RE: Why mailing-lists? Usenet have been invented, I hear. ;-)
You guys are goddamn rude. If this is linux helpfulness at it's best god
help linux and open source. To quote three dead trolls in a baggie' every
os sucks.mp3:
"now there's linux, or linucks I don't know how you say it, or how you
install it, or use it or play it, or where you download it or what programs
run, but linux or linucks don't look like much fun. however you say it,
it's getting great press, though how it survives is anyones guess, if you
ask me, it's a great big mess for elitist nerdy schmucks - "it's free they
say" - if you can get it to run, the geeks say "hey that's half the fun",
yeah but i got a girlfriend and things to get done, the linux o/s sucks, i'm
sorry to say it, but it does."
Please note the phrase "elitist nerdy schmucks". I've fucked around with
Debian linux now for nearly a week, spending countless hours trying to get
it to work and it's still rooted. MAN pages are pathetic. They're great if
you're a really experienced user. If not, they are just downright plain
confusing, quite often not even touching on the subject that you want to
know about.
Go visit a few IRC channels for help and you get rudely treated (i've tried
4 different IRC servers thanks and quite politely, i've had enough). The
RTFM attitude that most experienced linux users pervay is pathetic. And
counter productive to open source' image. The thing is this attitude goes
way to the top of linux developers, so it's not going to change. I'll make
a parallel here: take for instance a photography club. You get newbies all
the time. You don't see experienced members of the photography club in my
example back stabbing. Or being rude. Or being unhelpful. They help each
other become better at the hobby they have chosen to pursue. Linux and open
source is not just a o/s etc. It's a hobby. Treat it like one and have
some respect for other users. Offer a helping hand - it's polite and it's
good PR. If you guys want to persist in elitist attitudes, fine. In ten
years time linux will be dead, open source will be dead and people will
remember it all as "god they were rude elitist bastards".
Technically linux is more advanced than Microsoft Windows. And yes that
does mean a more 'advanced' user is required. And some elbow grease too.
Fine. Most reasonablly PC literate users are prepared to put in some effort
on their own part. I'll take one more point as an example:
I'd recently bought (yes paid money) for Suse 8 pro. I decided to trial it
on my laptop, Compaq Armada 1750. Eventually, I got it to work and install.
After contacting Suse support that is. Installation manual had nothing on
my problem that I encountered. Google search didn't find anything (hey i'm
not going to search thru 25k of pages hoping to find something). Search of
Suse' dbase didn't find an answer. So I relied on support. Their reply was
cryptic to say the least. No mention of how to do it, just do this. That's
pathetic. And i'm paying for support! Once I finally got Suse installed
sound was fux0red. Odd. Anyways I did check the Suse dbase and found what
I thought was my answer - setup settings for my very laptop for Suse 8 pro.
I copied the settings for the soundcard to the "T". Wouldn't work. So I
emailed Suse ( by this time i'm rather pissed off with it all) and I get
told "sorry we don't support soundcards in basic support). Gee - get this
guys - in any other business they'd go bust. Big time. That is PATHETIC
support. To a "T". And the funny thing? I've had redhat 7, 7.1 and 7.2 on
that very said laptop without a single installation issue. And i've had
sound working on it on all occasions. Funny that Suse couldn't manage it.
This is all about atttitude, and quite plainly, the attitude of most
experienced linux users SUCKS. Badly. I'll tell you know - for every 5
people that try linux, 3 walk away from it for these exact reasons. Imagine
how many people linux/open source is losing due to poor attitude. If you
don't believe me ask newbies for their opinion on this subject. Most are
too scared to admit it, so they keep their mouths shut. Some are outspoken,
like myself.
Dave W Pastern
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark L. Kahnt [mailto:kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org]
Sent: Monday, 9 September 2002 11:03 AM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org; David Pastern
Subject: Re: Why mailing-lists? Usenet have been invented, I hear. ;-)
On Mon, 2002-09-09 at 20:33, nate wrote:
> Kai Olsen said:
> > Hi all.
>
> > Why on earth (to stay local) doesn't Debian move the lists to a
> > newsserver instead ????
>
> i'll reply anyways.
>
> not every ISP has a news server, running a news server is very bandwidth
> intensive and disk space intensive. I personally prefer mailing lists over
> usenet anyday. Now I personally have no problem with a mail:news gateway
> where people can use either method to communicate, I just perfer mailing
> lists.
>
> debian-user is a relativly high traffic list..at least it has a good
> ratio of good:crap(e.g. spam) mails, unlike many newsgroups ..
>
> I'd be interested in hearing if any other distributions use usenet
> for user support. I have used SuSE, and FreeBSD's mailing lists ...
>
> if you don't like it, looks like you've gone away, you won't be missed!
>
> nate
>
>
>
>
> --
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>
>
I'd add that linux.debian.user and muc.lists.debian.user are mail:news
gateways, although I know that linux.debian.user is supposed to be a one
way gateway - the mailing list showing on the newsgroup and no posts on
the newsgroup (although that is misconfigured on a good number of
servers, including big ones like SuperNews, and some posts appear there
even though the newsgroups were supposed to be read-only - they do not
cross back to the mailing list.) It is through those newsgroups that I
first became familiar with this mailing list.
--
Mark L. Kahnt, FLMI/M, ALHC, HIA, AIAA, ACS, MHP
ML Kahnt New Markets Consulting
Tel: (613) 531-8684 / (613) 539-0935
Email: kahnt@hosehead.dyndns.org
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