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  • From: Duane Malcolm <d.malcolm AT auckland.ac.nz>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] expectations of users
  • Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 15:15:50 +1300

Maybe a set of tutorials that encompases the required knowledge. This would be a positive step. It would also be more friendly to direct them to the tutorials.

I'm still learning and it has been from doing that I've learnt.

Duane

Hamish Greig wrote:
On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 06:56, evraire AT tuwg.com wrote:

I think knowing your way around a linux system should be a requirement,
and by that I mean the same as Andrew: "We can edit almost any file in /etc
ourselves. We grok the file tree hierarchy and know what basically all the
main directories are for." Like Hamish, I believe users should be expected
to know a few of the basic *nix tools, although I believe he and I differ
on what's included in that set of tools.



I do expect a minimum of knowledge but more importantly I expect a willingness to research and learn. Some tools are often learned simply by needing to fix something and finding a solution in a web search. To me, never having learned these tools means a user is either a newbie, is lazy or has been harassing the shit out of their previous distro's bugtracker (and getting fixes served up on a rpm-gilded platter)


Its important to distinguish between experienced linux users and linux
developers. A linux user probably knows what the difference between KDE
(or Gnome) and X-Windows is, knows the likely file to edit to get a
particular module loaded, knows how to get around the directory structure
in a command prompt and knows how to use man to get help. A linux
developer would know some addtional tools, such as gcc, diff, patch, and
might have additional skills like bash coding and stuff. The latter might
be able to figure out the inner workings of sorcery, our package management
system, whereas the former could not (and wouldn't be interested to).


I think this definition of an experienced user is a little lacking.
IMO an experienced user has patched and compiled a kernel(one of the first things a SMGL-er must do), has at some stage built binaries from source (simply using ./configure and make), has manually configured some files in /etc and knows that all Linux config files are text/readable and so the first place to look for help is there.
The binary distros, in order to ease transition from a windows environment , have removed many of the controls inherent in linux, instead forcing their defaults (that they will support) onto the user via some GUI wizard.
I don't want to force defaults onto our users so I believe an ability to configure software without a GUI wizard is necessary here.


I think it is wrong to turn away users who simply want to run their
system off our distro simply because they don't do their share of
development, especially if you're interested in increasing your user base.


I think only wanting the latest software (instead of months out of date like in binary distros) is not a singular valid reason to be using any sourcebased distribution. Along with this power comes the responsibility of learning how to manage your system. A user that won't learn for themselves can be a real frustration to the community.
Hamish

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