[aclug-L] Re: Cool new fan site....hehe

[Carl D Cravens <raven@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 15 Apr 2000, Jeffrey L. Hansen wrote:

> Indeed.  I guess learning LINUX is supposed to be a full time job.  I'm
> sorry but I already have one.  It's funny that Windows of any flavor
> wasn't so time intensive.  I think I'm probably the type of member that
> ACLUG doesn't need.  I wanted to learn LINUX to open a development
> platform that wouldn't be so GUI dependant and that I could possibly use
> for some of the control jobs around here.  Since I'll have to devote a
> second lifetime to learning the nuances of the environment without the
> benefit of the experience of those around who might have made my future
> mistakes, I'll have to pass.  Thanks for straightening out my thinking on
> that subject.

Learning Linux isn't a full-time job.  But it does take time.  You do have
the benefit of experience of those who have made mistakes... some of them
wrote the documentation you don't want to read.  That experience is there
for the taking, but you just don't want to take it.  And if you can't
bother to read the documentation, why should anybody bother helping you?  
People took the time to write that documenation for a reason... so they
wouldn't have to keep answering the same questions over and over.

No flavor of Windows was so time-intensive because this ain't Windows...
GNU/Linux is a multi-user operating system and supporting applications.  
No version of Windows is multi-user or comes with nearly as many
supporting applications.  Watch what you compare... many of the things
that people ask for help on really isn't Linux.  It's an application that
they want to run for networking services or the like.  To get most of that
functionality with Windows means buying software and learning how to use
it.  Sendmail has a manual that's larger than many OS manuals... you can
devote a *career* to managing just sendmail if you find a large enough
shop to do it in.  Sendmail is going to have the same learning curve no
matter what platform you run it on. 

Windows has always been designed with ease of use in mind... in its
original incarnation as just a GUI, that was its entire point.  Many
portions of Linux have not been designed for ease of use.  They were
written to fulfill an immediate need, not to sell to the mass public that
doesn't like learning things, so many portions of Linux meet the bare
minimum requirements and stop there.  No Unix, commercial or otherwise,
has been developed with the intent of a user-maintained desktop OS.

Yes, Linux is a complex and time-consuming platform to learn well.  But in
return it gives you power and flexibility that you'll never get from
Windows.  Linux is still a "serious users" OS... it's not evolved to the
point that it's quick and easy to pick up.  If it (and all Unices) were,
I'd be out of a job.

And if you can't find/make the time required to learn, I guess you're
right... you'll have to pass.  But you can't blame that on Linux or ACLUG.  
That's like blaming Ford for making its cars too complex for you to learn
in just two hours a month how to maintain it on your own.  Some things are
just complex or time consuming and the only way to learn them is to take
the time.  I didn't blame WSU or God for making calculus a complex and
time-consuming thing to learn... I just accepted that if I was going to
learn calculus that I'd have to put in the time and RTFM.  

--
Carl D Cravens (raven@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Why get even, when you can get odd?


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