First tip: when posting regarding a problem, start a new thread, don't
reply to an existing one. In threaded mailreaders (I use mutt) your
posts shows up well into an existing but unrelated thread. Though at
least you're attached to a related SSH problem here....
on Tue, Apr 10, 2001 at 11:37:32PM -0400, Kevin Stokes (linux@pieskysoft.com) wrote:
> Once again I find myself helpless. As unreliable and as
> frustrating as Windows is, in Linux it seems like you can't do
> anything without asking for help.
Yep.
> I wanted to remotely login from a Windows machine to my linux
> machine. So I wanted to install telnetd. Everyone said, 'shame on
> you, telnet is simply awful. You should be chained to the wall and
> whipped for wanting to use telnet! Use 'ssh' instead.'
Yep.
> Well, ssh got installed along with everything when I installed
> linux. So I read the man pages for ssh. As is typical of the linux
> world, it is about 15 pages of utter gobbedly-gook. To be fair, man
> pages are not meant for newbies to learn linux from scratch.
Well, you can always try:
$ ssh
Which produces, as first line of output:
Usage: ssh [options] host [command]
...along with 32 lines of brief help.
> So I search until I find a HOWTO on ssh. This would be nice if it
> worked, but of course it doesn't. Everything seems to be different.
> Their suggestions fail. The paths are different.
>
> http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/LG/issue61/dellomodarme.html
>
> Now I can explain the title of my post. Linux is amazing. There is
> source code, and binaries and gigabytes of documentation about
> everything under the sun. All free! But it all seems nearly
> useless. Take a newbie, and drop him into the sea of freebies.
It's not for everyone. Particularly not in pure form. If you like it,
great. If you don't -- there's Legacy MS Windows, there's Mac, there's
now MacOS X, which is housetrained Unix, there's BeOS, there's the
*BSDs, but they're pretty similar to GNU/Linux (though some would argue
the man pages are better, though if you really want tender loving
personal attention, do something to catch Theo's eye....). Most of us
are willing to help out, but don't waste our time. You're a newbie,
you're having problems. I've been using GNU/Linux for four years, Unix
for fourteen, and I'm having my own problems -- snort, glimpse, DNS,
leafnode....
GNU/Linux is a grown-up's operating system. You're expected to know
your way around, or be able to figure it out. If you can't or won't,
we're fine by that. But don't blame it on GNU/Linux or us. It works,
it's free. There's some knowledge to learn. Stop whinging.
Shut the computer down and listen to "Secret Journey" by Sting. There
is enlightenment, grasshopper. The enlightement is realizing there is
no enlightentment.
The keys to mailing list support:
- Identify your problem. As best as possible. The program, the error
output, and the objective are good starts. If you're not sure, say
so. Don't whinge.
- Know your help tools. The man pages. Apropos. The HOWTOs. grep.
Google. A few good books (poke around my webpage, they're listed).
- Pick an appropriate subject (program, problem, error output if
possible). I don't need to know you're a newbie (though you can say
same in body), and no, it's not urgent for me. Stop whinging!
- Provide all pertinant information, while keeping your posts short
and sweet and to the point. Quit it with the whinging already.
I've got a lot of free time on my hands right now, and I'm still
reduced to rolling through debian-user looking for unanswered posts
with concise titles that haven't been extensively responded to,
which I might provide some insight on. You....You're wasting my
time. But there's a broader lesson to be learned, some I'm typing
this into the list archives, Google, and possibly a few personal
archives. An no fscking whinging!
- Tattoo this to your chest. If you can't read in mirror, have it
reversed so you can read it every morning.
How to Report Bugs Effectively
Simon Tatham
http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/documentation/ReportingBugs.html
(Note: I originally saw this posted at Freshmeat, bylined by
jeff covey <jeff.covey at pobox.com> on February 26th 2000, but
it's disappeared from there, and is currently credited to Simon
Tatham. The Freshmeat link was:
http://freshmeat.net/news/2000/02/26/951627540.html)
> And he drowns. You start searching archives and HOWTO's. Each thing you
> find leads you in 10 different directions; 10 more places to look for
> answers.
At this point, stop and ask for guidance. Local support, or a small
group, is helpful for those small little problems. Larger lists may
have expertise, but also often much noise.
<...>
> Take the last time I needed help. A generous and helpful person told me
> to do the following:
>
> update-rc.d -n -f xdm remove
An estimable response. Short, concise, we'll assume accurate. And it
contains the seeds necessary to understand it.
> Why the hell didn't I think of doing that?
Specious.
> What does that command do? It worked just like the helpful guy said
> it would. But I have no clue what it did, and what those 8 files that
> it deleted or modified were.
Run it. Or "man update-rc.d". After which, you could look at
/etc/init.d and /etc/rc?.d. And read /etc/init.d/README. And
/usr/share/doc/sysvinit, where the README takes you. I'll drop you the
hint that this is what's called the SysV (as in "System Five") init
system. See your sysadmin reference (Nemeth, natch) for more
information.
> In my opinion, Linux is a truly great and remarkable thing. And I get the
> impression than many Linux enthusiasts want Linux to become the dominant OS.
Credibly persistant is a more accurate statement of general goals, IMO.
Dominant is not necessary and possibly not desireable.
> However, I think that no matter how great the software is, the #1
> problem is that Linux is a nightmare for anybody who doesn't know it
> already. This is not true of Windows, or even DOS.
Bollux. Capabilities are far lower, and deep capable understanding is
as hard or harder.
> You can tell this from the tone of most newbie posts. They are
> embarrassed to have to ask these questions. They (read me) have a tough
> time asking a question which uses terminology correctly, or even coming up a
> question that makes sense.
Asking questions is tough. Get over it. We'll typically guide users
who show sufficient clue to benefit from it. And, believe it, I sit on
my hands with problems for a while as well. Usually finding that asking
is better than not. It's a learned behavior.
> There is something that Linux needs much more than anything else, and that
> is a decent help system.
There are *too many* help systems for GNU/Linux. man, info, HOWTOs,
/usr/share/doc, newsgroups, mailing lists, paid support, websites....
The answer's out there.
By contrast: have you ever tried finding *solid technical references*
for Legacy MS Windows issues?
> We need something about 50 times larger than the
> man pages. Something which always has an extensive chapter in simple
> layman language, and lots of examples with clear steps with *explanations*.
> And also a way to get to the more typically man page type stuff for the
> people who need that.
That said, there's a project called "Meta" by Rich Morin which is aimed
at addressing some of your concerns.
> Who is willing to create such a thing? Not me, I'm not a Linux devotee.
Oh. I see. "We need". But "I won't build".
> But people have put so much effort into building the OS itself, and writing
> doc. But the bottom line is that the Windows Help system totally blows
> away all the confusing HOWTO's, man pages, or archived email searches.
I disagree. Strongly. Haven't used Legacy MS Windows much since 1998,
but my experience was that I had a very crafted, indexed, content-free
system. Some things (VBA documentation under MS Word) were well
documented. Much (basic OS functionality) were not.
Define your terms, your criteria, your goals. Post a summary project
statement as a separate post. Or kick it to a site like Slashdot or
Kuro5hin for discussion. We'll think about it.
> For those who read this list and have put in 100's of hours working on
> Linux for free for whatever reason: How many people do you suppose have
> installed Redhat, Debian or Suse, and tried for a week or so, and then
> deleted it in frustration?
Lots. That's fine. We don't need them, their money, or their
marketshare at present. We'd rather have them clogging up MSFT and
Apple's help lines.
<...>
> Anyway... Does anybody know what steps I need to do in order make ssh
> work so I can log in remotely? I wanted to try to use Tera Term Pro with
> the SSH extenstion to log onto my Linux machine from a Windows machine on
> the local network.
>
> Right now if I type:
>
> ssh -v -l root rocky
>
> I get this error message about authenticity not being established.
Nope. *Copy the error message, verbatim*. The entire program output in
this case is appropriate.
> I made a 'indentification' and an authorization file in the ~/.ssh
> directory
Um. That's "identity" and "authorized_keys". If you can't recite file
names accurately, list the directory and copy the output. I suspect
you're getting the local and remote sides confused here. You _generate_
a key on the local side. You have to add it to the authorized_keys file
on the _remote_ side. See below.
> along with the keys created by ssh-keygen, but I really don't know
> what I'm doing. I just tried to do what it said in the HOWTO link
> above, and nothing seems to work.
If you don't mind reading yet another document, I've written a brief
tutorial on configuring RSAKey authentication under ssh....
http://kmself.home.netcom.com/Linux/FAQs/sshrsakey.html
> frustrated Linux Newbie.
You think you're special or what? Whinging newbies....
;-)
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal
http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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