On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 03:40:24PM -0500, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 10:04:00AM -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
[..]
Don't reply to this. I'm blocking out this list from now on.
I'm curious. I've thought back over this thread and can't recall
(without digging through the archives) what happened here that might
have provoked this sort of response.
I do recall that there was not a lot of good detailed information from
OP on the problem, but maybe I missed it. What are we, as a community
of trying-to-be-helpful users, doing to cause this reaction? It seems
to be happening more and more, though maybe I'm new enough to not see
the pattern properly. Clearly this guy is upset, frustrated, but to
block out the list that's supposed to be trying to help is
disturbing.
I think that some of the problem may be a function of becoming, dare I
say it, main stream? It used to be, people would just do windows since
to them it was the only OS and it came with the box (so why change).
Now people, for a variety of reasons (macs change archetecture, problems
with constantly paying for new MS stuff, whatever), people who before
wouldn't consider a *N*X are doing so. And they're not prepared.
They may never have installed an OS before. They figure, get the CD,
pop it in, click OK, and its done. They're not hackers. They've never
even opened their boxes. They think a "hard drive" is the whole case
sitting on the floor. When their expectations aren't realized, they
get:
frustrated: what's going on?
scared: I need the computer for work tomorrow. Now what?
Debian Stable doesn't work with their newer hardware. They're scared of
something called 'testing'.
I think that we need a big "NEW to UNIX-Like Operating Systems like
Debian?" button on the front page of the web site. It could take them
to a short introduction about what *N*X is like, and how to get
documentation and support.
Kantonix, Mepis, Ubuntu, and others *based* on Debian.
Personally, I don't think that Debian is geared towards newbies but more
towards admins and people who seem to know what they are doing. Hence
the formation of Kantonix, Mepis, Ubuntu, and others *based* on Debian.
Unfortunately the distinction is not made clear anywhere.