though it was a paid product people would come to the local geek (me) with their problems and I would cheerfully help them out gratis. Of course a week later here would come the same person with the same problem!, well after a while of this sorta thing I finaly started telling them to 'Read The Freakin Manual'. While this new strategy worked well with some people once they took the time to look something up themselves they would actually learn! :) -- Others however would get all bent out of shape, have a hissy fit, and etc... like you were ripping them off, what can I say...some people want everything handed to them on a gold platter for free.
FragHARD or don't frag at all
Microsoft WIndows 95! The Best Opperating system ever! It has *real* multitasking. It even has support for long filenames! Lets see Lin-Sux top that!
Note to the metamods and parent poster. This was a joke, perhaps carried too far. I can't contiune if the Original poster ws trolling my toll then well he wins that battle of wits. Its too painful to keep up the sharade. I just complemented win95 for heavens sake. I guess I couldn't bring myself to mention anything good about win me. The original post I reffered to said that the best way to learn about linux without incurring the wrath of linux snobs was to dis linux by stating that windows could do something that linux could not.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Open source software projects can rarely afford to run a helpdesk. To benefit from free software, you must learn how it works on your own. If you're having a serious inexplicable problem, most developers are glad to help. Everyone accepts this except the newbie, who often feels entitled to free software and free hand holding.
What other industry caters to the lowest-level of human? Does anyone really expect Ford or Chevrolet to answer questions about where the key goes? No. It's in the manual that comes with the car. Does Tivo walk all of its users through recording a show? No, it's in the manual.
Users of software should be obligated to at least read their manuals, even if they don't understand them. The readme is the first line of defense against newbies. An incredible amount of time is spent answering every conceivable question in a FAQ so it doesn't need to be done everytime they come up.
Users shouldn't feel entitled to free help given that time is DONATED. It takes some arrogance to criticize a charitable developer for not finding the already published answer for them. If this vital time is wasted on simple questions, it pollutes knowledge bases and makes difficult answers harder to find. Newbie questions are bad for the community.
I can say that I've been on the receiving end of the most assinine questions. Most of the answers involve common sense or can be had by reading the directions. I've worked helpdesk, which is why I'll never do it again.
In case you think I'm taking too hard of an edge, here's two real life helpdesk questions (from back in the day - same user):
"My computer is broken. I don't know what happened. It just broke. Please hurry and fix it!"
- Turned on the monitor
"There's an error message on my screen. I don't know what it says. Can you come and fix it?"
"What does it say?"
"I don't know!"
- Message reads: "Your printer is out of paper. Insert paper into tray 1"
Well said!
Aunt Tillie speaks English, we speak Geek. When Aunt Tillie says "I want to learn Linux so I can do desktop stuff," I can probably already surmise that this person 1) knows what Linux is in at least some sense, 2) knows it's free but different, and 3) wants to get started on something better. This puts a good advocate with some patience Note this doesn't preclude you from telling someone to RTFM if you're polite about it and point out the right spot in the correct FM: Give a man a fish, he won't go hungry tonight. Teach a man to fish, and he won't go hungry until the fishery dies off. It also doesn't preclude you from asking clarifying questions.
This thread reminds me that everybody interested in the OS discussion should familiarize themselves with the Advocacy HOWTO.
Help us build a better map!
Great story, excellent analogy.
From "Illustrated Man" if memory serves.
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Here's an idea that struck me and I wanted to see what you all thought. Reading these series of books. I thought that they could be translated into a true 3D form via the Unreal engine for education purposes (complete with narration). Note that my idea works not with just the aformentioned books, but any subject matter that would be helped by visualization. So what do you all think?
If you want a command to do this it should take you no more than about 5 mins to put together a bash script.
I have a notes command that fires up a list of things I need to know and typically forget.... and it works on several topics. If you want it I can send it to you. Again - the issue in part is sharing. Since I don't know you and you don't know me I can't send you the code and there is no common place for us to communicate.
I finally went back to Windows on all my machines. I was a member of a LUG for a while, and was utterly bashed on when I became one of the early adoptors of DVD on PCs. At the time, there was no DVD support for Linux. I played with some of the early projects and made one or two contributions to early CVS, but was attacked by fellow Linux users because I was quadruple booting Linux, 98, NT, and BeOS.
I tried going back to Linux about a year ago, and gave up. I was trying to install video drivers, and I asked a couple of people how to do that. I got a RTFM response, to which I responded, I did, and I still have issues.
There is a difference between the Mac and Linux communities I would like to point out. Both communities think they are better than Windows users, and will tend to rub it into Windows users faces. The difference is that Mac users will help each other, whereas the Linux community support is SO bad, that Microsoft started offering it with their new virutal machine software.
I am starting to find that more and more Linux software is being written by snobs too. I wish I could think of the software I was trying out, but the install directions stated simply "Install in the normal way". I spent a greater part of an hour trying to figure out that the normal way ment "make, make install, install" or however it is. Of course, then the program would not install because I did not have the proper libraries, and the website did not tell me where I could obtain these libraries. I hit up on a couple of other Linux newbies, because the Linux "pros" did not "have time to mess with miniscule issues like these". After two days of work and research, we never did get the program running. I booted back into Windows, found a similar program for Windows, installed and was up and running in two minutes.
My problem has seldom been with the Linux OS. The Linux OS is great, it is sturdy, and when properly configured, will run circles around Windows. My problem has ALWAYS been either the lack of information or the overload of information (try reading a man page sometime, the man page for tar alone hurts my head), horrible directions on how to install the program, missing libraries, inability to find Binaries (RPMs usually) for my particular distro (whether it be Fedora, Suse x64 or Mandrake), and almost nonexistant support from the community. Most of my friends and myself know that Linux is a better OS, but refuse to waste our time trying to get a stupid application to work, or a driver installed. I am triple booting on my machines now, but its no longer Windows, Linux, and BeOS, it is now XP Pro, XP x64, and XP Media Center. And that is the way it is going to stay until there is a dramatic change in the Linux community.
I'd have to say, when I was a complete n00b and decided to use linux for the first time, I played around with many distros and by far the best community suport came from the lycoris forum. I was not once flamed for a stupid question (and believe me, there were many) and my overall experience was nothing but a helpful one. To any new linux users out there, Lycoris does come highly reccomended simply for the high tolerance to "stupid" questions and quick responses with real answers on their official forum. On a side note, I still use windowze as I work for a publishing and graphic design company so adobe and quark are used and interoperability with those two (mainly on macs) in particular is paramount.
I remember the good ol days of hanging out on #linux help. People would join with needs like: how do I add another network card, how do I customize my installation, why can't I get X Windows running...
One sticks in my mind.
#n00b: rpm doesn't work
#sgt_scrub: which distro?
#n00b: i have redhat
#sgt_scrub: sounds like 4.1 some of the early install cd's had a broken rpm
#n00b: how do i fix?
#sgt_scrub: is this for fun or work?
#n00b: fun
#sgt_scrub: i suggest using a different distro for a while. try playing with mandrake. its a cool new distro.
#n00b: will this fix rpm?
#sgt_scrub: its a completely different distro.
#n00b: i would rather fix rpm
#sgt_scrub: its not easy. if your just playing around to learn...
#n00b: isn't there a way to fix it?
#sgt_scrub: download the rpm source and build it manually.
#n00b: how do i do that.
#sgt_scrub: go to redhat's site. its a lot of work and i won't talk you through it.
#n00b: bitch moan complain... ad nausium sgt_scrub is a prick....
I'm all for being helpful but we all have our limits. When you set them people are disappointed and suddenly your a prick.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I even went out of my way to help others who might need to RTFG. :-)
Seriously, I try to wade through the manual, but sometimes it really takes a layman's explanation before I understand the point they are trying to make. MAN pages are good, but while they explain what to do, they don't always do a good job of explaining "why" to do something a certain way.
With Google, I can usually find a more indepth explanation to help me understand what I am trying to accomplish and how to accomplish it. To me, that is learning....
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
It's Mr Jack Ase, as in Ace of Spades.
Actually, I'm talking about pretty much everything other than hardware detection -- firewalls, deamons, etc.
In fact, hardware detection is one of the few things I've never had a problem with in Linux -- it's "just worked" for me, even back in the stone ages (except for ancient versions of Debian that weren't worth the trouble.)
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Yes I also have the ipw2200. I was trying to use wpa_supplicant. But I'm having issues configuring it. The wireless works, I can connect to my network at home using wep, no problem. But LEAP is becoming a pain in the neck for me.
Just to brainstorm, maybe more of the Linux documentation should be wikified, or structured around user tasks (mount a nerdstick, burn a CD, set up a printer) as opposed to hidden intricacies of the software.
Anyone who wants Linux to be more popular should try the following exercise. Pretend you heard of cdrecord before you heard of K3B. Read the man page for cdrecord. Understand it. Do anything useful with it.
>yet you get the same old "RTFM, n00b" answer,
I like to quote from the documentation when I ask a question, just to show that I'm respecting the time of the person I'm asking. Sometimes it works.
That's down the hall. This is getting hit on the head lessons. See? No, no, go "hWAaah!" Now try it again.
I support a program that will remain nameless for the purpose of this discussion, largely because I do provide support and don't want to turn of users to it because of the bad experience I have had.
Anyway, I have registered a sourceforge project aimed at documenting a particular open source project, the name of which, the owner has a (probably unenforceable) trademark registration completed within the last couple of months. The author makes his money selling paid (and closed) documentation, and the community has needed such documentation so we have attempted to fill that market niche.
Within two days of the project being approved, we started getting hate mail from the developer. While we believe that we have worked through the substantive issues, the fact that we were jumped on with a *very* hostile response (somewhere between "I don't want you to compete with me" and "you had better be *very* careful about my trademarks"). I have already watched how this author has chased away many good developers who have sincerely wanted to make the project better. We have taken upon ourselves a massive effort to work towards building and maintaining the community and as such often find ourselves in the crosshairs (unfairly temporarily banned from email lists, etc). I don't want to fork the code because I don't want to split the community I have invested so much into but it is very disconcerting.
I can understand the frustrations of others who get jumped on, but the author is not correct about Newbies taking the brunt of the attacks. These often continue within the communities, especially where money and/or ego is involved.
My advice to newbies is to understand that communities are always full of politics and that there can be turbulant times in them, and that if this is not acceptable, then they should work through a solution provider who can interface with the community for them.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I admit it, I was always a bit of a pervert^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcomputer geek. I grew up using a vibrator^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcommand line (DOS) before I'd even touched men^H^H^HWindows, knew how to edit my registry (oh my!!) and I was always the person everybody called when they were having problems with *cough* NT4 or Win98. I even had a dildo^H^H^H^H^HCD of Redhat 6 somewhere around-- obviously I knew how and where to insert it but I wasn't sure what to do with it after that. So I didn't touch it.
Well, I got my bachelors degree in Fine Arts and worked as a contractor for a few years doing motion graphics, but was eventually led to get a part-time job as a dancer in a topless bar so that I could afford to pay the rent on the closet I was renting. I always took a certain night off so that I could go to my favorite deathrock dive bar.
Anyway you wouldn't believe what happened then! This sultry, tall, dark, handsome stranger comes up to me and asked what I do for a living.
I replied, "I'm a computer contractor."
He said, "Oh me too!" And then he used a lot of really really dirty words like "Linux" and "BSD" and "compiler" and "distro" --I think he could tell I was slightly shocked because he stopped after a minute, at which point I said, "I think you're a different kind of computer contractor than I am."
He whispered, "I'll teach you
At any rate, that was years ago now, and I'm a professional domme^H^H^H^H^H*nix programmer with several languages and OSs under my garter^H^H^H^H^H^Hbelt, so I feel confident in saying that that was the best pick-up line ever! I don't think I would have tried Linux/BSD before they entered the mainstream (as they are undeniably beginning to do) otherwise. And although I can't recall being assaulted with any hostile RTFMs along the way, I certainly did a lot of reading and studying on my own. Although this one time pretty early on I wanted some help with something and nobody in #slackware was answering questions, they were all talking about how hot nuns are... but that's a different story!
Til next time...
I have been using Linux since about 1997 and still consider myself a noob in many ways. I am an old retired guy. My everyday PC runs XP. I use Linux to run a Web server, a file and print server and to learn things (all on a home network). But I have only used Red Hat, Fedora, and more recently Ubuntu. I read the F'ing manuals and generally get things done myself, but I also get frustrated and post questions in OS forums (initially in RH, later in Fedora, recently in Ubuntu). I also posted a lot of questions in application specific forums (snort, nessus, gallery, samba, apache). Sometimes my questions indicate the extensive - if flawed - research I did. But other times I have posted truly dumb questions before I really gave the problem much of a try. I always got very positive, helpful responses. I can't remember getting a rude reply and I must have posted a hundred or more questions. Is rudeness a distro thing?
comp.os.vms was a place where the n00bs (myself included) could go to learn from the "grey beards".
;^)
l
It was always peaceful and there was no snobbery nor name-callling.
Well, most of the time anyway...
http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~vance/carl_lydick.htm
http://www.myths.com/~dpm/vms/carl.html
If you want to have a painless linux experience, what you really need to find are the hippy geeks. Hippy geeks are everywhere, and the linux using hippy geeks will, in many cases, happily devote quite a bit of time into helping you to join their merry band. This may seem like sophistry, but it's true: The nicest linux peopel tend to be the people who use it for ideological resaons rather than for reasons of technical superiority or wanting to look l337. When I first tried to put debian on my laptop, a hippy geek friend of mine gave up over a gigabyte of his 3gb monthly download limit and three hours of his time helping me out. He sent me home with a working laptop, some CDs of bands that I should 'totally listen to' and half an ounce of recreational dried flora. That's how to treat newbies, my friends. Send them to the hippies. The world will be a better place.
That, in a single word, is the answer to this particular question.
Most of the Linux users I've seen aren't rude or antisocial because they think they've got a better OS necessarily. (although that can definitely be part of it)
Rather, it's because a very large number of them are afflicted with a neurological profile which has marked tendencies towards overwhelming pedantry, non-mainstream interests, and a general near-complete lack of ability to interact socially with that portion of the human race that actually are normal.
So yeah...it's not so much snobbery, as it is that Linux users genuinely are different, without using politically incorrect terminology. Said difference exists at a neurological and indeed, even genetic, level.
As much fun as this, there's got to be more going on today than differing
world views Re: entitlement/help and 3 game pieces.
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I got the same respone on IBM's internal nntp server. Twit used everything but the foul language to deride me for not already knowing all there is to know. I hope some Paki has his job now.
Someone hates these cans.
If it weren't for people who couldn't take the time to do things themselves, like reading a manual, I wouldn't continue to get paid so much that I have to occasionally laugh about it. Just today I had a user call up and say she needed to install some software for their patients to use (occupational therapy). I said go ahead, if it doesn't work let me know. She says "I don't have the time to install it, there's more than one program." I say fine, be there as soon as I can get done with what I'm working on. She says page her when I get there so she can give me the software. I got there within 15 minutes, paged the user and waited for another 45 minutes. I get a coworker to page user just as she is walking through the door complaining about getting paged twice (she sent me to wrong room). Anyway, took me 10 minutes to install 7 programs from cd's, 6 of which were from the same company. The majority of my users are just like this. They do not care that they can do it themselves, that they already have admin rights, or that a 8 year old could do it just as fast. They just want the shortcuts with the minimum amount of learning involved. That's called Job Security as long as I am willing to RTFM myself. So hey - THANKS FOR PAYING FOR MY LEXUS!
My dad's a tech guy (his girlfriend broke up with him because he "wasted" money on a PC, instead of a trip to Europe - this was back in the day). He suceeded in installing Suse Linux Personal 9.2, and it worked, but it was not receiving the network signal. He searched for help and the driver, but basically suse's help assumed a great knowledge of linux was already within your system. Admittedly, the fact that a lot of support was in German didn't help either. But my father, who was editor for a tech magazine, now is a fervent believer in linux dying. He doesn't want it to, but he believes it's run by hackers who don't care about the average user. Now this is a guy who went to an Ivy, has lived tech for a while, and everyone believes is a genius (sadly, I only inherited the second trait). Because of all this, I think the linux community definitely leans toward the anti-noob side. These are only two examples though, so who knows?
OSX is only a painless experience if you have a lot of money. It lacks many pieces of free software (decent Open Office anyone?) that pretty much requires you to spend more money on software then you would in Linuxland.
In many ways OSX is the opposite of Linux. In Linux everything is free (in a monetary sense), but the price is that few things work well together and you have to spend your own time working out problems. In OSX almost nothing is free, but if you stick with only buying (overpriced) Apple software and hardware then its a breeze.
Linux represents the lowest "class" of OSes. Windows is the middle class. OSX is the upper class.
Personally I prefer Linux despite its low class status because my time is pretty much worthless- it makes for a fun hobby. But one day I will have more money and less time so then I might use Macs....
Open Source Sushi
It took me years of effort to learn UNIX to the level I have today. I make a living at it. Please explain why all my effort should be "given" away to anyone who isn't willing to make even the smallest effort and RTFM?
Please explain it to me.
If I go out of my way to teach someone, I've just reduced the worth of my knowledge and added a competitor for my position in life.
For the next Y2K, I want to come out of retirement to debug C code at $2500/hr. The fewer noobs I help now, the more likely that $2500/hr is $3000/hr!
Hell, I try not to be a snob, but by now every dimwit who apparently can't even understand error messages with possible solutions in plain human language in them makes me want to shoot people.
Some people just deserve to be STFU'd out of discussion threads, but sadly they're also really good at raising a stink about it, and sadly someone will spoonfeed them even the last detail. There's nothing wrong with asking questions, not even partly stupid ones, but if someone expects to get cuddled through clicking "OK" five times in a row (yes, some programs are there) because they're too lazy to read what's on the screen and at least try to look up the parts they don't understand, that's wasting everyone's time.
Perhaps you can think of it as some kind of initiation ritual. If you ask a question, and get "Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn." as an answer, you can think of that in several ways:
In case the answer to that last point is "yes", then you can still go with option 2, and be done with it. There are jerks everywhere, and if you can't handle it you might as well get your rifle, climb up a tower and start the spree. If the answer is "no", then you can still go with option 2, add that buttface doesn't know what he's talking about and see if there is with half a brain left on the list. Perhaps send buttface a more elaborate personal message on the subject, since people could find that stuff in the archives otherwise (a "buttface" neutralizes a "jackass", your goal should be an overall flaming score of zero or lower).
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
It is not that uncommon for people who are hackers to have social skills that leave much to be desired. Not because they (we) *ARE* rude... but simply because they (we) don't have enough practical experience in dealing with other people to always realize what sort of responses are actually socially acceptable in any given situation. p Why is it any suprise that the community that it attracts happens to be generally perceived of as rude?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Linux snobs are so bad, and so common, that the best way to get advice is often to antagonize and smack talk about the feature of the software you have a question about. Instead of saying, "How do I configure XXX functionality in XXX software?" only to be told to rtfm, you say "Linux sucks, XXX software can't even XXX." And then someone proves how smart they are, and how stupid you are, and you get an answer every time. The snobs are out to inflate their fragile egos, because they lack the social skills to excel in areas other than FOSS technology. So you have to allow them to express those parts of their personality that they use to compensate for their personal failings. Let them vent their snobby anger on you.
You just have to play their game.
he was prob a Debian person
ime, Debian people tend to be unhelpful
---- Put Sig here:
As someone who has been a contributor to several projects and maintainer of one (so far vTiger 4.2.x) I have some experience with this.
As a user I would read the posts from people that knew more and learn from them and then respond to others as my skill level allowed. As I learned more some messages just weren't worth the trouble of a response, but others took up the slack.
I think OSS works best when there is an unenforced support hierarchy. The people who know the most don't spend a lot of time with the n00bs, but other users with a bit more experience do interact with them. If it turns out the problem requires more expertise, a developer or more experienced user/admin can step in to help identify the problem and/or provide a fix.
Whenever I step out of this support model, I end up getting frustrated with users who can't or won't do what I ask them to do to help them fix the problem they are having. At that point, it is better to ignore that user than to post an insulting comment. Usually someone else will step in at that point and try help the user and sometimes they succeed.
It is these helpful users that you need to nurture. Compliments and encouragement keeps them around and makes your life easier. Also many times they turn out to be helpful in other ways like sending in patches, etc.
So if you get frustrated with n00bs easily, don't interact with them. Let the other users that will inevitably join an OSS community do that for you and interact with them. They have enough experience to help others, but may need help from time to time.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
...that the snobs are just overexaggerating their influence again.
What else did the peasants call us?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I see the order of the tags has shifted around at various points today. Like, "truth" started out on the right of the list of tags (at least the first time I saw it), and is now the leftmost tag. What does the order of the tags mean?
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
I have never used linux, OR VMware. I am doing this to learn how linux works so when I build my next machine, I can dual boot it with Win2K, and turn my other box into a Raid.
:)
I am not what I would consider a n00b, but seriously, I am on my 3rd attempt at an install and I am still having problems. I google, I google some more, and then I end up with 4 windows open, with 5 or more tabs open in each one.
I picked this distro because my brother in law uses it, so I figured if I used the same, I could get help. Just watching him try to install VMware tools on an unsupported distro (Fedora Core 4), was helpfull.
I have read hundreds of threads on linuxquestions, I have a big ass book on redhat AND linux, and yet there are still times when I have no idea what the fuck I am supposed to be doing.
This promises to be fun.
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
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Ever hear the phrase Plug 'n' Pray [note that's Pray for those of you who aren't reading closely].
Microsoft has come a long way since W95/W98 days where it really was Plug'n'PRAY. But that's through huge vendor support and a lot of funds from software vendors and Microsoft to make and package drivers.
Windows can 'just work' on so many workstations the way Linux works on so many servers out of the box... securely.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Nobody really believes any of this stuff about barriers to entry. You're talking solid free substitute product vs. costly market leader. Back in the days of the govt. vs. MS lawsuit, it was argued that dominance in desktop productivity software constituted a monopoly. So now that the settlement is in place, we are supposed to believe that dominance in every segement of mainstream corporate/business computing (OS, DB, web server, app server, and the list goes on) does not constitute a monopoly? Looks like big brother has found a reliable little brother in Microsoft!
I can't say I've ever been told to rtfm with Linux. Perhaps I don't expect to have my hand held and actually know how to read and use a search engine. There are many types of Linux from beginners distros like Ubuntu to guru distros like Gentoo. If you are asking extremely obvious questions and are being told to rtfm then perhaps you are using the wrong distro for your level of knowledge. Horses for courses. Would you go to a lecture on quantum mechanics and ask the lecturer to explain Newton's first law of dynamics? What do you think you would be told?
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
I've found this to be absolutely true. The *only* answer I received when I asked a question in 2003 was "RTFM", which is both rude and offensive. Well, sometimes the answers weren't in TFM and if the snob answering the question had RTFM himself he would have known that. Sometimes I had to hunt through 4 pages of results on google to find what I needed. There used to be a Linux newbies forum that was a recommended link at Distrowatch.com - they deleted posts with questions in them under the assumption that you hadn't searched And yet they advertised their site as the place to go to ask questions! I love my Linux but I don't like the Linux community much because of this attitude even now. When I get asked a question, I try to answer it if I know the answer, although I will add that you can find out more in the man pages if it sounds like the person hasn't read them.
Oh, and I've found that this works too.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
I don't use Linux. Who needs it with Mac and OS X around? Hence, I've been spared the legendary bad manners of the Linux Louts. If I ever have questions, I ask Mac users who seem to be thrilled by Linux. When I ask them why they need Linux when the have OS X, the usually scratch their heads and say, "Well, it's nice to have options..." But the story's about Windows users switching to Linux. If Linux Louts are what you're getting, maybe you should find yourself one of those happy Mac users who likes tinkering with Linux. They're more often than not quite happy to help walk you through the set up.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: one of the primary reasons that Linux and suchlike things are the way they are is because geek boys have a driving need to feel that they are part of a Secret Club that has the Magic Knowledge that permits them to Lord It Over the Lowly Others. I've been a woman programmer in IT for some 15 years now, and I *always* see this attitude -- both in systems and co-workers. It's always a real timewaster in both.
Of course, if you point out this attitude and its effect on, say, the state of Linux, they lapse into techno-rant, attempting to squash you with the Magical Power of their Secrets. Boring.
The reason I don't use Linux is that I got tired of having to use bizarre cryptic command-line interfaces to get simple stuff done when those interfaces are only bizarre and cryptic to give geek boys their daily dose of "feeling like a Real Expert who uses Serious Tools and knows all the Secret Codes By Heart". My computer is a tool, and I use it get stuff done, not to have my ego stroked.
And don't try and persuade me of the great Linux GUIs that now exist. My experience with them as someone with some experience in UI design is that they present the same "make the geek boys feel like members of a secret club" crap in a different way -- the pointless quirky in-joke. Again, I don't give a rats, and if my soldering iron came with quirky jokes in the user manual I'd find myself wondering what clown is responsible for the tool I'm trying to use. So it is when I find "GUI quirk" lurking in Linux GUIs.
What is a driver? don'tcha mean kernel module you stinking n00b?!! Get back to your idiot Windows and BSOD inducing 'drivers' and never speak ill of our ilk again. There. I believe this proves I am considerably more l33t than thou.
:P
Even the developers who want to help often seem to be confused as to why you are filing a bug report if you know of a work around. E.g. I file a bug report saying that their software fails with an apparently unrelated error if I run it with a relative path. They try to help me get the software to work, and I explain that once I figured out what the bug was, it was trivial to work around. Then they closed the bug report "as the reporter reports problem solved".
However I found the work around before I submitted the bug report (I actually find it much easier to find workarounds than write bug reports). I assumed that bugs should be logged so they can be fixed even if work arounds exists. I have over 1500 packages on my system. If I had to work around bugs in every single one of these packages then the 5 years I've spent using Linux would have been spent developing workarounds.
It's funny how, because of numbers, Windows users get to taunt Mac users as a cult. But heaven forbid if the reverse were done. I've always thought of Windows (power)users as a smug cult with the assumption that shear numbers makes them right
<bad analogy>It's like religion. The major religions taunt the lesser religions as cults.... When if you look at the major religions, they have many of the exact same traits/tendencies as the "cults"</bad analogy>
Was this Linux project person born with a defective gene or did his mother carefully raise him to be a foul-mouthed jerk? I am in the process of learning Linux, and, yes, I am reading the --- manual. Even with a manual there are still questions to be answered. This is why our educational system has teachers. Otherwise we would simply hand kids a stack of books in kindergarten and tell them not to bother us again. I'm sure Linux person had teachers who helped him learn (at least to read--I assume HE read the --- manual) and probably answered his questions. There are people in this world who are jerks and idiots. It is best to step over them (wouldn't want to get any on your shoes) and continue on your journey. I will continue to ask questions AND read the --- manual on my journey to learn Linux.
This is truly insightful.
The "It works really well under Windows, but sucks under Linux" way of asking for help, is how I first started getting useful help from these RTFM types.
My first printer problem I started off with the question "I have a USB pinter (Cannon S520) all it prints is black blocks. I'm using CUPS and installed a new driver, but now it stoped printing completely. It can't even find the printer. What should I do?"
I would have thought that was enough to at least start a good conversation. But noooo RTFM was the only answer.
I came back a few days later and asked:
"My USB printer works really well under Windows, but under Linux/CUPS it just prints black blocks. I tried the new driver from the vendor and one from 3L373HaXor, but now Linux doesn't even know I have a printer connected to the box. I really want to swtich it all over to Linux. Can someone help?"
Wow I got the right answer in just a few minutes (kernel patch for to fix usb support and a third driver that actually worked).
I use a similar variant now..."I know how to do xyz in PHP, but how do I go about it in Perl? I tried a,b, and c but nothing seems to work as well. I really want to switch it all over to Perl."
Amazing the results.
For a reason I have never understood, I've got to post this anonymously since I've used 2 mod points in this discussion - which is a most entertaining read. I have a question though - and I have just got to ask it. What's this bit with the manual, huh ? I mean RTFM does mean Read The Fine Manual doesn't it ? I do hope that there is no confusion with that Spanish Gentleman - you know the one ..... Manuel Labour - can't stand the fellow!!!!
Charles Walmsley
All in all, they are just operating systems and as such different takes on how best to use the tool we call the computer; I am also aware of the cultural differences between the communities, however I would propose this compromise:
For the impatient linux guru that may feel that they have no time to be bothered with a windows newbie, simply refer them to the linux documentation project. Of the free unixen, linux is particularly well documented. Where newbies require hand-holding and personal education, simply do as is done in the windows world: Charge money for it. There is no shortage of companies making money with MS Office training, or Windows for Beginners, or likewise courses. It seems to me that there should be transition training for companies looking into linux... like Linux networking for Windows Administrators.
I guess my point is that opportunity is where you find it and that being rude to newbies is simply passing on potentially great opportunities.
Personally, I think everyone should take the time & hard road to really understand computers the way you only can with an open source operating system. I mean, these machines are amazing, but it takes time to understand them & learn how to use them to their fullest. Heck, I figure I'll be doing that the rest of my life.
But, I recognize that I'm weird & that lots of other people--for some reason--don't really want to do that. To them I say, "Don't bother with Linux or FreeBSD." It's not that I don't think they're smart enough or good enough--I think they are. But they've told me they don't want to go down that path.
So, I heartily recommend they get a Mac.
(Unless they have a particular use for a computer that is particularly well suited to something else.)
Plus, the great thing about the modern Mac is its Unix underpinnings. While its user experience is great for my wife & my kids, it also will allow my kids to--should they want to--make meaningful explorations into the deeper realms on the same machine they use for everyday tasks. It's Terminal.app, ssh client, & X server will allow them full access to their account on the Linux boxen at the house, too.
By popularizing these software modems (which is what they are) the layer that does all the work is no longer independent of the OS and becomes part of it, this means that you need a full different implementation of this layer for each OS under which the modem may work.
The WInmodem term is not gratuitious. MS tried, and keeps trying, to gain complete control of how devices connect to your computer. They force manufacturers to abandon well known standards (normal hardware modems can be connected pretty much to any device with an RS232 serial port) in order to ensure the dominance of their inferior, insecure OSes.
The resourcefulness of the FLOSS community and sheer luck (the modem is becoming irrelevant thanks to broadband, which thankfully uses open networking standards) has stopped MS on their tracks.
They tried this shit with modems and printers, and now with the excuse of copyright protection will try again with video cards and displays, audio cards and speakers, and with their Orwellian secure computing iniciative.
But no, you see no problem with that, we bloody paranoids that think MS is the antichrist out of sheer lunacy...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Including Wireless networking using the embedded wireless antenna.
Keyboard recognized, touch pad, sound works also, graphics are fine.
PCcards are recognized and work.
USB support work as expected (I connect my Ipod there).
Printing is fine.
So pray tell us Sherlock, what the heck are you talking about?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Information literacy is the ability to recognise an information need, source and evaluate the information, then apply, diseminate, store and dispose of it as needed. Ask your garden variety librarian to find documentation concerning problem XYZ on system D and they'll not only be able to find it, they'll be able to tell you how they did it, so you can do it yourself next time.
The Linux snobs mentioned (and any other computer snobs) are not capable of this. They have no real idea of how they acquired their knowledge, no real idea of how to gain more knowledge efficiently, and would flounder outside their area of expertise. They are obselete relics of a less information rich time.
They have no real understanding of information requirements, and indeed will give source code explanations to someone who's just beyond point-and-click, wasting both the asker and the answerer's time.
The worst part is, it undermines the point of open source: information freedom.
If someone has gone to the trouble of pin-pointing their information need, it's only courtesy to respond to that need. If it's most efficient to point to an FAQ, a forum thread or a documentaton list, do that (even just a better place to ask the question again). If it's more efficient to answer yourself, do that. They'll be able to move onto the next phase of inquiry, because you've given them a gateway into knowledge. Everybody wins, including the ideal of open-source.
But if you are obstructive to an inquirer via rudeness, info-undersupply or information oversupply, then you've rendered their information sourcing unproductive, and anyone intelligent would move on to another OS/information source where their inquiries will meet with success. Congrats, you've made yourself and your knowledge useless to other people.
Conversely, if someone posts vague, unresearched questions like 'How do I use Linux?' or 'Why did I crash?' they are making a thoughtless inquiry. Feel free to reply saying that's too vague and/or tell them to ask google. You get to be obliquely insulting and helpful at the same time, and use both your and their time efficiently, since hopefully they'll go away until they've got a more suitable question. RTFM requires no thought, no knowledge, no understanding and no social skills.
Not being able to give an answer appropriate to the question is a sign of information illiteracy. Being a guru isn't just about knowing everything, it's knowing how to learn everything, and therefore how to teach.
(And I believe that puts in one place a lot of things other replies have touched on)
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I am wholeheartedly willing to admit iI suck! although I have been using Unix/Linux systems for 5 years now, and should probably be slightly more competant, the man pages are my blessing and always will be.
R RG
However, when say, I make a forum topic related to Linux opinions etc, I am inundated with posts from people who start with, "I have just converted from using Windows, to Fedora" and then go on to slate other posters who for example say.."I cant get blah to work, how can I do this"...The Fedora newb will proceed to say.."Stfu, rtfm ur a fuckin noob blah blah"...it's like...whats the point? Snobbery comes in all instances. A better reply would perhaps be a link, or a suggestion to a peice of documentation, so for the future the questioner will know where to refer.
The ignorance of more experienced users is also getting on my nerve. I make a point of asking as few questions as possible, like I said the man pages are my blessing - but at least I try to point people who have come into difficulty in the right direction, without feeding them the information on a plate.
Another point too, thats more common among the Newb snobs, is OMG ur a female linux user omg you must be so cooool. AND THEN you get the female linux users, who MILK this, and think they are godesses. OKAY WE ARE ALL PEOPLE, we are all part of this community, we are all equal. Just, stfu and use your computer - dont fuckin wear it on ur tshirt. You are *not* a godess, you are *not* a guru.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
g00p.
One of the disadvantages of linux is that there is no way to easily learn from others if you are not deep into a Linux community. I am a noob at Linux with lots of computer experience(25+) in networking, hardware and software. It is all in MS/DOS, Windows, and early incarnations of MAC / ATARI / Commodore and assembly code for various early processors. Here is my delemma. I am wanting to learn Linux amd move away from windows. I have tried Fedora / Debian / Ubunto / Knoppix and played with a few Linux appliances like IP Cop. I have no community to help me with my stupid questions, and I don't want to take the time needed to read every manual. That means I am behind the 8 ball right from the start. So many manuals, so little time.
Yes, please do tell. I've been looking for a Linux laptop for years. I've spent thousands of dollars buying various hardware that someone claimed worked, only to find that some feature they considered unimportant - didn't. My latest is an HP/Compaq Athlon laptop that, after much kernel hacking, I can get to sleep but not wake up, and that when awake burns with a fierce and intense glow that is actually hot enough to prevent the cat from sleeping on it.
CPU stepping works? Suspend works? ACPI works? Sleep works? CD writing works? The video actually works with 3d acceleration? If it has an S-video port, that works? IR?
Point me at it.
KeS
Hey everyone! Isn't all this TROLLING!!!! We should be scared to death!!!! At least Ubuntu-snobs should!!!! Does anyone have food for trolls to get them closer? Meanwhile I'll apt-get them to hell with some sense!!!!