How Are All The Linux Newbies Coping?

[droneb]

XD, always hated that every time i want to move a folder or do something simple as opening a folder, i go nuts and start sudoing every 5 min.

or when you start working in not using CLI, you start getting bumps because you dont have the DAMN rights and theres no F*ckin prompt.

anyway started to get used to it not because i like it but because i have to, need to finish work with openEmbedded.

 

[VRAndy]

Linux has two big problems, chaos and bullshit.

Pfft! That's not Chaos! That's diversity.

Warning: 3 posts follow. I hit the quote limit a couple times. :lol:

That's OK, I just skipped down to the part where I saw my name.

 

[VRAndy]

Or you can take a look at Distrowatch, there are more than three hundred different distros listed there, and it's missing some of them. WTF??? 300 is WAY TOO MUCH choice. Imagine you start with ubuntu and think you'd like something else that isn't as bloated. So you go to a page like that and "try" to choose one. You "try" because you don't have time to check what tiny difference there is between distro A and distro B... distro ZZZ.

I know what you mean! Are you aware that there are literally hundreds of different types of hammer? I don't understand why everyone from steel-workers and lumberjacks to jewelers and clockmakers can't just use a solid 22oz claw hammer with a rubberized handle. It works out great for me, and I've never had any problem with it. Not one single problem!

Hilarious problems I've had with other hammers :
[list[*]Once I used an old sledge hammer and the head came off!
[*]Once I used a hand-made wooden mallet and got a splinter!
[*]I new a guy who tried to drive some nails with a ball peen hammer. It worked, once he got used to it, but then the first time he made a mistake he was screwed! There was no claw to remove incorrectly placed nails!
[*]Most hilarious of all, once I used a jeweler's hammer! WTF! It's like it was made for a baby! It took about five minutes to pound in a single three inch nail! Haha! [/list]

I can't believe that jewelers keep defending their ridiculous tiny hammers. What a bunch of zealots.

 

[God Ginrai]

Yeah guys, I went with Slack.

With hindsight, it might have been a better idea to spend time with ubuntu, then nuking that when I'd got the hang of all things linux. But after searching around, I noticed the sheer number of folks who said things like "if you want to learn unix, get slack" and "slack is the mother or reliability". Kind of sold it to me. I don't care how hard it is to learn!

So yes, both eyes wide open as I started this morning. I know that I could have been up and running in a fraction of the time had I chosen Windows, but (1) that would have taught me nothing about the underlying OS, and (2) that wasn't the point of the exercise

Anyway, I've now got issues getting stuff to run under KDE... Downloaded Google chrome, but it won't start, and Firefox only runs occasionally - most of the time it just sits in the taskbar and then disappears

Still, more mysteries to figure out!

D.

I'm just glad you didn't choose ubuntu. IMHO, you don't really learn anything with ubuntu. Although, I am rather surprised and commend you for choosing slack.

-God Ginrai

 

[Firewolf]

I can't believe that jewelers keep defending their ridiculous tiny hammers. What a bunch of zealots.

That provided me with an actual lol, thanks for that.

On the whole "too much choice" I think it actually just provides you with a linux experience for exactly what you want provided you're willing to be patient and try out a few. Personally, I've been using linux mint on my secondary laptop for about two years and I think it's great. Some people aren't so concerned about codecs and such, therefore they probably wouldn't like it as much as I do.

EDIT: Even though it's based on ubuntu I did learn some stuff; my atheros wifi unit was not supported by the default installation and so I got to learn all about build-essentials and make in my first hour or so (to get a madwifi version going that DID support it). People will learn new things no matter which one they pick

 

[Gerix]

If you want to learn Linux, try Gentoo.
If you want to use Linux, try something else...

Seriously, I think Gentoo is kind of like a Role Playing Operating System. It feels good when you level, but then you wonder if you could have done something more productive with your time. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Except for maybe Sabayon someday...

 

[Elanzer]

Archlinux is the most "sane" distro to me for someone who wants to make choices and learn things, without needlessly doing low level stuff you don't really need to touch ever (ie: slack, gentoo).

Once you learn what programs and components do what and the basic structure of linux, going to any other distro isn't so out of this world.

 

[Reknel]

I know what you mean! Are you aware that there are literally hundreds of different types of hammer? I don't understand why everyone from steel-workers and lumberjacks to jewelers and clockmakers can't just use a solid 22oz claw hammer with a rubberized handle. It works out great for me, and I've never had any problem with it. Not one single problem!

You can't compare a Hammer to an operating system, one by itself could make a hammer even if it's wooden one. A stick and the top, stick them together or make a hole on the latter to fill it it with the stick. DONE. Try doing that with an OS.

Even if you don't write the kernel, building a new OS is quite a task and making a new one by reasons like "I don't like the buttons on the right" or "I don't want updates every 6 months, I want them every 6 months and 1 day" is plain stupid. Just look at easy peasy, it started because they wanted an Ubuntu-based netbook oriented distro. Fair enough, but now Canonical has a netbook-edition of Ubuntu so why bother? Furhtermore, easy peasy is not like gives too much benefits to users, last I heard it booted in around 50 seconds. Ubuntu netbook-edition does it faster. And there are tons of example of pointless distributions like that. How many BSD-based distributions are out there? Or Solaris? Or ReactOS? Not many, sure there aren't as many developers with BSD but I don't think there's the same proportion of distros per dev. That's the reason why Lunduke makes a "Linux Sucks" presentation every year. And at this rate, he will go on until he dies.

Pfft! That's not Chaos! That's diversity.

And that is called euphemism. It's plain chaos, everybody does what they feel like but expect others to agree with their decisions. Take for instance Amarok, the first version was very cool and I thought "Wow, this is a very good music player". But then the devs decided Amarok 2 would be completely different and put up an interface that was inconsistent, confusing, and very unmodifiable. Not many people liked it, guess the answer of the devs? They said that people should continue to use it, the interface thing is something they would eventually get used to.

Linux could be SO MUCH MORE if people stopped fighting and being picky and arrogant.

 

[Aninhumer]

Just look at easy peasy, it started because they wanted an Ubuntu-based netbook oriented distro. Fair enough, but now Canonical has a netbook-edition of Ubuntu so why bother? Furhtermore, easy peasy is not like gives too much benefits to users, last I heard it booted in around 50 seconds. Ubuntu netbook-edition does it faster. And there are tons of example of pointless distributions like that.

So those developers should just abandon everything they've done and start using Ubuntu netbook-edition?

It's plain chaos, everybody does what they feel like but expect others to agree with their decisions.

No one expects you to agree with their decisions.
If you don't like it, go and fork Amarok and make your own version.
Oh wait, that would be "pointless" diversity wouldn't it. <_<

Or are you just expecting the devs to make it the exact way you want regardless of their own opinions?

 

[MikeFishcake]

*looks around*

*blinks*

*runs away screaming like a little girl*

 

[SomeGuy99]

I love Linux... but I also love Windows XP. And I brutally criticize both for all their flaws. It gets me a ton of flak, but oh well.

It's nice to know I'm not alone. Thanks!

 

[Kramy]

I'm just glad you didn't choose ubuntu. IMHO, you don't really learn anything with ubuntu. Although, I am rather surprised and commend you for choosing slack.

-God Ginrai

That's nonsense. I learned plenty when I had to fix stuff that kept breaking. Like when samba updated and didn't work anymore - I had to fix that. Or when installing VNC, and not wanting to be limited to 640x480 - I had to configure xorg.conf, to fix that.

For the most part, it's one issue at a time with Ubuntu. That's good for beginners.

 

[SomeGuy99]

I'm just glad you didn't choose ubuntu. IMHO, you don't really learn anything with ubuntu. Although, I am rather surprised and commend you for choosing slack.

-God Ginrai

That's nonsense. I learned plenty when I had to fix stuff that kept breaking. Like when samba updated and didn't work anymore - I had to fix that. Or when installing VNC, and not wanting to be limited to 640x480 - I had to configure xorg.conf, to fix that.

For the most part, it's one issue at a time with Ubuntu. That's good for beginners.

The funniest issue for me in Ubuntu was when I followed a guide to installing Virtualbox from their community. The program installed okay, but it killed my sound and WIFI for no apparent reason. Nobody on the Ubuntu forum could help me except for one guy... he recommended I do a package repair. Thing is, the guy hadn't read my post properly when I said the WIFI was my only means of internet on that machine! When I followed his advice, the package repair program quit and asked for an internet connection (so it could access the repos I suppose).

I had to nuke it and do a reinstall. When you have to reinstall an entire OS because you installed one program and it screwed up... you're failing. Reinstalling should be a last resort! It reminds me of the Windows 98 days where people would start again every 4-6 months.

In comparison, I ran the same XP system for seven years before I needed to do that. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I found that just making a new user every six months kept it running along okay.

What was worse - in the original blogpost a few quiet and very much ignored peopl were having the same problem as me. Was the blogpost updated? No. Were these people helped? No.

I've gone back to Mint, where I don't seem to run into as many weird issues.

 

[Bosbeetle]

Its strange Ive grown up with MSX and DOS so command line doesnt scare me I dont know why it does scare so many. I am a total n00b though so maybe bash can incite some fear

 

[headcrash]

hi,

I always used Dos, Windows and some unix-linux distributions side by side.
In my experience its not the OS I like or dislike - its more the software one gets used to or not.
The OS should be just the platform to run your software - so the question for me is: how much effort is it to adopt it for my needs.

The first unix-pc-system I used, was Coherent (long long time ago) and now my linux-favorite is PCLOS. But I also worked with Gentoo some time go.
Annoying facts for me are the different system-tools, different security policy (mounting other harddrives) and the different preference of window-managers from one distro to another.
All this makes it hard to get used to linux, because there is not one linux, but many distros. After years I recently tried Gentoo (SystemRescueCd) and didn't manage to update it with new software, because I have forgotten how to use emerge. Nothing I can't learn again, but it would take some time.

With Angstroem on Pandora, its another linux-flavour one must cope with. It will take some time to realize the differences to other distros of linux, witch software is available etc.
And I hope the wiki is up to date with many how-to's for getting some background information when needed.

greetings

 

[Dunny]

Its strange Ive grown up with MSX and DOS so command line doesnt scare me I dont know why it does scare so many. I am a total n00b though so maybe bash can incite some fear

It certainly does at first. I've been around command lines for donkey's years - starting with the ZX81/Spectrum, then the Amiga and then DOS. The problem with bash, at least for me, is that you're sat at a prompt that you realise you know nothing about. The commands you already know probably won't work, or if they do, they could seriously damage the system because they don't work quite the same way. And the file system? Good god, it's very, very weird, innit?

Fortunately, the linux communities are pretty helpful once you get the point across that although yes, it may be as simple a job as editing a .conf file, but you don't actually know how to edit that file and nor do you know where the hell that file is on the system. Coming from Windows, the user permissions can also really screw you up - and moving to a GUI is even worse in that respect because I've yet to find a way to run a text editor as root! In vista and win7, it's as simple as a right click and "run as administrator", but I can't find an option for that. "No problem!" shout the linux experts, "just launch it with 'su' from bash!" - ok, I'd like to launch kwrite, but bash complains that "kwrite" doesn't exist! Obviously it's not in the path, but just where the hell is it? "Use 'locate'! That'll tell you where it is" say the experts, but 'locate' gives me a database error! "Use 'updatadb' and it'll work!"

Ah yes, that does work now, and I can skim through the results to find my file. "But why is that not made clear at the start?" I say, to which the reply is "It's on page 28 of this HTML document!", which is a response that needs no explanation as to why linux really isn't an easy OS to pick up and go.

But I'm loving it, I really am. I just wish that the documentation would be easier to find, and that the user interfaces would adhere to some kind of standard. I mean, Firefox looks just awful in KDE.

D.

 

[mali]

^ One program I can recommend is "emelFM2". It's similar to the old DOS Norton Commander and you can do everything without having to hack mile-long command chains into the terminal if you want to do simple things. If you start it as root, the built-in text editor has root privileges, too. I posted a link in a different thread and hope someone recompiles it for Pandora.

 

[kingoddball]

I've started using command line daily and for a while every day. Only since I got my N900. I like having full powered xterm access in my pocket!

Full Python!
Can't wait for Pandora!

 

[Reknel]

I'm just glad you didn't choose ubuntu. IMHO, you don't really learn anything with ubuntu. Although, I am rather surprised and commend you for choosing slack.

-God Ginrai

That's what I was refering to in the other posts. That you learn nothing about Ubuntu is utter bullshit. I've rarely used anything more aside from Ubuntu but I know as much as my friend that messed with arch, gentoo, etc. I even know things he doesn't about Linux. But the fact that the guys behind each of the distros (devs and users too) keep fighting between them for no apparent reason is one major hurdle in the progress of the OS.

So those developers should just abandon everything they've done and start using Ubuntu netbook-edition?

No one expects you to agree with their decisions.
If you don't like it, go and fork Amarok and make your own version.
Oh wait, that would be "pointless" diversity wouldn't it. <_<

Or are you just expecting the devs to make it the exact way you want regardless of their own opinions?

You are assuming wrong things here, I don't expect devs to make things the way I like. I just expect not only devs, but people in general to achieve certain level of consensus which is highly needed. After all, people will end up using many tools from different people and without certain agreements about how to do things, apps and the system will just crash every other day.

I don't think they should give up everything they've done, but they should spend their time and energy focusing on improving what they wanted and not building the new distro. If you want a better performing netbook then do that, develop a better boot time, UI, whatever. If you have changed so much you need another distro then so be it, but please, things like Ubuntu Christian Edition seem like complete nonsense to me, it would have been easier to set up a package including the apps of that distro and install them on Ubuntu, you could even install them on other distros so it would be much better. Many distros out there are just busted clones of other distros only that instead of gimp they have Kolour or something.

I love Linux... but I also love Windows XP. And I brutally criticize both for all their flaws. It gets me a ton of flak, but oh well.

It's nice to know I'm not alone. Thanks!

We are a rare kind I think.

 

[kuru]

Microsoft hasn't developed a feature rich utility.

Heard of PowerShell?
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb978526.aspx

BTW you can do shovelloads of stuff with Windows Scripting Host in Jscript or VBscript.