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Re: Suggestion for Newbie Guide Lines



Hi Wayne,

I like the idea of less time being wasted on repeating the same answers
again and again.  The problem with the suggested guidelines is that they are
rational and assume a calm user carefully going through an installation.  No
doubt there have been newbies to Linux like that but far more common is the
newbie who has hosed his MBR, can't make out what switches mean and is close
to desperation because the web site must go live in a few hours or the
Windows user with whom the PC is shared is getting annoyed.

For example, a week ago I was trying to configure a machine with 2 NICs as a
firewall and found I needed to enter the command ipfwadm -I -a accept -S 0/0
68 -D 0/0 67 -W bootp_clients_net_if_name -P udp
before I entered ipfwadm -F -a m -S 192.168.1.0/24 -D 0.0.0.0/0.  But the
mini-howto only tells you this afterwards. And my firewall was working so
tightly nothing from the LAN could even ping the second NIC on the server!
And my wife was on her way home...expecting to be able to use her PC to
access email on return.  What the -F -H does a newbie do?  Panic!..write a
desperate letter to Debian using friends and if that fails to Debian user.

Of course this question has probably been answered 20 times in the last few
weeks.  But newbies tend to get deep into trouble before realising it and
then tend to ask for help...its the nature of learning any new complex
system.  As more and more newbies come to Debain without being house-trained
by Red Hat or SuSE, this will happen more and more.  Be happy - its a sign
of growth!

I've actually posted an answer or two to other people's questions now, so a
payback does come.  Sorry about my contribution top the 4MB.  But why not
just delete all those over a week old?  Most problems on this list are
comprehensively covered in a few hours...the longest I ever waited was a
day.  And all my questions...even when the hidden causes were hardware
failures have been aswered in full with even links to relavent articles on
the web.

Debian-user is a lively good humored group.  Rarely does the RTFM command
get suggested to even the daftest questions.  I hope the fact that many of
the problems keep recurring will not discourage the experts on the list.
This is Linux.  It is very very hard to install.  Once installed, Linux just
sits there quietly working so most people just unsubscribe after their dumb
questions have been answered.  But the contribution made by those with
expertise who go through helping those newbies again and again is as vital
to the widespread adoption of Linux as is the work of kernel-hackers like
Linus, Alan Cox and all.  I fear insisting on guidelines on when and how
people should ask for help would take from this.

Patrick

PS - the answer to what to do if the ipfwadm command have been issued in the
wrong order is simply type apt-get install ipmasq and by some magic the
whole darn thing works.  In my case, I also had to swap the IP numbers of
the NICs to prove that one that appeared to be fine when I typed ifconfig
was in fact broken.  Getting support with answers like this is what makes
debian-user great.  Thanks again to all those who helped.

----- Original Message -----
From: Wayne Topa <wtopa@mindspring.com>
To: debian-user <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Monday, 19 July 1999 19:15
Subject: Suggestion for Newbie Guide Lines


>
> Debian-user
>
>   I was looking in my mail dir today and noticed my debian-user folder
> exceeds 4 Meg for this month.  In reviewing the question and answers
> for the last few days, it seems like there is a lot of wasted
> bandwidth.
>
>   I wondered if there were Guide Lines set up for asking for answers
> to problems, the wasted bandwidth might be reduced.  I know that for
> some on this list it costs a lot to just download this mail.  I
> believe that is one reason for the "lets switch to a news group
> format" questions that pop up from time to time.
>
>   I have come up with some ideas, ATTACHED, that I would like those of
> you that answer most of the questions posed, to add to, revise,
> comment on, or just blow away if necessary.
>
>   So Brendon, Brian, Bob, John(s), George, Martin, Stephen, Ed, Jens,
> Joseph, and all those of you who help everyone so much, what do you think.
> Cluld we come up with some guide to assist us all in helping more
> people nad save some time and bandwidth doing so?
>
>   If this is a workable idea, then if this was posted weekly or so, it
> might make this list even more productive thæn it already is.
>
> My $0.02.  Flames accepted.  Suggestions, Comments, Additions and/or
> revisions even more so.
>
> Wayne
>
> --
> Flon's Law:
>   There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is
>   the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
> _______________________________________________________
> Wayne T. Topa <wtopa@mindspring.com>
>


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