What is Digg?226 Comments
- pjh3000, on 10/12/2007, -17/+115Hardcore Linux geeks need to get our more, if not outside, then upstairs, in their parents kitchen. I love Linux, but I can't stand the Ubers.
- Cander, on 10/12/2007, -18/+82Went to a LUG meeting once. Nothing but an endless stream of MS jokes. Waste of time.
- AndrewMayne, on 10/12/2007, -4/+52When I made the switch to OS X and Apple I received nothing but enthusiastic help from Mac gurus. It was great and but also a little creepy. "Welcome brother Andrew...now here's your robe."
- towsonu2003, on 10/12/2007, -5/+50a definite digg, and an important reason why ubuntu is so popular: you won't get a "rtfm" in ubuntuforums.org.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+45Linux is a difficult OS to use if you want to get somthing done NOW. I personaly love Ubuntu and want to try other distros, but if I cant ask a stupid question every once in a while, then I wont get very far in the Linux world and will just stick with Windows. Yeah, I know its a pain sometimes to get "dumb" questions, I have to help people everyday who do not know how to use a mouse and think that the proper term for the computer is "the modem". But hey, everyone starts out in left feild. God knows the stupid questions we asked when we started out with out first PCs. Thankfully, the RTFM crowd is being pushed out by people that are making it their mission to help Noobs get their feet wet and not just BTFOOT (Beat The F*ck Out Of Them) for not RTFM.
- JamesGolick, on 10/12/2007, -5/+44The LUG meeting that I went to wasn't particularly bad in the MS joke area, but the people there were horribly smug.
It seemed more like a high-school clique, than anything else.
The mailing list was even worse. Nobody would respond to questions that weren't 1337 enough, and if they did, the responses would be mocking.
What a terrible experience. I can't say it discouraged me from linuxing, but it certainly might have, had this been my first experience with linux (I had already been using linux for some time, at this point).
It seems to me, that this community needs to get over itself. - Angostura, on 10/12/2007, -9/+42Actually, if you look at http://discussions.apple.com/ you'll find a lot of very good natured hand-holding going on.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+37A big problem is people not first trying to help themselves and instead just ask a question hoping to get their hand held though through the process. You'll never learn anything if all you are doing is looking for an answer with no intent on actually learning what you are doing which is requirement to properly and, most importantly, efficiently use or fix something. This doesn't justify the fact that people that are sick of the same old questions over and over first offer stupid comments rather than just helping the person. What seems like meaningful words to them usually don't to the person who just wants or truly needs help.
Another problem is when people do ask a relevant question but the answer involves doing something in a console. That should never be the answer if the person is trying to fix something that is broken with their desktop linux. The desktop experience is all about the gui and the super majority of targeted users expect and want to use the gui 99% of the time. They don't want to be typing in multi line command sets and most of the time they don't even have to be but that's still the type of help they get when they ask. Look at the ubuntu forums, most all the help related to install issues have "apt" in them when there's a perfectly capable resolution using synaptic or adept. You're getting people with an advanced knowledge or even being a developer giving out help in the way they would do things instead of helping the user to learn the way they should be doing it in a desktop gui environment.
This is a huge barrier for a lot of people that are new to linux along with the attitude that comes along with a lot of help (or lack of) and there's a lot of work that needs to be done at the desktop level by developers if they can get our of their developer mindset and consider who the big audience is. - rodball, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31The first one I went to was a university group run by students. They were all *very* friendly, even considering the machine I brought in. I had installed Redhat 7.?? on a 90 mhz Pentium I with, maybe, 16 or 32 MB, I can't remember. Anyway, these guys were all about maximizing their hardware and stuff, but they thought my little machine was pretty cool, as it seemed (user-wise) as responsive as any of their machines.
This group was a nice bunch of guys : http://linux.wku.edu/ (please don't mod me down for spam, I'm not really a member with them anymore - just want to give them a shout out) - hater2win, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31I agree. The Ubuntu community is amazingly helpful. The forums as well as the IRC channels on freenode are amazingly friendly places. Everyone is willing to help as much as they can. I've learned a great deal about linux with the help of the Ubuntu community, and now all I do is give back by trying to help people who are new. The "some of these people want their hand held" excuse below may be true in some cases, but I think alot of the time people just need to know where to look or where to start. I'm glad the Ubuntu community is as amazing as it is. Hopefully they will be the light in the dark that the linux community needs.
- Railer, on 10/12/2007, -8/+31Really I just when to me first elug (Edmonton Linux Users Group). Wow it was good! They had a PhD come in a talk about asterix (please excuse the spelling) in a company setup, now I know a bit about Linux but I talked with all the guys there, great guys everyone who was willing to help me with my problems. I still haven't taken any of them up on it yet. I few Gates jokes but hey why not.
- hater2win, on 10/12/2007, -6/+28Nobody is playing that game, we are only saying the truth, that the Ubuntu community is helpful. The words "better than yours" were never even mentioned.
- hater2win, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22I agree that most places are generally helpful. But saying that you wouldn't ever get a "RTFM" in the Ubuntu community is only saying that you would never get a "RTFM" from the Ubuntu community. If he wanted to say that everywhere else you would, he probably would have said "You won't get an RTFM like you will everywhere else."
- 4bit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21Differences ARE Difficult.
It's not like you're just changing x for y when going from one OS to another. You're actually actively having to break old habbits, and rework previous 'givens'. - gronne, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21I've been saying this for years. People treated my asking for help with a wireless card problem like a homeless person begging for change. Instead of "get a job" they'd say "it's in the forums, figure it out."
- tharealmegaman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16What I dislike is when people ask a reasonable question on forums that was already answered but others take the time to reply with a response longer than the actual answer would be telling them to search the forums.
Yes, people should search first. But if an obscure question was asked a long time ago, it isn't as easy to find. - mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I had the same experience with Mac users in my previous company. I had one guy who was so snobby he wouldnt even touch a windows pc.
Ehh snobs, what can you do? Ignore them. - lendrick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15One thing you need to understand, though, is that a lot of man pages a) use a lot of highly technical terminology, and b) lack examples. Furthermore, when I ask a question (say, on a forum or in IRC), I've always googled for the answer first. If I have to ask, it's because the google answer was nonexistant, inadequate, too confusing, or wrong; or because I didn't know the right search terms to use.
Also, sometimes people need to be walked through things, because the outcomes of a complicated multi-step process aren't always the ones anticipated in the how-to. If you're in the middle of following instructions and you get a weird error on step 4, what do you do about it? The point is, people would go away feeling a lot better if someone would take the time to hold their hand for a bit instead of calling them ignorant and/or lazy. And if you don't personally have the time do help them out, rather than telling them to RTFM, just keep quiet and let someone else help them out. Better that people get no answer than a rude and useless one. - vvaduva, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20I would definitely second this one...and what's funny is that all the dorks who treat people this way were nowhere to be found when we were testing the slackware beta and were spending hours editing x windows config files by hand trying to get a basic 800x600 resolution to work on machines with 32 megs of RAM.
It's only technology people...get a life..make friends, have a beer and go out and play in that odd-looking green stuff called "grass." Making a friend for life is much more important than a ridiculous linux distro who may not even be around 2 years from now! - generalleoff, on 10/12/2007, -13/+26Smug Linux 1.0 based on Debian.
- danpsmith, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14I definitely have noticed this in my dealings with Linux. No matter what you say about Windows, there is support companies that are very ready and willing to deal with novice users in this area. Linux has to realize that in most cases their community is the support line, and they should treat new people as humans if they want them to continue using the software. No matter what you say to these people, asking common questions is a newbie that's ignorant and irritating... It doesn't matter if you've been using computers your whole life to these people, they'd rather just chew you up and spit you out for not using their particular OS.
I've been using computers since I was 12 (I'm 23 now), and I have a BS in Comp Sci, I have done programming in multiple different languages, run just about every Windows ***** there was inside out and backwards, but this doesn't matter to linux people because you must be a moron if you don't already know about Linux.
I found ubuntu's community to be the best for my needs...so that's what I run. - lampshade, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14I couldn't agree more. Snobs were the ones who kept me from Linux for a long time. You ask for help, they say RTFM even if it is a really really simple solution that you could say in one line of text. Some think that Linux is invincible to when compared to windows, etc, and just start flamewars with you if you begin to mention windows.
Luckily, I happened to run into a few people here and there that weren't at all snobs. They understood both the shortcomings and successes of Linux. They were willing to help, not just say RTFM, which doesn't help in a lot of cases where the manual expects you to already know what's going on. (For example something telling you to add something to the device section of your xorg.conf when you don't even understand the concept of a xorg.conf because you came from a system where you edited the desktop settings by right clicking on the desktop. This is an easy instruction for someone who has been using Linux for a while, but for someone from windows, editing the xorg.conf is scary and foreign.)
I would say that a good 95% of the reason that every machine I own is now on Linux is because of the help and understanding of these few people. Although I've emphasized their difference in attitude when helping people, this is only a small part. They also contributed greatly to my switch from windows by being there during frustrations, and during rants on subjects where Linux did, in fact, fall behind OSX and Windows.
I've been at the point now for a while where I can completely help myself and have even taught them a few tricks, but I wouldn't have been here if it hadn't been for their attitudes about Linux. Think about it, which are you going to be more interested in? Someone that gives you an answer but is a snob along the way, or someone that gives you the right answer and understands that it isn't all about RTFM. - signal15, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I'm not a big fan of MS either. In fact, I've used Linux as my primary OS since the end of 1995, and in the last 2 years, switched to OS X.
However, I used to be pretty involved in the linux community. The majority of the people are great. But, there are definitely a few people that really need to calm the hell down. Linux is NOT the solution to everything. Many of these people are preaching linux for enterprise applications where it just isn't ready for (like a corporate firewall for a large company). Yeah, you can make it work, but it just doesn't have the functionality of many commercial products, and the time you spend getting it up and running and keeping it updated is just not worth the effort.
Many of the zealots responses to the question of support is "just use the mailing lists, they rock." Well, they do rock, sometimes. Complicated questions or things that no one is interested in go unanswered, and emergency support for problems is non-existant. If I call up Sun or Cisco, tell them everything exploded, they will log into devices for me and fix it if I ask them to.
In any case, my point is that some zealots try to wedge linux everywhere, even when it's not a good fit. When I'm making a recommendation to a client for product, I chose functionality without regard for whether or not it's open-source. If there's a tie between products, I will frequently recommend the open source product. You're getting left behind if you chose your products based on ideology, and that goes for open-source, MS, or any other bias. - el_jefe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@ 4bit
"It's not like you're just changing x for y when going from one OS to another. You're actually actively having to break old habbits, and rework previous 'givens'."
You are correct, somewhat. You do have to break old habits, and you have to learn a "different" way of doing things, but it really isn't that hard. The "difficult" comes when people try to make linux something its not...like a clone of Windows, thinking about tasks, and trying to do tasks just as you would in Windows. But its no difficult then learning Windows the first time you learned to use Windows.
And the comments about the ubers, are correct. But every OS has "ubers". There are some of us that use Linux that actually believe it belongs to the world and understand that for it to thrive and survive it has to have a user base that continues to grow or at least sustains its current usership. Some of use, actually believe no Os is "bad" , but some are better than others for certain tasks. And we believe any and every OS should be secured. Unfortunately some people use Linux to make them appear cool and act better than everyone else because they are past their "newbie" phase. They are the same people that tell you to RTFM or Read the MAN Pages. But if they had ever read half of the MAN pages that actually exist (a lot of programs do not have MAN Pages) they would understand the frustrations.
My advice is dont give up. There are some of us that actually want to help grow linux, not just use it to impress our "friends". - jhuebel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11While you will get "please read the manual" from Gentoo devs, they are always helpful. Usually, "please read the manual" is accompanied with "here's where it's found in the manual". Gentoo has a good collection of useful documentation that very few other distros can match. That documentation is constantly updated with the latest information about arch-specific installation issues (arch FAQs). One group in particular that leads the way in user support is the Gentoo/amd64 team. They spend many hours helping amd64 users with installation and upgrade issues in IRC (irc.freenode.net #gentoo-amd64). They are a great bunch of helpful developers.
[Disclosure: I was the Gentoo/amd64 Lead Developer from late-2003 to early 2005.] - dWhisper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11This exists in the "Microsoft" community as well, though typically at the server admin level. Unfortunately, any time you get past the normal level of use, a lot of time you're spent "holding the bag," so to speak, with no real direction. This is regardless of any flavor of operating system, software, etc.
The big divider between Linux, Windows, and Mac is the general makeup of the community. Linux represents a general "power user," so to speak, Mac already and proudly represented the "elitists," and Windows took in everybody else. As a whole, the Linux crowd has never wanted to attract the everyday user, which has always kept some people that were curious on the outside looking in. - dfekke, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Linux does not suck, but mean people do suck.
- timalmond, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I'm convinced that Ubuntu will go mainstream, in part because it's great software, but also that it seems to have a positive attitude. Look at the free CDs they send out. They're professional.
I've heard some Linux idiots even protest that they just don't want all the Windows people coming on board. Like it's some sort of little club.
If you really like Linux, encourage more use. The more users there are, the more easy your life will be too. If everyone's running OpenDocument, then it becomes the standard. That means that we can all freely read documents. - SniperGX1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I think two reasons contribute to this. 1. More and more linux users are starting in highschool and so are immature (if you are in high school now wait till after college and think back, you were an *****) 2. Lots of frustration stems around the general sense that windows is the end all be all OS (its not) Go hang out with linux users at the three letter technical schools and you will find a very stimulating linux learning environment all levels of enthusiest can enjoy.
- lwatcdr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Well I would bet that most of the people that flame on with RTFM don't know the answer! I have noticed that "experts" hate to admit they don't know the answer to anything. At my office we call it experts disease.
1. If I don't know how to do it then the program sucks and is hard to use.
2. If I don't know it off the top of my head then it is trivial and you should just go and look it up yourself.
3. If you don't agree with me you are a moron.
The other part of it seems to be a problem of religion. For some people Linux, Mac, or Windows have taken the place of a religion in their lives. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Amen.. Some things in Linux are still OVERLY difficult to do..
Like add a second monitor. In windows, if you have a video card that has dual outputs, or even two video cards, it's as simple as enabling the second monitor in display properties. In linux, it's a complicated process or manually getting data on your video card, changing configuration files, and praying it works. If they get off their ass and fix problems like this then there will be less questions.. - beforeIforget, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12The problem is that most users don't want to "see" the operating system. They want to interact with it in an intuitive way and get some applicaiton started so they can get their work, fun, or whatever done. The operating system shouldn't be a barrier to it. Once linux distros get easier to use and don't interfere with the users objective, then you'll see more linux adoption. At that point, most users probably won't know or care that it's linux. Until then, the only options are Windows and OSX which both accomplish this. Linux is getting better, but has some ways to go. Plus, the biggest barrier is that users don't like change and want to stick with what they know.
- RyanSpade, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14The command line is the most universal and powerful tool in any linux distro. You know it's always there, and more so than not, it's going to act the same way on a vast majority of systems. I would rather type three lines worth of code than to navigate a miles worth of mouse trails pointing and clicking, trying to figure out what's where and what's not.
Some people like to point and click, some would rather type. - krewemaynard, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Anyone burying this comment has obviously never been to the Debian IRC room, or posted to a Debian list. The pure arrogance and snobbery I found there made my moves to Gentoo and Ubuntu so much easier.
+digg! - bizitmap, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9It happens to Linux. It happens to Apple, here in my dorms there's a kid up the hall who's entire speech pattern is a MacBook Pro sales pitch (I love Apple but I'd love to punch a Mighty Mouse through his head). God knows it happens in the console world, where 32 year old men giggle at the term "Lamecube."
And heck, I'm sure a few Christians reading this have rolled their eyes and sighed after browsing a Jack Chick comic strip (look him up, he's a nut.) Point is, It seems to happen in pretty much any community, technology or not.
Annoying, frequently misinformed, get-high-on-their-own-farts people start shooting their mouths off and make everybody else look bad. - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This is exactly the reason Gentoo and Ubuntu built up a following. People in #gentoo and #ubuntu are much more polite and willing to help compared to #debian.
I remember when I had an issue with LILO telling me that I had 0 sectors on my drive (during the install procedure) , but when I manually installed lilo from source and grub both worked fine. I tried the installer's lilo and it failed. When I asked if anyone else had a similar experience with the installer, I was told to go back to windows.
Granted this is not the general consensus of the #debian population but there are enough vocal ***** that it very well might be. - Ultim8Fury, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11I think the point here is that if you can't be bothered to help yourself, either via a google search or actually buying a book and reading it. Then how can you expect someone else to care enough to help you.
If you have a real problem that can't be solved via an "I feel lucky" google search then ask away and you'll get an answer. Reading the linked article however, shows that some people aren't willing to even try google and look through the linux documentation project or buy one of the thousands of linux books.
One of the guys in the article asked how to start a daemon. FFS I would have told him to check google. I'm not being snobby but if I'm in a chat room to help people, I'm there to help people that actually HAVE a problem. This guy clearly did nothing to help himself and has a issue that could be solved with the minimum of effort on his part.
Snobbery is one thing and it's wrong. But if the information is available to you, and invariably, it is. USE IT. If you still have an issue then at least you can come back and ask the question in a more informed way, stating what you've done to rectify the issue yourself and the results you got. - somerandomnerd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I think the actual barrier to entry is something slightly different- the lack of support channels. Everyone knows someone who can get Windows to work- a son, daughter, neighbour etc. Not everyone knows a Linux expert, so they have to ask for help from (unpaid) strangers.
Imagine the typical IT expert/geek in your office. Now imagine how he would react if a complete stranger phoned him at home asking him for fairly basic advice about his computer; I think that's the kind of reaction the article is talking about- they typical IT-support-guy-god-complex, only without the stark reality of chasing a paycheque. But who is going to install a "free" operating system, when they are going to have to pay god knows how much for regular support? So the money for someone to ask for help has to come from somewhere.
The only way around it that I can see is to go back to the old business model- where software is something that comes free with the hardware; buy a PC with Ubuntu preinstalled, harware all configured, and say 20 hours of telephone support and free email support pre-paid. - Firethorne, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17@quasipalm
Microsoft employees and MVPs post on news://msnews.microsoft.com/ all the time. - anirudhvr, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15Actually, most experienced users aren't evil; they dont have anything to prove to noobs or to each other. I hang around in a few unix help channels on freenode, and it's usually noobs who're like 'OMG LOOK AT ME I'M SO 1337 I RUN UBUNTU WITH GNOME AND I'M A HAXOR' who get kicked around. No offence to ubuntu or any of the other user-friendly distros out there, but if someone's new to linux, he/she should know his/her place. Most people would never insult noobs however stupid the questions they ask are, as long as they're modest and polite (#ubuntu on irc.freenode for example)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7the thing you need to realise is that when running a free project, you're doing it in you're own time and you often get 10000 emails a day asking stupid questions which are answered in the docs.
try it for a week and see how far you're patience is streched. - krewemaynard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Gentoo user support is excellent too (at least, it was when I used it 2 or 3 years ago). Ubuntu makes it a point to provide user-friendly support, and it shows.
- cyclotron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Thats the same attitude that 955 of you guys on Digg have.
- r00tus3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I find the users in the #ubuntu chat on freenode are among the most friendly I have come across. The Ubuntu community in general tends to be much friendlier than what I've come to expect from linux users. It's one of the main reasons that I'm such a huge fan of this distro. Thumbs up to the guys on the Ubuntu forum, and in the IRC channel. Regarding the article, the author has a very good point, I can't count the number of times I've seen people spend 5 minutes bashing a guy for a question that would've taken 30 seconds to answer, and then complain about n00bs wasting their time.
- lilrabbit129, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Only if you're not willing to learn how to use it. It's not any more difficult than Windows or OS X, it's just different."
That I don't really agree with. When you get a computer with OSX or even Windows, you spend time learning how to USE the OS. In Linux you are (usually) trying to both learn to USE the OS as well as get the OS working. When you get a computer that has OSX or Windows pre-installed you can assume that all the hardware works. Networking, sound, etc... You can then set out learning how to get around in the OS, running programs, etc... In linux when you install it, most everything might be working, but if you're a little unlucky then either your network(usually wi-fi) or sound won't be working. Then you have to try to both learn how to use linux and also fix it so your hardware works. Where else are you expect to fix something you know very little about? - acousticiris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6A few points:
The article refers frequently to "The Linux Community", but then goes on to talk about Database discussions and other topics. Painting with such a broad brush is a mistake. If, by "The Linux Community", the author meant the folks who support one of the many distributions, then I'd point him to Gentoo or Ubuntu. Both have rather decent communities behind them that are not known for their rudeness. In the case of Gentoo, I have even broken "Commandments" of the message boards and bug-zilla and not been ripped to shreds for it.
If, by "The Linux Community", the author means the general Open Source community, then he's being even less specific. Igor at 7-zip, for instance, provides fantastic support. The folks at ffmpeg...provide a good product...but can be rude if you're not treading very carefully in their mailing-lists.
The lack of specificity in the article makes it of little more use than a rant. Is it possible that the author might have blown things a little out of proportion? He delivers no specific individual, project, or even location where the events took place. It's as effective as saying "Those Linux Guys are a Bunch of Meanies!" Who cares? Most of them aren't asking you to run their software.
I get the sense that the author is referring more to Linux users than those who actually participate in the development process. I'm a Linux user for various reasons, but the first is that I find it to be a better fit for my needs. If you want to run something else, be my guest. Most of us don't really care. It's a toaster, not a religion.
Thirdly, open-source projects don't have a PR department. Many projects are supported and developed by one person. Sometimes their motivation isn't to conquer the world, but rather to make something that's useful to them and as a bonus, they offer it to you for free.
Unfortunately, some of the users of these applications mistake these one or two man volunteer groups as large corporations and come into these mailing-lists fists swinging because of a *perceived* bug that often is actually an issue with the interface between the chair and keyboard. While it would be nice if that developer would collect himself and not respond with "So patch it yourself, @--HOLE!", you can hardly attack him for losing his cool.
In contrast to the author's comments...I have posted many inquiries on many mailing-lists that support open-source apps. My personal experience is if you've done your research in advance and understand the mailing-list/forum etiquette (the rules are all pretty similar), you will get your answer if there is an answer.
Sometimes it will be a terse response (though don't jump to conclusions, often this is due to language barriers, not rudeness), but it will be an answer none-the-less.
My advise is that if you're going to rely on a particular open-source application, you should subscribe to the mailing list and review it regularly from day one. When the time comes that you need help, you'll have an idea for how the list works and won't cause yourself to get ignored.
Lastly, Something important was missing from all of this. Is the open-source model of support any worse than the general support provided by a proprietary software company? Most software comes with zero free technical support. Once you've paid for said support, you're shuffled off to India where someone is reading from a script (unless you have a rather large contract). Ever try to get a reasonable answer from Microsoft tech support in less than three hours? I'd rather have a few people call me an idiot than spend three hours on the phone with one.
All of that aside, proprietary software doesn't even leave you with an option to support yourself. If the code has a bug in it, you're at the mercy of the vendor. With OSS you may have more than one community or organisation to turn to, and if you're versed in the app and its code, you might be able to identify and correct the problem without outside help. - Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Or give you a straight answer:
Windows and MacOS started out on desktop PCs, where the users are mostly non-technical and value simplicity and understandability, and they're expanding toward the server market by adding features while endeavoring to maintain ease-of-use.
Unix, on the other hand, started out on mainframes and servers, where the users are mostly highly technical and value power and flexibility, and it's expanding toward the desktop market by adding ease-of-use while endeavoring not to lose that power and flexibility.
In both cases it's a difficult thing to do, and neither side has really gotten all the way there yet. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -18/+24Yeah but at least Apple's OS is well designed enough that the newbie user can learn it on their own
- pudquick, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11( Maybe Walter's already forgotten another piece he wrote: http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/amissopedx.html ... Could that _possibly_ explain the short tempers? Gee, I wonder )
[Rebuttal]:
I personally found the article a little inflammatory in that it gave very few postive examples of Linux user groups and tended to stereotype them all as 'HaHA!1 Micro$loth SUX11!! RTFM n00b!'.
Here's my view, from the other side:
I attend 4 local computer club meetings (1 Macintosh, 1 Windows, 1 Linux, 1 'General computer user'). At all of these meetings, I am considered one of the top knowledgeable people and I often give presentations on a wide variety of topics.
[Article Dissection]:
Reading between the lines of the article, I saw *this*:
Example #1:
[New Guy]: "How do I play my DVDs on Linux?"
[Random Linux Smartass]: "You stick them up your *ss."
[Rest of meeting conveniently not mentioned: New Guy takes offense, Linux group laughs, continues on.]
It's not that they're rude, it's that New Guy is missing out on the culture behind a question like that. DVD playback on Linux was *never supposed to happen* if the movie cartels were to have had their way. It took things like DeCSS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS ) to make it possible. The LUG member was making a joke in tribute to it, and possibly because New Guy sounded like he may have been reading from a 'How to Point Out Difficulties in Using Linux' list (Though programs like mPlayer make it a *breeze*).
Example #2:
"one Windows user who wanted to learn about Linux" = [Someone who posted half a dozen times to a project-centric mailing list]
"Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn." = [Someone tired of seeing the posts]
It read to me more likely that the 'Windows user' was posting on a mailing list meant for people developing the project. The problem with open source projects that most people don't realize is that the developers *are doing it for kicks*. Rarely do any of them get paid and answering the same questions over and over are just going to slow them down. 'they reject questions on message boards created to answer questions' ... Far more likely: The board was made for the project members to talk to each other.
Example #3:
'my question had to do with his thoughts on the different distros. I had no idea it would get such a response!'
Again, a lack of understanding of the Linux community. Asking a question like this is akin to starting a holy war, or asking 'Which is better? Windows or Mac?'.
Example #4:
"But as I continued to ask questions such as 'which database you find more effective for scaling' " = No mention of how many questions Walter had asked prior to this.
But, in his defense on this point and *only* this point, if the person he was talking to really did fly off the handle like that, he was probably just talking to an *****. It happens. I attend 4 different meetings and all of them contain at least 1 nut that likes to rant (myself not included).
[Main Conclusion]:
75% of the examples that Walter brought up look like a problem of *culture shock* / lack of research on the part of the person asking the question. They got the responses they did because they didn't really understand what they were doing in asking that question.
What people don't realize about user groups is that they're made up of Average Joes, just like the brand new people that were attending for the first time. To attend a meeting like this and expect all of them (or *any* of them) to be helpful free Technical Support -type people is wishful thinking. There are generally two types of user groups: 1.) Those lacking anyone knowing anything, with everyone just generally stumbling through life and 2.) Those with pros who like to show off to everyone else.
The only reason I actually help the people in my user groups? I get as much of a kick out of it as I do showing off the new stuff. I've been paid in the past to do tech support and I still do private consulting, so I look at it as a way to show off (aka feeling like a god) *and* potentially get paid for it. Every clueless newbie is a potential customer, so I *love* answering their questions.
There is only one real problem with the Linux community: Lack of documentation. If more projects would start up documentation wikis/structures and someone just took the time to record the answers to questions asked in the forums, project members could get on with real work and newcomers could find answers easier with less complaints. - 4bit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7By asking for help they ARE trying to help themselves.
I'm by no means trying to forgive not doing a forum search, (or even starting with Google) but not everyone who suddently finds themselves in a *nix environment knows where the M in RTFM is. Of course it's obvious to people using it, but if you're new it might not be.
Other times were talking about people who did read the manual and want it busted out into new user speak, or just know they have a place to go if the process gets more complex than they expected. -
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