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Re: Debain on the rise ! - However ....



On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 11:32:48AM -0700, W. B. Maguire II wrote:
> At 10:03 AM 2/2/04 -0700, you wrote:

<snip>

> 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 see a problem with making a Newbie list, that is who is going to wade through
all the information, redundant posts? I think this will add to the problem, in order
for such a list to be effective you need people who are knowledgeable to answer 
questions? I see the pool of knowledgeable people watching such a list dwindle due
to the stress such a list might bring. I don't mind hand holding once in a while,
but if I see a post of where do I get debian ISO's, or some other mundane stuff, it
would drive me off the list.  Especially if typing the above information in a search
engine gives the required result.

> 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).

Well I agree, but how many people own your Rocket-133 card, who could reply?
Also some people don't read every message they get from the list.  Maybe they 
deleted your message due other reasons, and did not know your specifics?

> 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.

Ok that is a fair statement, I think most of the above ignored posts could get
their answers quicker then posting to this list. Also did most of the above
ignored messages even bother to look at the Debian Doc site? 
 
> >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

I happen to agree with Monique on this one, if something is off topic, or
does not get your attention skip it. When you read a magazine do you read every
article, front to back, use the same method here.
 
> 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.
> 
> Bruce.
> 
> 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!  :-)

You can use any E-mail client to read the list, in fact you don't even need a client to
read the list, gmane, google groups, will allow you to read the list. K-mail has filters you
can setup then you can sort through the postings at your lesure.

>From my experience I haven't noticed an elitist attitude on this list. If I follow the
list policy and post on topic posts most people are friendly and willing to help.
Maybe some people won't hold every ones hand about the most basic stuff. But if they did
manage to locate Debian.org, we assumed they would know how to use google. Maybe that
assumption was wrong, I find that a little common sense goes a long way.

Good luck with your Gentoo adventure, I wish you the best of luck.

Rthoreau
<snip>



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