Graphical tools & Why choose Debian?
Matthew said:
> It's not easy to learn, but all linuxi have a steep learning curve. I
> just really love the ability to know exactely why something is
> happening, and the power of being able to change so much and edit
> everything by hand.
Relatedly, it is frustrating to see new linux users with a fresh install
of (e.g.) mandrake asking how to fix problems getting responses from other
(e.g.) mandrake users giving them all of the graphical solutions. People
giving CLI solutions are turned down for the "better" graphical solution,
even if the graphical solution does not precisely solve the problem (and
may produce problems of it's own). Coming from being frustrated that files
were *hidden* and you never knew what was going on makes me wonder what
appeal these people have in linux at all if they are going to continue
using graphical tools to point them in the right direction?
A big beef I have with graphical tools is not that they exist, but rather
that they do not tell you what they are doing. Perhaps the example above
would instead choose to directly edit the file if only he/she knew what
the graphical tool was editing to make the desired change the first time.
This would have helped a lot of my frustrations as a linux newbie.
Back on topic...
I came to debian in a roundabout way. (Perspective: I am now in my 4th
year of college) My home computer or computer I used to do stuff with for
a long time was/were always Macintoshes. Sometime in middle school we
learned a little bit of BASIC, which was interesting, but mostly just done
to get through the class with an A. In high school, I was introduced to
windows (3.1 and later 95). I hated it. Thankfully, they still had
macintoshes so I stuck with those. When using the windows machines, I
played around trying to mess with them and get around security. Also in
high school on my mac IIsi, I started BBSing and joined the local freenet
(scn.org), which ran unix. I loved the interface, although I wished they
would just give me better access to more things so I didn't have to use
the menu system. :o)
When I came to college, the mail accounts were all run on unix machines
and we used those machines when I was learning C++. Finally, the full
access(ish) that I had desired. I played around with it a lot. I also
continued my quest to get around windows security on the lab machines.
My (future) husband, who was/is a CS major, had played around with linux a
bit but couldn't get it working. After we moved in together and had a
scrap box (still entitled the "ghettobox") we decided to go for it and
install linux.
Because of his previous experiences with debian (poor, I guess), we went
originally with redhat. I found it clunky and insecure (we were l33t
h4x0r3d about a year into it), but I learned with it. I hated the
graphical tools (linuxconf, netconf, etc) and didn't like the
organisation. At this point, I knew more than my husband, so I convinced
him to change over to debian. He went along with it, especially
considering he used the winbox 90% of the time and really wouldn't have
had a choice in the end.
I found debian an entertaining challenge. I loved the packaging system,
the updating was painless and quick (no more rpmfind!). It was simple (but
oh so complex!), no graphical tools to hide things from me and *I* was
given the choice on what kinds of things I wanted installed. I was very
impressed with the amount of packages and the way dependencies were
handled.
Later, I decided to sign on to the mailing lists and keep up. The amount
of support and information that can be found on these lists is impressive.
I have a lot more working knowledge than my CS major husband (who has a
job administering a RH/debian lab), but I am much more underrated. :o) I
now find windows a difficult interface to use and get smacked a lot for
laughing at blue screens.
-nicole
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