Re: Desktop productivity with Debian GNU/LINUX
#include <hallo.h>
* Hal Vaughan [Tue, Jan 21 2003, 11:39:12AM]:
> comments. You're right. Truth is truth, even if it may hurt. I guess I hit
> a vein of truth and hurts. Maybe you haven't noticed, but you accuse this
> person of only whinning, while your response is nothing more than excuses of
> why it's all wrong.
Huch? As first, I did critisize _your_ statements and the efforts to make
Mandrake appear the best of the best choice for Newbies.
> > manually (seen last week on SuSE, nice GUI but braindead package pool,
> > no zapping, no scantv, broken xawtv, only old xawtv able to show at
> > least one channel). There are lots of things that are _not_ simple and
> > not prepared by some upstream/distributor/vendor. You can workaround
> > simple when you have some experience and are able to RTFM, but a newbie
> > looses.
>
> Actually, I would ask you, as well, how long it's been since you've tried to
> install Mandrake. I am NOT talking installing it on a system with specially
> chosen hardware. In fact, when I started with it a year ago, the first
> system I put it on included a Winmodem. Mandrake recognized it and got it
> running perfectly. All I had to do to configure it was to use the Mandrake
> wizard and tyep in the phone number, user name, and password. It recognized
So what, then you just have luck. There are dozens of Winmodem brands
and almost all drivers are proprietary crap, with restrictive license
and depending on certain kernel versions, mostly the kernel from Redhat
or even Mandrake. OTOH, I know hardly anyone using an internal Winmodem
nowadays. There is either an external device, or ISDN, or DSL over
Ethernet.
> ALL my hardware and, in new installs, continues to do so. As for your
> reference to a "braindead package pool," you are showing the same snotty
> elitism I was complaining about. What do you know about this person? How
> smart/stupid is he? Are you so much better than he is because you can set up
> and run Debian? Does that mean you are so smart you can judge him and others
> as inferior? If not, look at yourself. That is basically what you and your
> letter are doing -- saying that you are better because you know more about
> computers and Linux and denigrating people who are not as smart as you are in
> the fields you have chosen to explore.
>
> I'm not just letting it fly. I'm confronting you with it. I'm sure
> you won't
Please make your lines shorter.
> like it and we'll get more knee-jerk reactions from you and others who are
> also in your deep state of self-congradulationary elitist justification that
> you use to avoid dealing with humanity and life. Why? Because this type of
> attitude is one of the biggest obstacles Linux faces in reachign a wider
> audience and being adopted on more systems and on a wider variety of systems.
Fine. Why do /those people/ not take KNOPPIX instead of pure Debian? Or
Xandros? I expect from any average computer user beeing able to install
Woody when he is able to read what there is on the screen and count 2
and 2 together.
> On the other hand, that may not be what you want. Perhaps, instead of seeing
> more people using Linux and being able to use a stable OS with a reasonable
> amount of security, perhaps you prefer being able to tell people (as you look
> down your nose at them), "I don't use Windows," and have your attitude carry
> the unspoken comment of, "I'm just too smart for it, and I'm much smarter
Bullshit. You try to interprent my mail as you want to see me.
[...lots of similar blah, blah deleted...]
> Now, as for XawTV, I found it quite easy to setup on Mandrake. I barely had
> to read more than a few lines of the man page and had it working pretty
> quickly. One would find it easy to deduce from that last paragraph of your
With or without scantv, that is the question.
> post (the one quoted most recently) that you are not only an angry
> Linux/GNU/Debian elitist, but that you haven't tried a simple to use distro
> in a long time and, basically, don't know what you're talking about when it
> comes to this. (By the way, several reviews have rated Mandrake as easier to
> install than Windows XP.)
See above.
> Maybe I see something a little different. The fact that he's trying and has
> tried different distros shows he is interested in learning. I remember what
Then he should learn, but using a specific distribution does not
neccessarily mean a constanly low learning curve. There is lots of
problematic hardware, applications not expected to run by Mandrake, etc.
There lots of things to manage and they mean some additional work behind
of configuration tools provided by a distro. With Mandrake/SuSE/Redhat,
this may happen not on the first day, but few days later, but it will
happen, and when it does, the lazy newbie will get problems.
> it was like when I, after not having used a computer in a technical capacity
> in over a decade, started with Suse 6.4 and ran into problem after problem
> with my system and, since I could not get the internet connection working for
> a good while, had nowhere to go for help. There's also the HUGE barrier in
SuSE installs a large support database, iirc. Don't tell me that you did
not find it.
> million other things). Personally, I'd rather give him the benefit of the
> doubt than to come on strong and say a lot of ugly things that boil down to
> telling him, "You don't know enough to use Linux. We're much smarter than
> you are, so go away." If you don't think that's what you and the poster I
Yet again. Please, stop exaggerations or shut up soon.
> > Mandrake is not the cure of all problems.
>
> Nope. And neither is Debian. But, again, when was the last time you tried
> it? If you haven't tried it since 8.0, then I submit that you do not have
Why is there allways this strange feeling, suspecting you to be paid by
Mandrake to advertise their new release by cursing the older versions?
> the experience in seeing how easily it installs and how well it recognizes
> hardware and works with newbees to know what you are talking about.
As KNOPPIX does.
> > Fascinating, a new feature, hooray. I would be happy as windows user,
> > but that's something I would define as bugfix for a good distribution,
> > not more.
>
> See what I mean? That ugly, "I'm better than you because such things
> aren't a problem to me" attitude creeps through in every line. Would
Ok, that's enough. *plonk* until you stop to see the things like you
wish them to see instead of how they are. I guess you think that you
talk to another 3l33t h4x0r, proud of beeing a cewl LINUX user, but you
should know that my initial motivation in participating the Debian
project was to make it more smooth in the installation - IMHO something
we managed in Woody, less or more (the number of typical pits and falls
in the installer is lower than in any Debian relese before, imo).
Gruss/Regards,
Eduard.
--
Wir liefern keine Waffen in Spannungsgebiete.
Das sind sie erst danach.
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