Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 11:06:05AM +1030, Greg Mayman wrote:
> 
> Dash it all!!! I am fed up with trying to run BL blind. I wanna know
> what I'm doing and WHY!
> 
> Isn't there any documenation that can explain these things to me?

Probably not. Did you get that? P-R-O-B-A-B-L-Y N-O-T. Think about it long 
and hard. Because 
it's a reality of life with Linux. Get it through your head now. Linux often 
has very poor, 
and sometimes no documentation. N-O D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-N. Have you 
gotten it now? Take 
the xserver that stock BL uses (the xserver is responsibly for displaying the 
gui). The only 
documentation for it is 1 or 2 pages long, maybe a total of 100 words. Why? 
Because it's 
written with such deep profundity that no more words are needed? No. It's 
because it was 
created by a programmer who probably considers communication a necessary 
evil. That's what 
we Linux users are up against. It's not changed much over the 5 years I've 
been using Linux 
full time, and it sure as heck is not going to change because Greg Maman 
decided to jump in 
and try it out.

If you're serious about using Linux, you'll have get over your fixation on 
documentation. 
Pure and simple. You'll have to learn to decipher what are called "man pages" 
which, 
depending on your adeptness in matters technical and the writer's care for 
making the 
complex transaprent to the uninitiated, may be more or less helpful. You'll 
have to look 
over configuration files for comments that tell what certain options do or 
don't do. You 
might even have to look over program scripts to try and understand something. 
You'll have to 
do creative internet searching to find out what other users facing your 
problems may have 
done to resolve them. And you'll have to ask on lists like this for 
instruction by people 
more knowledgeable than you. Those are you options if you want to use Linux. 
Take them (and 
it) or leave them (and it). But don't go blaming us for lack of Linux 
documentation. It's 
just as much _our_ problem as it is yours.

James