Re: Debain on the rise ! - However ....
On Mon, 2004-02-02 at 13:32, W. B. Maguire II wrote:
> >I think that genuine newbies who don't know how to find information in
> >the first place, and may not know which domain applies to their
> >particular problems, anyway, will end up posting to the "wrong" list
> >anyway, and getting flamed for it ... causing more noise ...
>
>
> Wrong, IMO! I think it is quite arrogant to dismiss a "newbie" list
> because of an attitude that "newbies would be too dumb to find it!" *I'm*
> a Debian newbie, and *I* spent the time to find-out which list I should use
> for help on installing the distro! Just because I'm a *Debian* newbie
> doesn't mean that I'm a complete idiot, and that there's no use trying to
> split-off a list for new users like me! Sheesh!
>
I think you read a bit more into that post than was intended. Who says
you are a "genuine newbie"? Didn't you say you've been running RedHat
for a year? If the shoe doesnt fit, don't wear it.
Some newbies really don't know how to find information about linux, and
the argument as I understood it was "lets not frustrate newbies and/or
irritable gurus by making info/help any harder to find than necessary"
not "newbies are too dumb"
> And what about discretization in other areas? I asked a question about the
> Debian install (3.0 r1) not recognizing my HDDs connected to a Rocket-133
> PCI-IDE card (a few days ago---titled "New Debian install + Rocket133 = no
> HDDs! (Please help..."). I followed-up my first post with some details I
> forgot (like the version of Debian and the fact that I tried *all* the
> installs, starting with the 2.4 kernel). I included *lots* of detail---as
> much as I reasonably could. Please look! I spent a *long* time composing
> the e-mail, so that I could provide a reasonably-well-formed question. The
> result? I got *one* reply (thank you!), but it suggested: (1) use the
> "bf24" install---which I was already doing, and (2) build a new kernel for
> the install---an issue which I had addressed in my follow-up post
> (basically saying that I'd never compiled a kernel before, and even if I
> *did* compile a new kernel, I didn't know how to use *that* kernel for a
> Debian installation).
>
Look, this list is made up of people just like yourself. We post
questions about problems we have and help others with problems we are
knowlegeable enough to answer. If I dont have a clue, dont have time, or
am not interested in the problem, I dont post a reply. So what? So maybe
no one had a nice neet answer for you. I didnt, I've never seen a card
such as the one you were using, yet I took the time to make a suggestion
about what you could try. I even checked back to see if there was any
update on that thread. Unfortunatly, you didnt reply to the thread, and
as a result, I didnt even see the updated message until after reading
this email.
> The end result? The end result is unfortunate for Debian. I really *did*
> want to try Debian, but with the only response I got to my
> hour-long-researching-post being "compile your own kernel", that pretty
> much shut this new-comer down! So, I'm probably going to be using Gentoo
> instead. I don't know yet whether I can get the Gentoo install to work
> with my Rocket-133 raid disks (created with a Red Hat 9 install), but the
> documentation for Gentoo is very friendly, and I'm hoping that if I have a
> problem that I'll be able to get help---without my request for help getting
> drowned in a sea of 200 messages per day (and where many of the messages
> are just about general-interest or opinion topics---not experienced users
> helping new users). In the few days that I have been on this list, I can
> say that I have seen many, many requests for help go unanswered.
>
So, you didnt get a whole pile of quick fix answers? it happens.
I dont see this as so unfortunate for debian. Debian is not a business,
and does not require a large user base to occomplish its purposes, they
create a distribution that is intended to be free, stable, and
managable, and if you like that, and want to use it, great! If you
prefer RedHat, Gentoo, Suse, whatever, great! Use them and be happy. If
you are using Free software, I'm happy for you. If you would really like
to use debian in particular, then persist. Ask me how to compile and
install a kernel, look it up on google, use mainboard's onboard
controller.
> Maybe I'll be able to give Debian a try at some point in the future, but at
> this point, it feels almost unsupported to me. I'm not saying that there's
> no help here, I'm just saying that the volume is *crushing*, and that it
> seems that many of the requests for help are being lost in the volume!
>
I do agree here, Its pretty hard for me to pick though the 200+
emails/day or even a digest to find all those questions for which I can
possibly provide some useful input. If I was *just* looking for help, I
dont think it would be terrible to subscribe to the digest version and
look through for answers to my questions.
>
> >If there are many things you'd like to know about, why don't you post
> >and ask about them? No one is forcing you to read through all of the
> >myriad threads on this list. Just mark uninteresting threads "deleted"
> >and move on.
> >--
> >monique
>
>
> It sounds to me that you imply that anyone who doesn't have a good mail
> client just shouldn't bother with this list. I, myself, haven't had the
> time to migrate to Mutt on my RH9 Linux box, so I'm temporarily putting-up
> with Eudora on Win98 (even though I *hate* it and Windows!). Once again, I
> find your attitude elitist. Fine, maybe you and your *good* e-mail client
> can handle the volume on this list, but what about me and my
> *Windoze-average/crappy* e-mail client? If the new Linux user *must* run
> Mutt (or any other good Linux client) to post to this group, then the
> majority of new Linux users are excluded.
>
Again, I think you're being a bit touchy...what reference to email
clients was made? I think what was intended was: "so what if there is a
lot of noise, delete the stuff you dont care to read"
> p.s. I'll stick-around for another day or so, to see the responses to this
> thread, but in the meantime I'm Gentoo-ing! :-)
Have fun!
-davidc
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