Ric Tibbetts wrote: > <rant> > So, at the risk of starting a flame war: > > Why does nearly everything with Linux need to be a work-around? > It would be nice if things worked the way their supposed to, without > requiring a bunch of hacks, and work-arounds. > That is my single biggest complaint about it. It's often very > discouraging. Esp. when friends are over (the devout windows people), > and I go to show them something, and I have to go through a series of > hacks to make something work. It really takes the steam out of the demo, > and keeps us firmly planted in the "hackerware" catagory. > </rant>
<continuing the rant> Interesting question, and one I'd like to consider the answer to and try to change the answer. There are several perspectives on this, and in the following I am probably only going to address one or two: First: Some of it is my own fault, as I will freely admit and others will be happy to remind me -- I should RTFM: * But in the dos / Windows world, I read a lot of TFMs, and am now tired of reading TFMs, but find that too little of what I learned in Windows is useful in Linux * When I do RTFM, (and I'm thinking of books or articles written about software (I didn't express that well, but I'm trying to say something like "secondary sources")), rather than the "primary sources" like the RFCs or the manuals associated with a particular software product, I find them either too sugar quoted (too wordy, too flowery, too cute, ...) (I start reading, then skimming, because I don't find the answer to my questions -- soon I'm turning pages and barely glancing at each, then I put the book down, and I'm missing the little tidbits that show up every several pages or so that would answer my questions), or I find them too detailed -- they print the entire source code of some program, then include an incomplete line-by-line analysis of the program that is as boring and annoying as the other extreme (the wordy, flowery, cute, ... stuff). * Once I had a certain body of knowledge in the Windows world, in many cases learning a new application in Windows did not require reading a manual. (Presumably the same thing will eventually happen for me in Linux?) So I should start concentrating on primary sources, and I will. But, there should be secondary sources that accurately summarize the primary sources, without a lot of annoying extra words, or cute and flowery language. Maybe the HOWTOs? (I've read a few -- unless I find one that hits the thing I want to do head on, the same thing happens -- I get bored and quit reading. ) (I'd like to assure you that I used to be a voracious reader, so this quitting is not my typical reaction. Maybe (repeating myself) it's that I'm now reading the same stories (how to do the same things), but most of it is duplicate of what I've read about Windows, and only the details have been changed (or, more accurately, are different) to make the story correct for Linux. (And maybe I'm just getting old and lazy.) So, I'd like to find short concise documentation that deals with exactly what I have to do without the flowery language or even explanations of how things work in the computer world. (I learned (some of) those when I learned dos/Windows.) Now, on to a similar but slightly different point. When I say I want short concise documentation explaining exactly what I want to do, there are at least two possible levels of doing this: * If there is a GUI available to do this (whatever "this" is), someone could detail the step-by-steps of the GUI (click on this icon, double click here, blah, blah, blah). * The step by step detail of using a GUI configuration tool is somewhat useful, but, knowing that, in many cases, in the end the GUI puts information in various text configuration files, it would be more useful to me to know what changes have to be made in which files. Maybe the ideal step by step explanation of a GUI configuration tool would mention what each GUI action did in terms of setting a parameter in which configuration file? Ok, looking at what I wrote, I didn't directly address the point of why "nearly everything with Linux need(s) to be a work-around". (Maybe I implied an answer, but I didn't really state one.) I think the reason is that too many of us have partial information, and not more complete information. We know that for us, or a buddy, some specific action solved a problem (turning off ARTS, adding the network broadcast address, ...), but too few of us (me included) don't know (and don't have a good concise reference) to documentation that concisely lists the 5, 10, 15, or 120 specific requirements that must be fulfilled to get sound, networking, email, or whatever to work in Linux. So, somebody knows 1, 3, or 119 of these, and mentions these in an email to somebody, but, it doesn't work because my problem is that I'm missing the 5th, 10th, 15th, or 120th requirement. So finding the 5th, 10th, 15th, or 120th requirement seems to be a work around. (I'm not sure that hit the nail on the head either. Writing this (I hope), and any comments I get from others may help clarify my thinking on the subject.) So, what am I doing about it? Just ranting? No, or not intentionally so, see below. </continuation of rant> Like I said, this is a continuation of the rant. I don't have the answer. I was/am trying to create an answer on my WikiLearn site, but I'm not sure I have a good example to point to. The best examples are those that include a ...Beginner and ...Reminder page for each subject. Here are two examples: (They are not quite what I want yet, they don't explain what the GUI does, primarily because there is no GUI involved in these examples.) http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/UsingFtpBeginner http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/UsingFtpReminder http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/RsynchingALargeFileBeginner http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/RsynchingALargeFileReminder If anybody wants to take the time to look at these pages and offer (constructive?) criticism, that would be appreciated. If anybody wants to help make more pages along the same lines (or along better lines), let me know -- I'd love to have help. (You don't really have to let me know -- you can simply register at http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWikiRegistration, and begin creating or modifying pages.) Be aware that WikiLearn is currently in a temporary location -- I want to move it to its own site on SourceForge -- I have approval for the project, but could use help in setting it up. See http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/WikiLearnToDos for the beginning of a list of tasks that need to be accomplished to move to a separate SourceForge site. I guess another intent is that WikiLearn pages be short and concise (a little less concise in the beginners version), and deal with related requirements by hyperlinking to another short concise WikiLearn page (or a good concise reference outside of WikiLearn (or mirrored on WikiLearn). For example, note that I now mirror the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard on WikiLearn. I did this because (1) I couldn't find a hypertext version on line, and (2) I wanted to have "anchor links" (?) within it so that I could link from other pages to specific parts of the FHS. See, for example http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/DirEtc (name to be changed to SlashEtc) and follow the link that starts FHS#3... . (This is one of a series of pages that define various Linux related terms in conjunction with my participation in the Basic Linux Training course by Henry White -- follow the BLT link on that page to learn more.) Like all wiki pages, these definitions are a work in progress. I am "rushing" to get something written down to define each term, with the hope of going back (or having others) improve them later. Aside, another thing I'm working on (see http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Wikilearn/BeginnersManPages) was going to be adding a simple syntax example to many man pages, but it looks like the more practical short term approach is to create a new "beginners" man page with such simple syntax examples for several commands on one man page (with hopes that later they will be moved to specific man pages). (This after corresponding with the maintainer of the man pages, see BeginnersManPagesDiscussion.) Again, this is a wiki page, and help is welcome. Randy Kramer
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