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  • From: James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] Help for a newbie
  • Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 20:20:01 -0600

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




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