Perhaps a user's perspective. A clueless user. Gentoo is the
ass-kickinest distro I have tried. The docs are the best in the Linux
communities. Where does that leave me and where does that leave
Gentoo now? I am impelled to write after seeing numerous posts about
the apparent demise of GWN, and now the usual divisive arguments about
Daniel Robbins's recent innuendoes to the community of Gentoo.
Once common thread in the former discussion is the "we don't need not
stinkin' install CD" argument. I beg to differ, for whatever reason,
but I won't discuss the reason(s) at the current time, except to state
that the more recent (2007) installs went a LOT more smoothly than
earlier ones, and my three machines have become so much of a headache
to maintain that I am preparing to install again. Arguments against it
aside. Unless I decide that Ubuntu is easier and better. (It IS
easier. Is it better? No, but it's more painless for a clueless
user, in some manners).
That being said, one other thing begs to be discussed: Daniel Robbins
is still interested in participating (albeit his demands---the extend,
anyway, that I have read of them, tend to slightly put me off, but
that's beside the point. I think it is necessary to take up this
issue (surprized as I am that this would even BE an issue) in full
light of the GWN and the install CD discussions. I want there to be a
gentoo. I want there to be a well documented and not horribly painful
way to install. I like the concept.
Gentoo is still working well, but those soft spots that I mentioned
are serious and troubling ones.
When I first came into Gentoo, one thing I noticed was the kindness of
Gentoo experts in the mailing list discussions. Debian experts often
left clueless users in the lurch, with their readiness to say "RTFM"
and lack of real support in many cases. Gentoo people have been kind,
I have not been told to RTFM, although I was (thankfully) often told
where to find more information on a subject.
This off-putting "political" undercurrent of the Gentoo community has
me worried. Is this the beginning of the RTFM choir? I hope not.
Why would Daniel Robbins's opinions or suggestions not be of interest?
Why do so many diss him so? I am looking for positive suggestions.
Sorry for the waste of time,
Alan Davis
Teacher and GNU/Linux enabled independent scholar and scientist.
On Jan 13, 2008 7:37 PM, Alan McKinnon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Saturday 12 January 2008, fire-eyes wrote:
> > Alan McKinnon wrote:
>
> > > Ciaran Mcreesh - I am very specifically looking at you here.
> >
> > Very strongly agree with Mr McCreesh (spelling?). While I respect his
> > technical abilities and contributions, I believe his horrible
> > attitude, clear trolling and ability to pit devs against each other,
> > seemingly for fun, is far more harmful. That he wasn't gotten rid of
> > early on is actually the biggest sign of problems in my eyes. That he
> > has fans and followers is another.
>
> Ciaran seems to suffer from a horrible affliction that is common amongst
> highly technical people:
>
> A poorly developed sense of how to deal with other people coupled with
> never having realised that people are not machines, do not react like
> machines and need to be handled differently. You maintain machines by
> focusing on what is wrong with them and changing that. You handle
> people by focusing on what they do right and reinforcing that.
>
> I used to do what Ciaran does, and I used to do it a *lot*. Lucky for
> me, one day someone came along with a very big stick and hammered it
> through my thick skull that there is a better way.
>
> --
> Alan McKinnon
> alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
> --
>
> gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
--
Alan Davis, Kagman High School, Saipan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"It's never a matter of liking or disliking ..."
---Santa Ynez Chumash Medicine Man
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