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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.""
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!
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
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.
Astounding. You've taken a sane, logical article and replied to it in the exact illogical, impassioned manner it criticizes. You, sir, are a poster child for a Linux snob. The article encourages you to stop talking, essentially. Read it again, because it is wholly and entirely accurate.
My story, aside from parent: I'm trying to install Mailman a year or so back. I have a base Debian install. I'm stuck. I RTFM. It's not that I can't, or that I don't want to, it's that I quite simply don't understand what it's telling me to do. I don't know what an Exim director is, and the manual thingy doesn't really care to say, only that I need to configure Mailman to work with it. (Since then, it's been updated to be a bit more descriptive. I just checked.)
So, I ask. The response? A snub. Worded from a community member to a third person for me to read: "Maybe the problem isn't Mailman or any of the other awesome software he's running, it's the user not reading all the available documentation."
I note that I read it, but I don't understand it. No response at all.
These days, I have one Debian box with ZoneMinder and Mailman sitting here and everything else is still Windows. I'm quite happy with that.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
You know, I just can't imagine why anyone would call Linux users snobs.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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
You RTFMed. I'm impressed. I've been told to RTFM when the FM is four versions out of date and filled with sections of "TODO: write this."
Open Source software documentation reminds me of Wikipedia: read it for help, but if it's not written yet, write it then read it.
Yes, I know the software comes with no warranty or support, but the notion of "you get what you pay for" is as strong as ever in many circles.
For more information, click here.
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.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
Love and kisses,
esr
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
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.
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.
This whole argument is stupid. People do flame each other, it's just a fact. We could just as well sit around and wring our hands that the Internet would be more popular if the "online community" would just be more friendly and all the pedophiles and spammers would mend their ways. It's true, but it's also a rather pointless discussion.
I've never understood the attraction of IRC. I understand it even less when seeking technical help.
Not only are you relying on the chance that someone who knows the answer is on the channel at the same time as you, but you're also implictly demanding "I want an answer now!" which is not going to go over well.
I hear many more stories about rude behavior on IRC than other forums; it seems that maybe IRC attracts younger, ruder, and less experienced people.
I think forums like mailing lists, websites, even USENET, would be much more appropriate. You get a wider exposure for your question, and those who see it have more time to respond.
So why do people seek help from IRC? I'd like to know.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I think your counterexample is worse than his analogy. It's true that most people don't know how to operate Linux, but those same people for the most part don't know how to operate Windows. They would be just as inept at one as they are at the other, and the rote-learned "skills" *cough* they have translate pretty much exactly from one desktop to the other. So I don't see how their ignorance is an issue, since it affects every operating system pretty much equally.
I guess that's the snobbishness coming in to play...
All's true that is mistrusted
Touche!
I completely agree with you. That is why I always laugh really hard when open source advocates say that using this kind of software will yield "free support" (in the form of forums) and online documentation. For some (a very small fraction) of projects it may be true but not for a lot of (and not only small, just look at the KDEVELOP documentation, with hunderds of sections without content).
And if you go to the "free support" you will only get RTFMs or "try playing with X and Y values".
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Read man's man page some time. the -k option is like the apropos command (another thing you should look into), it searches for the word you supply in the title and description of all the manual pages. So man -k format shows you all the pages that have the word "format" in their title or short description. If that still doesn't show you what you need, man -K "some arbitrary string" does a full-text search of the entire manual for "some arbitrary string".
I'm not ragging you for this or anything, I'm just amazed at how few people actually read man's man page.
All's true that is mistrusted
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.
Sorry, wrong. Not paying for support may justify the silence, as no one may know the answer to his issue. However it does NOT justify the original answer by any stretch of imagination.
The silence in response to the "I read it but didn't understand it" post underscores the fact that the original responder DIDN'T HAVE ANY CLUE AND SHOULD HAVE KEPT THEIR MOUTH SHUT.
I fail to see how anyone can think "you're not paying me, so I can be an asshole" is a valid train of thought.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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.
As far as mailman on Debian is concerned a person who has RTFM-ed should have encountered the cut-n-paste example in the /usr/share/doc/mailman which is sufficient to get an install running. If for whatever reason this one has been skipped the same blurb is available in the Mailman FAQ.
And how much effort would it have taken to have courteously replied with that exact piece of information instead of a snub?
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
I do not recall myself replying with that though for many years now (I do not hang out on IRC though).
In fact I do not recall myself with a RTFM reply which does not point to a specific FM for many years now (7+ at least).
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.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I've not personally tried Debian, but, I have heard the community there isn't exactly 'newbie friendly'.
I've tried RH back in the day, and Slackware was my first Linux try, back in the early 90's. I've found so far, the most friendly to newbs distro, is probably Gentoo. The forums are a great place to look for info, and also easy to get even easy questions answered. The community seems pretty tolerant of questions that 'have been asked before'.
I've never had much a problem finding help with any distro I've tried in the past tho...but, then again, I learned early on, to start a USENET post with something like "OK, I've tried, this, this, this and this...and am still stuck, does anyone have any links or suggestions?" Just to show that I've tried on my own and am now stuck. That usually got a good response. I also used to be more active in USENET groups....if people see you posting to help others, they'd more likely be willing to help you.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
"Which means not automatically giving the command line answer to obvious newbies when a perfectly good GUI tool solution exists for their disto."
I have heard this argument before (and even used it when I was very new to Linux) however there are often many reasons to *not* use the GUI tool. First of all, if you are on the Apache mailing list asking about config info for httpd, how can you possibly expect the person *helping you* to be familiar with the distro you use and what GUI tools are available for that distro? And even if they *are* familiar with it, how do you know they even use the Desktop? None of the servers I administer even have X on them. Does that make me less qualified to help you? I think not. Secondly, I have seen many times where the GUI tool made such a mess out of the config files (and borked the entire part of the system you are trying to get running) that the *only* way to fix them was on the command line. Now while I agree with what you are saying in some respect, I dont think it is as cut-n-dry as you make it out to be. I do remember thanking a higher power for KPPP when I had to set up dial-up as a complete newb (circa 1998 or so). Often times just because there is a GUI tool for the job that doesn't make it the *right* tool for the job. That being said, a quick explanation of the command line you are asking someone to run is not asking for too much either.
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
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...
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").
In a way, I think the very acronym, RTFM, is snobbish but that's just from a person who was deeply involved in the OS Wars in the mid to late 90's.
When people who are new to a discussion group or IRC channel ask a simple (to the experienced) question and receive a RTFM response, they can be quite offended by the apparent harsh reaction. They see Read The F'ing Manual and think, "How rude! What a bunch of snobs" and don't ask again or they become defensive and respond in kind.
Whether experienced people know that RTFM is a casual response or not is irrelavant. The new guy doesn't know that will more than likely be offended. That, IMO, is a barrier to people migrating to Linux (or any other OS for that matter).
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.
"RTFM" is still a response which turns off users and sends them back to Windows. I'm very much a Linux newbie myself, but when someone asks a simple question that I can answer and know where to find it in the documentation, I give them both.
Someone asks how to get a directory listing in the command line. You could:
a) tell them to RTFM
b) copy and paste the entire FM so they don't have to do any work
c) Tell them that the command is "ls", and then tell them where to look for more information on switches and such.
Option A shrinks the Linux user base. Option B does not encourage the poster to learn how to find answers for themselves. Option C gives them a quick answer to their question and tells them where to find more information.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
They're not willing to spend 30+ hours to try and get their "free" software to work, and then get told they're a loser asshole when they ask for help. People are more than willing to buy support; they just expect tangible and easy-to-initiate products with that support.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
I had a similar experience, except I don't use IRC chat very often so I don't know the 'invisible rules.' I was trying to get help setting up the IVTV drivers for my Hauppauge card to run MythTV on my computer. The Ubuntu chat room (that the support link goes to) told me to ask in the MythTV chat room. So I did.
First I got yelled at for asking the same question twice in 10 minutes, because it was unanswered. Despite there being something like 250 people listed in the room, NOBODY was chatting whatsoever-- and they yelled at me for asking the same question twice in ten minutes!
Then I got yelled at because this was "the wrong room" to ask questions about setting up hardware. I asked what the right chat room was, and the answer was basically, "I don't know, but not here." Gee, that's helpful... the Ubuntu forums (that the Support menu links to!) told me to come here, and you tell me to go away.
Then I was yelled at because someone in the IRC channel who was trying to help me (which I do appreciate) asked me to paste in the error log. So I did, and I got yelled at by someone else for "spamming" the channel with 8 lines of text. (To remind you, this is a channel with NO conversations going on except mine.) God forbid I paste in 8 lines of text and spam the 248 people sitting in the room and not even talking at all.
I've had equally bad experiences with mailing lists. Look, if I want to answer a specific question, I don't want to have to go through the effort of signing up for the mailing list, whitelisting it in my email client, "confirming" that I actually signed up for the mailing list, posting my question, then waiting for an answer that may or may not come.
Please, PLEASE, use web forums for support. They are far, far superior. They are searchable, they are linkable, they aren't full of 248 people doing absolutely NOTHING except complaining when other people are being helpful.
And whoever runs the IVTV project: What is the point of creating drivers that are so difficult to install that no mortal could possibly do it? What's the point? Why not spend your time counting cracks in the sidewalk, it seems like that would be equally productive.
After my experience with IVTV drivers, including having two different Linux gurus walking me through the process over email, just makes me come to the conclusion that open source has nothing to do with producing usable software, but is instead just a huge circle-jerk for techies so they can pretend they're better than you. Out of the hundreds of people exposed to this problem, only two were actually helpful, and even with the help of those two I never got working IVTV drivers installed.
(And for the record, the Hauppauge card was recommended to me by a MythTV forum, so it's not like I bought some weird-ass hardware from Mars.)
Now I'm a lot more selective:
1) I won't use an open source product unless it's at least version 1.0. All those sub-1.0 projects are the ones that are impossible to install, use, get documentation for, or get help for, and I'm sick of it-- screw it.
2) I won't even bother trying to get support unless there's a support forum. If I have to sign up for a mailing list, I'll just delete it and use something else. If I have to go into a IRC chat room, same.
3) I won't even bother trying to use the product unless the website is actually slightly useful. Firefox, for instance, has a very usable and useful website (until you go to report a bug, but that's another topic), where IVTV has a Wiki with perhaps a total of 500 words worth of documentation.
(FYI, if your Wiki tutorial sucks, nobody's going to come down from heaven and fix it for you for the simple reason that the people confused by the tutorial *don't know* what the correct process is-- if they did, they wouldn't need the Wiki in the first place. It's more efficient for the developer, who knows the process by heart, to spend 10 minutes fixing the Wiki than random Joe on the internet spending 10 days researching how to install the software and fixing it when he's done only to be told by the developer that he did it all wrong. Wikis are as bad as mailing lists and IRC chat rooms.)
Comment of the year
I completely agree. Anyone with enough experience with computers knows that if you give people that are relatively new to them whether it be windows or linux, a complete hand holding . They will take advantage of you even for the smallest of things, things that you have explained 2-3 times already. I'm a patient person, and early on was taken advantage of alot like this. Now, my rule is the first time you ask me something, I'll explain it step by step or sit down with them and show them how to do it, and give URL's or notes or something to help that person out. Second time the same question is asked, I'll try to explain it a different way, use different analogies etc. If they ask me a third time, I'm like "WTF I've told you twice, why didn't you take notes? I gave you links, documents etc to help you out.", and I'll explain it again. Fourth time: RTFM
Now I may be a little "more" patient than some. When I started out with linux, I pretty much always would google, browse list archives, etc. BEFORE I would post my question, and when I did eventually post my question, I would include steps of what I have done already, the lists I have browsed, and the parts of the docs that I didn't really understand.
This technique has, 99.9% of the time, let to helpful answers, and not just responses like RTFM.
Questions from people where it is blatantly obvious they have done none of the aforementioned steps piss people off. My favorite questions to ignore are the ones where it is obvious that they haven't read the docs, and want step by step hand holding, as if it is their right as a newbie to not have to research anything, they typically go something like this: "I want to setup my webserver, I'm a newbie and just want step by step instructions, I don't have time to RTFM, or search google. I have posted this question before and all I got was RTFM, or no response. I need it done now for my job, it's an emergency! What is up with all these rude people out in linux land?"
This happened to me. I was interested in hacking my TiVo (standalone 540-series) which is pretty much unhackable without a PROM modification. But I had managed to look through some of the files that I'd copied off the TiVo hard drive and I had some questions about one of the file formats. I looked through the SeriesII forum as well as a lot of searching and didn't find the answers to my questions, so I posted. Big mistake. :(
Please understand, I'm not new to Linux. I've been teaching a Linux Internals course for a few years now, as well as device driver development, kernel debugging, and so forth. I know a little bit about the Linux kernel. What I didn't know was the boot process used on the TiVo. I was slammed by the forum moderator ("RTFM in the Newbies section"). I thought I had done that, after already spending hours+hours of searching and reading posts that were too old to apply to my unit.
Until... I went back to the newbie forum and read every one of the sticky articles and I found 80% of the information I was looking for (sigh). Part of the problem was that the newbie forum has about 15 sticky articles, some of them with 40 pages of posts in a single thread. Experience had taught me that most of those are too old to apply to my unit, so I would open the thread and jump to the last page, working backwards through the thread, to see if I could find something relevant. Well, the information was actually in the first few posts -- the community had been editing that post and updating it as time went by.
My point to all this is that newbies often post in an area that is for developers; they should start with places like linuxquestions.org or other generic Q&A sites, then progress from there. The people that frequent those sites want to help others, not write code. They're the newbie's best chance of having their questions answered.
This attitude is exactly what people are talking about.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
A good example to bad IRC channels is the Wikipedia one. The servers had a major outage today, and the error message said: Visit the IRC channel for more info. So in I go.
It's people basically discussing their sexlives, and the treatment of women in Islam, and if you ask a single question about the foundation servers, you get kicked. Which seems pretty bad to me.
I can understand in non-"official" IRC support channels, but when it's listed officially by the site/distro/software website, it should maintain a friendly, semi-professional image. As it's the first place people trying out Linux or new software might experience. Of course, #n00bsWTF on irc.l33thax0rs.nu can do what the hell they like.
I remember my first days with Linux. I tried man, and I couldn't work out how to quit it, so I Ctrl Z'd it each time. Upon logout, I got the warning about stopped jobs. Little things like that are confusing. vi is confusing. (vim less so). You can scroll up in less, but not in more. Simple things for us are ultra confusing to people that don't know Linux. Think back to the days when you knew nothing about Linux/Unix, and remember them when helping out people in the same boat.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Indeed, see also ESR's How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Were that I say, pancakes?
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?
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!
I generally agree with you, but in this case they were in a support channel. If somebody sets up a support channel, it's reasonable to expect to get support there. At the very least, you deserve not to get berated.
> 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.
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.
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.