Kudo to the folks here too
Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Kudo to the folks here too
started by: Mistshadow
Posted by Mistshadow on Jan. 09 2004,19:18
I've been to so many different Linux forums to read for help and ocasionally even post. 
You just wouldn't believe - or maybe you would - how many of those sites are run by rude people who insult newbies, delete their posts because they assume the poster didn't look for an answer first, and so on. If that weren't bad enough, a lot of the regular posters would post just to complain about newbies asking for help.This board has turned out to be a wonderful surprise. The posters are nice and polite, the mod/developer/site owner is polite and involved, and some of the posts seem to be written by people who actually know what they're talking about.
Thanks, guys. Keep it up.
Posted by smhardesty on Jan. 12 2004,21:44
Ditto! I've found the exact same thing. Kudos galore to the folks here. And thanks for being understanding to those of us with less expertise.
Posted by DStrick64 on Jan. 13 2004,02:29
You are so right. Many of the other forums belittle newcomers and insult them for not having read the manual (often referred to with the acronym "RTFM" !!! Well, if you are a newbie to Linux you probably don't know where the manuals/docs are anyway. Everything is easy when you know how to do it, hard when you don't.DSL is what has kept me working on Linux.
I tried it out several times but never stuck with it because it was so frustrating. Well DSL does such a great job of hardware detection it makes it easy to get it going. Then you can play around all you want without worry of messing anything up because it's SO EASY to start over, rather than tedious re-install of the big distro's.
The main big plus of DSL is that you don't have to try to turn your main system into a dual-boot or take the big step of converting over from Win to Lin in one big step, because if you have an old system lying around that doesn't cut it for Windows anymore, it will probably run DSL easily. If you don't have one lying around you can pick one up for CHEAP and it will be a usable system that you can practice and study and play with all you want to and it will still be a very usable practical machine to get work done on.
ILOVIT!
Posted by sproket90 on Jan. 16 2004,20:42
aweSOME !!!!love it... more more...
Posted by Vacendak on Jan. 16 2004,21:17
This is the best forum I have found. I love learning about linux and helping people. I think the reason this forum is so good is because is it just about DSL. So if you ask a question about something odds are that the person who answers your question has had exactly the same problem and knows where to go to fix it. John has done a great thing here.
Posted by markgamber on Jan. 17 2004,02:08
What? You don't like the typical linux help forums?"Help! I can't get my sound card to work!"
"wndbxalsd_ajueuwerh.1.123_a -c -x 98.2454 -x /dev/xqqc
Duh"
More seriously, this is pretty nice software. I've gotten a real kick out of seeing what it can do.
Posted by hasty on Jan. 17 2004,23:31
LolI've been reading the Slackware Newgroup for over four years and have never dared post as there is so much blood in the water.
Kudos to John for creating such friendly distro & forums.
Posted by peter on Jan. 18 2004,09:41
.... hehe...... be careful in irc.freenode.net channel #debiane.g. (making this up)
<Sc4r3dNewb> I can't get my sound card to work!
<debianGuruWannabe> Gee that's too bad.
<Sc4r3dNewb> Can you help?
<debianGuruWannabe> Probably. I probably won't though. Your
answer is "Google"
<Sc4r3dNewb> I already googled the error message I got
but I don't understand....
<debianGuruWannabe> Obviously
<Sc4r3dNewb> I cant get the drivers to load
<debianGuruWannabe> man modprobe man insmod
<debianGuruWannabe> and your nick is obvious and lame btw...
and so on. Although there are some reasonable people there as well....
Posted by hasty on Jan. 18 2004,11:54
STFU GAFC RTFM etc 
The trouble with that sort of help is that the newbie is often new to linux terminology & new to Google.
He doesn't know the language of linux to refine his query and he doesn't know how to use the search engine properly.
If they are anything like me they get distracted while googling and forget what they were looking for...........
Posted by peter on Jan. 18 2004,13:43
Agreed.The problem seems to me to be (at least) twofold:
1) Some people get off on being know-it-alls. Some of these ARE in fact very knowledgeable, but their appalling manners make reasonable people shrug and walk away from Linux on the (inaccurate)
assumption that all Linux people must be intellectually arrogant and socially inept.
2) It is easy, once you understand a subject fairly well, to forget how difficult the first steps to that knowledge were for you....
It's an interesting sociological study - I find some of the IRC channels fascinating just for the spectacle. It's a sort of blood sport.
Posted by enthusi on Jan. 18 2004,22:17
what a nice topic nice people also :o)
I think this is almost unique and I have s little theory for it
(beside the fact that John obviously planted a wonderful seed)
The only forums/usergroups I found to be very polite and helpful (almost ridiculously helpful sometimes) are in C64-Forums. I love C64 by the way :o) But the setting is similar: care about something worthy caring about, learning by doing, tweak the best out of someting others do not recognize as what it is. Be it an "all-so-old" Commodore 64 or an 100 Mhz-Machine...
People here are people who care about stuff :o) No "I need the best I need the latest, fastest, biggest"-behaviour...
I think thats important...
And when it comes to linux as a whole thing (DSL is not toooo big to know many topics at least by name) everybody soon has some little knowledge he can share with others while again others can offer their help. I find this amazing... I know some stuff about C but little about init-processes and I'm learning of both here :o)
beeig nice and polite IS the smarter way :o)
lets have fun for quite some more time....
enthusi
(beeing in a good, warm mood)
oh, and posting a link I find interessting
< fascinating >
Its a little pic with a german text-line but its fun for "every"one...
Posted by DStrick64 on Jan. 19 2004,02:14
Another good point. Most of the other distro forums are all about gamers or whatever trying to get nvidia drivers to work. Same thing, over and over and over. Most DSL'ers are running on old hardware that predates nvidia, I guess.:D
Posted by Stu Pidasso on Jan. 21 2004,17:01
if anyone's looking for a good newbie forum, I would suggest the forums at < LinuxQuestions.org > .I've spend my time there in the forum for the Slackware distro, mosty reading and learning from other's problems and all of the more experienced users are very nice. From time to time the do suggest RTFM and Google, but they do it in a way which isn't belittlement. I can't for certain if the other forums are as friendly, but the tagline for the site is "Where Linux Newbies Come for Help."
Give it a look if you need some help, but I would definitely suggest doing a search for your problem in the forum itself, before starting a new post. It has a nice forum search option at the lower right corner of each page.
Posted by mage492 on Jan. 23 2004,15:31
In response to what enthusi mentioned, about needing the latest and "greatest", this is the first forum I've been to where I've heard people boasting about their OLD computers running Linux! It's refreshing, actually... (By the way, the C64 was awesome!)<tangent, but sort of connected>
I've got this Mac Classic, that I still use. People keep telling me to throw it out, but it was my first computer (not counting family computers). I have more memories (and more vivid ones) of that computer than I do of many of my old human friends! I'm sure many of us remember our first personal computers. All of the computers I own (except the one this is being typed on) were almost litterally saved from the dumpster!
People, today, just don't seem to have this kind of attachment. It's shallow, in a very sad way. They have this computer that obeys their every command for years, without complaint, and they throw them away as soon as they can't play the latest games. How ungrateful can someone be?
Truth be told, That was what attracted me to Linux, at first. People were throwing away old non-Apple computers, and I couldn't accept them, because I refused to use a Windows computer. With Linux, now I can use them! And so, my 4 ancient computers (and one relatively new one) live on, in happiness.
</tangent>
Well, that went on a bit longer than I'd intended! Anyway, as for the reason I put the "greatest" in quotes... Have you noticed that hardware has slowly become less and less reliable? It used to be that RAID was unheard of. Who needed it? Drives almost never failed. Now, I've lost count of the number of people I've talked to who have had catastrophic failures of nearly every component imaginable! Still, my old 486 keeps chugging along...
Latest and greatest, huh? I might not have nvidia drivers, but I'm not struggling to get bleeding-edge hardware to work. Who's "low end", now?
(That was fun. I need more caffeine...)
Posted by enthusi on Jan. 23 2004,16:33
True spoken!I agre on almost every point :o)
Except: "(By the way, the C64 was awesome!)"
The C64 IS awesome!
Even though I dont my emails with it, or run a lightshow (well I do use it as musicbox) many people still use it
Oh, and about realiability: I have 4 Commodore64-machines... From 83,84,86,87 - they all never ever failed up to the day for more than 20 years !! (even though I didnt use them since '83)Well, one of them did quite often but that was because of me doing hardware stuff with it and all the burned up (they twice actually burned) parts could be exchanged manually :o)
But thats also right for other 486-hardware... And even though I like programming pentium or amd-specific (though I'm not all TO good at it) be honest: There is no software written for CPUs since 486!
Thats incredible. Most programs dont even use pentium I-extentions (AMD got all those included already for years so there is no incompability problem as such)...
Well why should they? : ) Its all pretty much fast enough - lets make BETTER use of what we have instead of using things worse than before so that we NEED better...
I planned that sentence to be more worthy of quoting but who cares...
So keep on going! We are throughing stuff away we have not yet explored... (something dont have to be explored any further though... I have Wxx95 in mind)
I just returned from a job I have next to my studies.... teaching children physics and how much fun it can be : )
Those poor little guys dont even know what a tape is anymore....
At home, I still store my C64-files on them :o)
(on the other hand - they'll probably get laid at an age of 15 - I wasn't :-)
Before I get too political,
bye now,
Enthusi