LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Cdrpconrad@aol.com
  To  : linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 20:43:41 EDT

Newbies and all

It seems that there is ruffling of feathers lately over newbie questions.  
Maybe there should be separate mailing lists because the popularity of Linux 
is increasing very rapidly and more silly questions are going to be asked.  
It may spare those who are easily irritated although why they feel compelled 
to answer is their own affair.  Watch out, some people may ask silly 
questions just for sport!  The availability of Linux via free CD's etc. to 
all computer users is part of the push by the Linux community to increase its 
use.  The problem here is that Linux is far from user friendly and browsing 
HOWTO's for answers can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, if it has 
an answer at all.  For instance, I am using the Debian 2.1 distribution and 
it automatically installs the required packages for particular tasks.  
However it neglects to install bin86 for compiling kernels.  Then for 
experiment I installed egcc and the kernel compiled, but wait, egcc isn't 
used for compiling the kernel.  On this machine it takes 30 minutes to make 
zImage alone so after many attempts from the very beginning (make mrproper 
etc) many hours have transpired.  Then it works... Great!  When I found I had 
neglected something and reconfigured the kernel after NO system changes it 
would not compile, time after time.  Nothing in the Howto's help.  
   Ease of use is going to have to be addressed otherwise its use is going to 
reduce to the hard core few with the patience and ability to maintain it.  We 
buy computers because we want functionality and usefulness from them.  I 
don't mean to say that I want the computer to do every thing for me, I'd 
stick to MS Windows for that, but at least have something that I can manage 
that is optimised for my system and does what I want.  
  I see several views from the Linux community, from religious fervour to 
those who want to stick it up Microsoft.  Neither are productive.  I am 
assuming that there are users who want to be free to use their computer how 
they see fit and not restricted by the likes of Microsoft.  I am willing to 
trade simplicity for performance but currently I am getting neither.  It does 
run but it is far from what I expected.
That's all for now.
Bye
Conrad.

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