Re: Help!

[Angelo Bertolli <angelo@freeshell.org>]

steef wrote:

> ......nice little discussion. maybe some of you noticed that 
> debian_sarge too with the new installer went wide away from the 
> 'linux-way' that is 'treating/educating'  people: 'users' as/into 
> thinking entities.
>
> just compare the installation of potato with the installation of 
> sarge. this difference i consider as a creeping evil of consumentism 
> with the ultimate game of 'making things easier'. this is of course 
> nonsense, because it makes people dependent on the increasingly 
> undemocratic decisions of the developers: it is the old question of 
> craving for power. a curse i think.
>
> installing potato was education in itself. woody was easier but still 
> reminded me of being a thinking being. installing sarge stops the 
> mind: annoying; but sarge gives all the choices i want: so is still a 
> true linux-choice.
>
> my two cents 'for what they are worth', as we say here in my farmer's 
> region.
>
> and, yeah, some of the questions put on this list are dumb: but tell 
> me honestly: which of you has never been dumb/lazy him/herself 
> before??  just tell them they are lazy and see how they react. maybe 
> they only need to wake up.


Ok, I admit it:  I'm lazy.  I have installed various versions of Linux 
enough times to become "lazy" about it.  To be perfectly honest, it's 
boring.  Maybe I'll learn a little something new, but having to go 
through all the steps of setting up my system "the way I had it before" 
gets tedious.  I'm not going to disagree with your philosophy, but 
personally I'd love to have something "easy" with nice defaults, that I 
can accept and grow accustom to.  Because I've become increasingly more 
likely to just use the set defaults so I don't have to remember 
everything if I want to reinstall.

And guess what?  I chose Debian because it's easier.  Maybe it sounds 
crazy to the inexperienced, but all of you should know what I'm talking 
about.  If you've ever used a distro like Fedora, and tried to upgrade 
beyond 2 or 3 years, you'd also know how much easier Debian is.

But wait!  Doesn't that mean that Debian makes you lazier?  Debian's 
package management and upgrade path is so much nicer and easier than 
anything else out there.  You don't have to even have to find the 
pre-compiled binaries to install, you can just apt-get them.

I think Debian DOES make things easier, but it chooses those things 
based upon its current user and developer wants and abilities.  So I 
don't think it's a matter of "educational value" to use Debian.  If it 
were, why bother?  There are much more difficult and educating ways to 
get Linux or UNIX on your computer.  You can do an LFS, or use 
SourceMage (note: I have no experience with sourcemage so I don't know 
what I'm talking about!), etc.

Angelo