The Linux community does not take kindly to newbies. Thus, the trick is to insult Linux and you get all the help you need, because they want to prove you wrong. One user gives
an example:
I didn't know how to find files by contents and the man pages were way too confusing. What did I do? I knew from experience that if I just asked, I'd be told to read the man pages even though it was too hard for me.
Instead, I did what works. Trolling. By stating that Linux sucked because it was so hard to find a file compared to Windows, I got every self-described Linux Guru around the world coming to my aid.
Funny. Note that this post is tongue-in-cheek; I am aware that the issue has many facets. Random thoughts:
- Some people should indeed simply read TFM.
- There are Linux sub-communities that are very newbie-friendly.
- I find some open source voices needlessly combative.
5 comments:
Sounds like you are asking at some dev IRC channel. ;) There are many places to get help from kind people, e.g. askubuntu or Linux/Unix SE. Or you just google "linux find files by content" which takes even less time.
"The Linux community does not take kindly to newbies" is way too generalized in my opinion.
I think you have to differentiate there a little, as a Server OS it is really easy to get help for Linux and there are exhaustive tutorials for everything out there. As a desktop OS ... oh well Linux is just a Server OS ;)
Good point.
Love Linux as a server OS! It has enabled much of the web.
I’ll also have to give it another shot as a desktop operating system one of these days. I’m surprised that we don’t have more Linux notebooks (that are cheaper than Windows notebooks).
Well I guess the problem is that nobody buys those... Back in the days Netbooks became popular, I recommended the linux version to friends and family, with the result that out of I guess 7 people only 1 person stuck with linux, even though I did the complete setup and support pretty much, and I know my way around Linux (Ubuntu in this case). Nobody besides geeks even knows where to start when to work out issues under linux, and in any shop they will tell you they only support Windows.
At my University the situation ie was the following: 1. You use windows and you get support from the TAs to setup everything you need to work on the course projects. 2. You use anything besides Windows, TAs expect that you know your way around anyway so they don't bother to offer support... And that example is from a Graphic Programming Course (OpenGL+VisualStudio was the default)
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