A friend of mine wrote to me and asked me how he could go about switching to Linux*. I sent him an email back with some suggestions about how to approach it and he suggested that I should share this with others, so here it goes.1) Have a reason why you want to learn Linux. Learn about the origins and history of our community. When you know how far we have come and how we got to where we are, you are more likely to appreciate the efforts of those that came before you.
2) Set a number of tasks that you want to be able to accomplish within the first month. Write them down and track your progress. Be ambitiously sensible. Whether it takes you a month or two, it does not matter. Real knowledge of something gained in two months is preferable to shallow knowledge acquired in
one month.
3) Document, document, document. Keep a log of what you do on your computer. It is one of an administrator’s most precious tools. Even if you are the single user of your computer, you are still its administrator.
Your “admin log” will make troubleshooting easier. It will also make the same task easier next time that you have
to do it.
4) Write down the cool things that you learn that you had not expected to learn. When you figure something out,
share it with others. By doing so, you nurture the community that will in turn nurture you and you make
sure that you have really fully internalized the newly acquired knowledge. Even if you have not written a line of code in your entire life and never intend to do so, you can share everything you know, thereby creating a multiplier effect in the chain of knowledge sharing.That little piece of documentation that you write will help somebody when he walks down the same path that you are now on.
5) Ask questions the the smart way.
6) If at all possible, dedicate a specific computer to run Linux on a permanent basis. If you dual-boot, you are not likely to leave your comfort zone.
7) Realize that you are expanding your skills and that you are likely to have some cognitive dependence on whatever OS you used before Linux.Once you break this cognitive dependence, you will be a more knowledgeable hacker, and maybe, even a better human being.
8) Realize that all operating systems suck, just some do more than others.
9) Corollary to eight. Just because you do not know how to do something now, it does not mean that it cannot be done.
10) Linux is about community. If you see a problem that needs to be addressed, get up and do it. Yes, you. You may think that somebody is bound to get to it before you do. The problem is that Joe and Mary may agree with you and, well, you see where that takes us.
11) When you decide to get up and do it, realize that you are literally standing on the shoulders of giants.
You’ll be surprised at how much help will be available to you when you become a doer.
12) Mix fun with learning. You are more likely to enjoy your journey if you laugh along the way.
13) Realize that all that is worthwhile requires work and sacrifice. There is a price to be paid for not being able to control the bits that pass through your computers. The sooner that you gain control of your computing, the better off you will be.
14) Given the fast pace of change in the technology world, realize that there is no destination. You are on an ever changing journey, you might as well enjoy it.
15) Do not pursue technology for technology’s sake. If you do, all your technical prowess and gadgets will
not mean a thing to you or others. Put a human face on technology by thinking of ways that you can use technology to address many of the social ills that affect the world you live in. More importantly, have enough distance from your technology to be able to understand that with some problems, such as with environmental degradation, technology can be as much the problem as the solution.
16) Realize that many people around the world are working to make your computing experience easier. It gets better and easier all the time. Time is on your side.
17) Join a Linux user group close to where you live. Search for one here: http://www.linux.org/groups/
If the interests of the first crowd of guys you meet do not match yours, try another user group. If there isn’t one anywhere near where you live, start your own!
18) Support free software developers. They have families to feed and dreams to accomplish just like you. They do not live on thin air.
19) Move slowly but steadily. It may take you two years to get to where you want to be, but if you do not start now, you’ll never get there.
20) Let’s rock.
** For brevity’s sake and to prevent RSI, I will refer to GNU/Linux as Linux from here onwards..
——————————————-
You are encouraged to redistribute this work, so long as you respect its license. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Gonzalo Porcel Quero teaches and writes about international politics, social theory, the influence of history on foreign policy making, the European Union, and the politics of cyberspace.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
Well done!
A good article to forward its link per email to newbies
.
– Deucalion
Except for the suggestions to keep a log of changes made to the machine and, perhaps, to join a users group, these recommendations are useless mush, especially the blather about “community”.
Absent support and money from large corporations and institutions, Linux would still be delivering 1995-vintage GNU tools and FVWM. Most major improvements in Linux have been purpose-built by development teams constituted for that express purpose. “Community” contributions appear to be limited to small one-off applications comparable in scope to shareware, and, of course, constant ranting and raving on all the Linux forums and sites. Sure, you’ll find all kinds of willing and, usually, happy people offering help. Unfortunately, a great many of them won’t know what they’re talking about.
Better to point your friend at a few good books about operating systems and Unix, in particular, followed by a short course on tcp/ip.
Good job!
It reminded of the days when I was learning linux.
“Where can I find the .exe files?”
For a smooth switch between Windows and Linux, I started using programs that ran on both systems while still using Windows.
These programs are: Open Office, the Gimp, Gaim, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird.
Of course, using distributions like Fedora or Mandrake helped me a lot too, since I had the hardware recognition like in Windows.
I’m now using Slackware – beacause it runs really well on my ageing PC (PIII450-128RAM) – on a (nearly) daily basis, and I’m really happy with it.
funny… one would think he would use the gnu fdl.
well…it’s too much…pathos….
and bye the way…much too much…
perhaps to master Freebsd you need less of this feeling 🙂
1. Plug in Mandrake CD and wipe out Windows, load linux.
2. Decide you are NEVER going back..
4 years & 4 months Win free….
MarkP
This sounds like an introduction to learning how to use the command line only? The thing is, when someone sits down at a Windows box, they know what to do. A GUI and OS oriented to the end users and newbies shouldn’t need 20 steps to get a user up to speed and working, it should be ready and usable to go from the beginning. Surely Linux with a good desktop environment, one doesn’t really need a lot of these steps?
so you are 4 years without these very nice games running with windows ?
to bad to do only serious things with Linux
isn’t at all to make people get just “up and running”.
any LiveCD from various distros could make that, this is written so that they can get a good user experience, and experience the best of the OSS world, the freedom and will to help a fellow man.
I recommend _anyone_ who hasn’t done this yet to do so.
(except the admin logs, which seems like overkill for me
I got stuck at Number 1.
This is an excellent introduction. It’s very well-thought, well-structured, and approachable. It’s not about technical know-how or how to work with the CLI or the GUI; in fact, it’s not even just about Linux. This is a great enumeration of good practices for learning any new OS, or technical skill, or, frankly, just about anything. While a lot of this is common sense, and some of it many people would never think of (most people wouldn’t keep the admin log, but I did so that I could trace how things worked and have a cheat sheet for the next machine I built), it’s a good delineation of how to approach things analytically. Thanks Gonzalo!
In my office we do a hefty lot of financial modelling with excel.
Over the years the bank I work in has developped a set of excel add-ins for specific functions. In my office we have invested thousand of hours of coding in these spreadsheets.
One may argue that we never should have gone the VBA and MSFT way but the fact is there, we have a huge investment in VBA and heavily rely on Excel.
Is there an easy way to go non VBA? Don’t tell me open-office, it doesn’t have the power of excel.
Other suggestions welcome
Really inspiring for the newbies, to give them a feeling of community and cooperation which OSS is all about. It brought back the feelings I had when I started playing with Linux back in 1997, the feeling of not only using an OS but joining something bigger.
I would add an item on the top, recommending one to try a liveCD like Knoppix before messing with the partitions (something like “be sure that you want to switch”), but anyway this is a beautiful and inspiring text.
People from large corporations and institutions are part of the community too.
As long as the contributed code is under an acceptable licence, it does not matter who pays your wages, whether it’s IBM or your boss at the supermarket. It all ends up free for those who use it.
That is one of the strengths of the Linux community, it’s a great leveller.
Was Linus not part of the Linux community while he was working for Transmeta?
“Sure, you’ll find all kinds of willing and, usually, happy people offering help. Unfortunately, a great many of them won’t know what they’re talking about.”
Quite often when I have a question about a particular Linux app, I end up getting replies from the people who actually wrote the code. They tend to be well informed about it.
This has never happened to me with propriatory software, I normally get “Thanks for your bug report/suggestion/comment, we are ‘taking it very seriously’. It will be passed on to the bug report team who will instantly forget about it. Please don’t re-send your report as it take me ages to delete all these messages every day.”
so you are 4 years without these very nice games running with windows ?
Two words: Xbox and PS2.
enloop
Don’t be so cynical. Just because there are now large corporations involved doesn’t mean that there’s no Linux community, or that it doesn’t play an important role.
Although the author goes and points you to a nice FAQ on proper posting quidelines, it would be nice if the first answer you invariably get isn’t “STFU, n00b”; or “RTFM, loser.”
The linux/OSS/GNU movement (if I can call it that) needs to grow up and realize that the major problem with linux as a whole is documentation. The docs are lacking, non-sensical, or outright wrong. Ever read some stuff at the LDP? It’s fascinating how many articles there haven’t been updated since 2001. And that is a long time.
My favorite is SAMBA, it’s crud. I can set up a machine exactly in their how to documentation and it will not do what they say it will. Why? Because the documentation is woefully inadequate and obsolete.
Seriously, someone should tell the developers that they need to update their docs on the LDP–but that’s not my job. I tried once, and never got a reply, so forget that.
If linux wants to be taken more seriously we need technical writers to document everything. There’s no excuse for the junk that passes as the docs.
And how many documents have you helped updating exactly?
Or you think this kind of things pop up on trees like apples? Someone gotta help, and if you’re not happy, you should be the first in the line. If you don’t have time or disposition, either you help another way (as in “paypal”) or wait, but certainly no developer will read your post and go “OMG, I won’t sleep tonight until I fix that, the DUDE is not happy”.
“8) Realize that all operating systems suck, just some do more than others.”
Never has a statement been made more TRUE than this one.
They all have an extreme suckage factor for too many reasons to list.
Truth is, Windows requires from me about 15 minutes of maintenance a month in order for it to run smoothly. No viruses, no spyware, no crashes. And I don’t even run a spyware remover resident – though I do scan my system occassionaly, but nothing is every found. In fact, the only piece of software I run resident that Linux users don’t is anti-virus, and even that isn’t really necessary if you use a little bit of common sense. I figure running anti-virus is is significantly less resource-intensive than running Linux with VMWare in the background.
So, not having any of these problems sort of negate all the reasons why pundits tell me I should be using Linux. Oh, except that MS knows what movies I’m watching and/or what music I’m listening to. And even that isn’t true, since I don’t use WMP.
Darn, someone beat me to it.
(8) Realize that all operating systems suck, just some do more than others.
Hmm. Well. Maybe. Maybe Not.
I actually like using a computer having used such operating systems like Linux, FreeBSD, and BeOS.
Troy
http://banther-trx.homeunix.com
guys,
Shouldn’t it be easier than this? While I might not find a ‘switch’ daunting, a general USER (not programmer or tech oriented person) would just go back to the percieved comfort of there previous OS. People find comfort in familiarity but will change if they see the light.
1) Learn one thing before any other: Linux should not be a religion!
2) Do not be that common freak who tries to make everyone use Linux. We already have too many geeks.
3) No, Linux is not that good. But MS Windows insn’t any better.
4) Live distros? That is for stupid people. Get the real thing.
5) It is not about learning. It is about using.
6) Have fun and get a life. Do not forget: you are not Linux-dependent!
7) Do not be a distro-dependent-freak-terrorist! Yours insn’t any better.
That should be enough. Well… it worked for me.
Ha, I always thought I was the only one wondering why Samba wouldn’t work the way it should according to the docs.
One of the things bothering me the most in the past three years of deploying samba in a small business network is the fear of not knowing exactly if the setup I have is optimal or not. For instance I’m not going to try to get printing up to par (meaning printserver spooling), because after sooo many hours/days of fruitless tweaking and trying and *reading the docs* I decided my level simply wasn’t adequate. Switching to windows2003 just suddenly boosted my productivity. It simply worked, something I have yet to come across on linux. Linux by default needs a lot of studying, time I don’t have.
I’m sorry, I’ve tried, but this linux business is just way over my head in the current state of affairs it’s in. Of course desktopwise it’s different, but I’d still miss VS.Net, Visio, Photoshop, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Office and other easy usefull tools which are a real asset to the business I’m in.
Moving to linux will feel going backward in many ways in my opinion, in stead of going forward, just for the sake of being free (either beer or whatever it is that the GPL is)
Cheers,
HMD
in case you find this an inflammatory comment, you should know I’m wearing my fire-resistant suit
@Warren, most Windows user who put at lest 1/10 the effort it takes to learn Linux to learn windows would know easily how to avoid spyware, viruses, and all that. Myself and most windows users I know have also never read a book about it in their life and still are very proficient. There are only very things you can do with Linux that you can’t do with Windows and visa versa unless you are speaking about specific software and such, but remember there is always many ways any problem can be solved. Oh, so would you say that your web mail inboxes when using Linux are impervious to SPAM too? If average usuers would be able to even install software in Linux then they would be getting spyware on that system too. The reality is that these users if anything are only able to pull applications out of a repository managed by the distro they are using. So really, these are bad comparisons as they don’t really discuss the reasons why these happen and give a solution they instead site a bunch of missleading facts based on the current state of how things are and believe me that can change.
5. Remember how much you paid for crappy Windows based software and cry, because you threw good money down the drain.
Like Visio, MS Office, All High end Games etc..
The first item on the list should be
1. Do some research to find out if Linux will do everything you need an OS to do for you.
Instead of what the author wrote which reads like a moonie recruitment speech into the Open Source religion.
Communicating the benefits of an OS no matter the platform will require the recipient to have an open mind. There will always be a select few that will complain about something they don’t like in another OS because in reality they hate change.
People need to realize that each developer tackles challenges in their own way. Also, people that make comments like “Linux is not friendly or easy to use” really haven’t tried Linux since there are so many varieties to choose from. Some are easy with GUI tools while others still require a lot of command line usage to get anything done.
The best way I learned to transition to Linux was to ask short but to the point questions. I also found trying the LiveCD (Demo) of a variety of Linux distributions very helpful in seeing if Linux was for me or not. I quickly realized not all Linux distributions are the same. Some are easy to use while others are complicated. So now when someone asks me what Linux distribution they should try I ask them what are there needs/requirements to be met by the OS.
I believe that with informative advertising from developers such as Novell (SuSE Linux), Lindows Inc (Linspire) and Xandros, as well as word of mouth by former Windows/OSX users that Linux will spread into homes. offices, etc. You just have to have an open mind.
after number 20, usually my head is buzzing for the rest of the weekend… *ahww-w*
I agree whole heartedly, but an OS should be EASY to setup, easy to maintain, easy to navigate around. We should be concentrating on learning the apps. I know that different UI philosophies and methodologies would take learning, but that shouldn’t take us a long time. There’s a lot of GUI/CommandLine experience out there, usability experience etc. The foundation (OS) sould be on solid level ground (which Linux is) and the interaface shouldn’t detract from that. Eye candy is eye candy, but the way it funtions is another.
IMHO
1) Learn the Filesystem
No cutting corners, know where things are, where they belong, and why things are named what they are.
2) Learn how to install/remove/upgrade software by package manager of your distro’s choice.
3) Learn how to install/remove/upgrade software by source.
4) Deal with the fact not all programs are going to have the same features in the same spots.
5) Take time to read documents bundled with packages.
Step 6 is flat out wrong. If you have a working Windows system, LEAVE IT until you get Linux working the way you want. You might need it for something you haven’t figured out yet, or like me, you might discover your printer isn’t supported in Linux, so you still need Windows to print documents.
1) Learn one thing before any other: Linux should not be a religion!
In free country, you are free to believe to what you want.
If you really BELIEVE that Linux is better than Windows/any_other_OS (or believe in Free software) , there is nothing wrong with that.
Somebody may found it odd, but still there is nothing wrong with that. Really.
To play my favorites I have to stick with Win98SE.
No way to make it work under WinXp or Win2k.
Get a Playstation.
About the article, well it seems to me it’s well done.
– Regards
– Paolo
The point is that development of major components of Linux and open source is, today, largely dependent on the financial and personnel support provided by corporations acting in their own self-interest. Without their money and their people being paid to work on these projects, it wouldn’t be happening. It seems to me rather disingenuous to describe that as a “community”, regardless of the license used to release the code.
On the other point, if you’ve been fortunate enough to get good answers directly from developers, I’m happy for you. But, run a Google search sometime, or post a query on some forum, and see how much obvious rubbish you find.
#3 on that list should be ingrained into everyone that uses a computer for any important type of work, no matter what OS they are using. Documentation of the changes you make to the OS the box itself will save you many hours of frustration later on when(not if) you need to trouble-shoot or figure out why something has failed. The author should bold that and frame it…twice!
Here is a little something for the os-fans
http://www.ampcast.com/music/22488/artist.php
Find “Title: Every OS Sucks”
Enjoy
//4 years & 4 months Win free….//
Free of Doom 3
Free of Half-Life 2
Free of Thief: Dark Shadows
Free of Far Cry
Free of BF:1942 and Vietnam
Free of both NOLF
Free of Adobe Anything (other than 2-year-old versions of Acrobat)
Free of … just about any major software program on the market.
Oh, and free of virii, too … kinda like me, running XP Pro and NAV. In fact, with NAV: Not. One. Virus. In. 10. Years.
But, to each his own.
Do you remember the name of the game company offering 3D games from day one on? Righties.. id Software.
There will be a Linux version of Doom 3, as was with any other game…
//There will be a Linux version of Doom 3, as was with any other game…//
Ok, you’re right. Dunno if it’s gonna be available at launch, but you got me.
Touche.
If you are a gamer, btw no linux is not your cup of tea.
However, Doom II will be coming out with a linux client.
The Acrobat version is not two years older but xpdf is better at handling pdfs anyway.
You caught the main point — “software program on the market.”
I live just fine on linux without MS Office with Gnumeric and Open Office but you are right to each his own.
Gaim works for my IM. I use Epiphany as my browser blah… blah.. whatever.
That is just me. As long as you did your XP then that is cool.
_
Two words: Xbox and PS2.
Two more words: Real life
Toughest game ever made, but it can be so much fun.
Besides, I’m very happy with the amount of games available for Linux and BeOS. Sure, it would be nice to have some more modern games. But the available games plus the online java/flash games are countless hours of fun.
This is very good. Actually, if you remove the references to computers and linux and operating systems it could almost be a decent guide to any project!
Bleh thats what my modded Xbox is for
, FREE games for everyone!
I’m bound to agree. PC gaming has become expensive. Unfortunately one of my gaming passions is a genre that consoles just plain stink for: Turn based and real time strategy.
Also, FPS isn’t the same without my mouse and ‘wasd’
@DUDE: By next month, I have it on good word that linuxknowledgebase.org is going to be launched, which already included a ton of very good documentation and with the goal of complementing and improving existing documentation efforts.
To all the other whiners who did not grasp the article. Read number 1:
“Have a reason why you want to learn Linux.”
If you are perfectly happy where you are, you don’t need to switch.
And half of the apps that all of you cry about are already availabe throug Wine/Crossover office (Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Project, etc) or have equally good/better open source equivalents.
Lastly, why can’t you people reply in a civilized manner to what was by all accounts a very thoughtful article, particularly if you read the first point he makes, which is that you have to have a reason to want to switch to Linux. Everything else he states is to help you once you have made that decision to switch on your own.
I don’t think people understand that Free Software began because of the need for a community (RMS’ personal need), above and beyond the need for open software. RMS started the FSF to fulfill this need. He also wrote gcc and a lot of utilities long before commercial entities got involved. Programs like gcc are not “one off” shareware-like programs.
A lot of people attempt to negatively associate Free Software with religion or communism because of the community involved. They bash the social aspect of Free Software, even while sometimes supporting the techinical aspects. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Free Software is a community. You don’t have to participate in the community to use the software but there is no need to bash the community just because YOU don’t WANT to participate. If you don’t like being a part of the community and feel it’s too much of a hassle then use something else. No one is forcing you to use Free Software. The community can help itself. If that’s not the kind of support you’re looking for then go somewhere else.
I guess my point is that while Free Software is not a religion and not a political idealogy (none of us ever wanted it to be, and in fact only detractors claim otherwise), it IS a community. It’s based around a community of knowledgable people. It’s also based on the idea that people will contribute, so if something is missing, don’t complain, do something about it. If you can’t, and Free Software isn’t working out for you, then use something else. We don’t care about userbase or marketshare or commercialism. We care about community. After all, that is the basis of Free Software. If you’re looking for professional support for Free Software then buy it. Don’t bitch because you downloaded something for free off the internet and all you have to get it to work is thousands of other people on the net. For my purposes that kind of support works out better anyway.
/end of rambling
I’m asking because looking in the distrowatch,Slack is ranked in the 7th position.At work I have 2 coleagues using linux on their laptop and at home for various reasons. One of them Mandrake,the other one RH/FC. They looked at my Slack,and one remark made me to hand over the installation CD(s) : hey, that was the way how RH was doing stuffs in version 8. I said, take it, do a dual boot and tell me. Of course they burned CD’s , nowaday Mandrake & RH is gone from their machines and guess what,they are looking forward to release 10.
Yeah I was just thinking the same, after reading the slack article here at OSNews.
Just curious (sorry for the OT, I hope it’s not abusive), but how is software installation/depedency handling on Slackware? any special tool such as apt/urpmi?
Just curious (sorry for the OT, I hope it’s not abusive), but how is software installation/depedency handling on Slackware? any special tool such as apt/urpmi?
Nope. They don’t come standard, at least the last time I used it. There are some available though. I tried swaret and although it worked alright there are much better package managers out there (apt,portage), perhaps even for slack. Slackware really wasn’t all that appealing to me personally.
Even if you use Windows, you’re still free of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2.
Oh, and free of virii, too … kinda like me, running XP Pro and NAV. In fact, with NAV: Not. One. Virus. In. 10. Years.
I used to run NAV on XP, but it kept missing major virii in email so I switched to F-Prot. F-Prot does a much better job of spotting the latest and greatest (or worstest), plus it isn’t anywhere NEAR as intrusive as NAV. NAV also makes Windows fairly unstable.
Since switching to Linux, I’m not as worried, but I still have the Linux version of F-Prot to comb out those Windows virii so as not to pass them along to Windows folks.
“”//4 years & 4 months Win free….//
“”Free of Doom 3
“”Free of Half-Life 2
“”Free of Thief: Dark Shadows
“”Free of Far Cry
“”Free of BF:1942 and Vietnam
“”Free of both NOLF
“”Free of Adobe Anything (other than 2-year-old versions of “”Acrobat)
“”Free of … just about any major software program on the “”market.
“”Oh, and free of virii, too … kinda like me, running XP “”Pro and NAV. In fact, with NAV: Not. One. Virus. In. 10. “”Years.
“”But, to each his own.””
If you’re happy with Windows, this article is not for you. But there really was no need to insult someone else’s choice of operating system. This isn’t a religion, people. Use what works for you, but don’t assume that it’s the only conceivable choice for everyone else in the world.
Free of Doom 3
Free of Half-Life 2
Free of Thief: Dark Shadows
Free of Far Cry
Free of BF:1942 and Vietnam
Free of both NOLF
So instead of having fun in front of a computer, we have fun hanging out with friends, socializing
LOL Now that’s a good reason for all the worried parents go for Linux 
Victor.
//But there really was no need to insult someone else’s choice of operating system.//
And my “insult” would be … where, again?
The tone of the original post (if you cared enough to read it) was, basically, “I’m so thankful I haven’t used Windows for 4 years, because I’m free of all the immense crap that comes with using such a second-rate OS.”
Just replying to that. And I insulted no one.
//So instead of having fun in front of a computer, we have fun hanging out with friends, socializing//
Yup, kinda like I did this past weekend, spending it at two bar-b-ques, then building a swingset for my twin daughters, and then quaffing a few Guiness Stouts down at the local watering hole, while watching the Mets pound the Tigers and taking in a few innings of the CWS.
Just because I’m a “gamer guy” hardly means I don’t have a real life. 🙂
Look, i’ve nothing against Linux, I dual-boot with a copy of Lindows, and I’m intrigued. But it still has a looong way to go to match XP on the desktop. I just get a bit tired of the “I’m so glad I left Windows, because it sucks royal!” comments that have no basis in reality.
“” I just get a bit tired of the “I’m so glad I left Windows, because it sucks royal!” comments that have no basis in reality.””
Maybe Windows did suck royal for that user, and Linux (or whatever) works perfect for them.
I could just as easily say I’m tired of all the “Linux is way too hard for the average user/Linux will never be as good as Windows/Linux sucks because it didn’t detect a piece of hardware” type-statements as well. Do they have basis in fact? Only the original poster knows for sure. But who are you to say that all statements stating that someone uses Linux instead of Windows because it works better for them are lying?
“”I could just as easily say I’m tired of all the “Linux is way too hard for the average user/Linux will never be as good as Windows/Linux sucks because it didn’t detect a piece of hardware” type-statements as well.””
I forgot to add that those type of statements aren’t always based on reality, either. (or they’re severly exaggerated) But who am I to say someone is lying just because I don’t like what they’re saying? You just can’t judge the truthfulness of a statement based purely on what they’re saying.
I have an addition to this mastering post.
In addition to what the author says, I feel it is important to contribute back to the community. Either it being documentation, money, time, indoctrinating new users, or programming.
Although, you should never expect a user to be a programmer or to give back to the community; it may proove a rewarding experience.
I personally switched to Linux/GNU Mandrake because Windows 98 se had a perpetual crashing issue. It would not stop and sometimes you knew it was going to crash and their was no satisfactory solution, except a preemptive reboot. So using Mandrake, inspite of its userability issues, and lack of compatibility was not that bad vs’s Windows 98 excessive instability. This though, may not motivate people as people migrate to Windows Xp, which is very stable; just as stable as my KDE on Gentoo Linux/GNU.
The stuff the RMS wrote is just about 20 years old at this point. Where’s the RMS-coded desktop or the RMS-coded browser?
Absent the contributions paid for by corporations like Sun, IBM and RedHat, a Linux distribution would be frozen in 1995.
I.m not bashing the notion of community, but, as commonly used, the term implies that open source and Linux, in particular, owe their continuing improvement to many independent developers working without salaries or other recompense solely for the love of open source. I don’t deny that some developers fit that description, but the “big” pieces of Linux, especially on the desktop, have been coming from developers who are funded or directly employed by corporations for the express purpose of writing or supporting open source code. That’s great, but I don’t consider it a community.
Can’t we cut it down to twelve and utilize sponsorship?
Good article…
Personally I dual booted for a couple years, at first
w/ Redhat and experimented w/ a few newbie distro’s
until some months later I found slack and was amazed
at how easy the install was. For me it was a great
way to learn how to use basic commands and common tasks.
Any time I screwed somethin up I just reinstalled and started
over from scratch. Once I was conifedent enough
I moved to gentoo where I learned a lot more about linux
and became confident w/ compiling my own kernel and digging
into harder tasks. I moved to debian for a while and
revisited slack and now I’m settled w/ Gentoo on my main
box and Archlinux on my laptop.
“Absent the contributions paid for by corporations like Sun, IBM and RedHat, a Linux distribution would be frozen in 1995.”
Absent the broad community of developers, corporations like Sun and IBM wouldn’t have even bothered with Linux.
People overstate or understate the corporate contribution to linux at any given point.
Corporations have made a great deal of effort on the extremes of linux on the gui desktop app side and the really nitty gritty kernel level.
However, without linux Redhat would not exist and Sun as well as IBM would not care.
Frozen at 1995 I do not think so at all. It would continue to progress just at slightly slower rate and with much bigger gaps in terms of features that users want.
_
nice little piece – well done.
>>”,,, with much bigger gaps in terms of features that users want.”
That’s the point, isn’t it? I didn’t deny the existence of a developer community. However, unless they’re paid to do otherwise, developers will write what they want to use, not what users want. So, a developer communtity gets you only as far as the developers want to go. In my opinion, that’s not far enough to make Linux successful outside that community of developers.
What’s going on with corporate Linux support is something entirely different.
But it still has a looong way to go to match XP on the desktop. I just get a bit tired of the “I’m so glad I left Windows, because it sucks royal!” comments that have no basis in reality.
Actually, Linux HAS surpassed XP on the desktop. I just switched last month to Fedora Core 2 when it came out. The only snag I ran into was my Lexmark printer has poor support. I went to http://linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi and looked over there list of supported printers. After checking the list and checking Froogle and other online stores I frequent, I can get a printer for $60 that is MUCH better than my Lexmark, and perfectly supported in Linux to boot.
Over the last few months, I’ve found Linux to be much more responsive than XP, and the desktop much more useful. After using the workspaces, I can’t believe how I got along without them on XP for so long. I also had to reboot XP about every third day to clear up problems with the memory and swap file. This is not a problem in Linux.
Last few weeks, sorry – not last few months.
The stuff the RMS wrote is just about 20 years old at this point. Where’s the RMS-coded desktop or the RMS-coded browser?
So what’s your point? The fact is that big products like GCC and the kernel were built around a community. Your position was that community developers don’t develop large applications and obviously they do, and did.
I don’t deny that some developers fit that description, but the “big” pieces of Linux, especially on the desktop, have been coming from developers who are funded or directly employed by corporations for the express purpose of writing or supporting open source code. That’s great, but I don’t consider it a community.
What about the kernel? There have been pieces of code added by corporations, but not too much that would affect the average desktop user.
That’s the point, isn’t it? I didn’t deny the existence of a developer community. However, unless they’re paid to do otherwise, developers will write what they want to use, not what users want. So, a developer communtity gets you only as far as the developers want to go. In my opinion, that’s not far enough to make Linux successful outside that community of developers.
What’s going on with corporate Linux support is something entirely different.
This discussion isn’t about whether or not Linux becomes successful outside the community of developers. You’re changing the subject. The original subject was about how to switch to Linux. My reply was just a reply to people bashing the community.
I think you missed the entire point of my last post. We don’t care if Linux becomes more succesful outside the community. The GPL, and hence Linux, is about the community, not success, or marketshare, or money.
Besides all that nonsense, no one ever said that a corporation couldn’t be a part of the community. If they develop software under the GPL then they are a part of the community. The rules of the game (with the GPL) are the same for people and corporations.
>>”We don’t care if Linux becomes more succesful outside the community. The GPL, and hence Linux, is about the community, not success, or marketshare, or money.”
What “we” are you talking about? Developers? A Linux controlled by developers will revert to a ghetto OS for developers only.
I’ve always found that kind of sentiment — “We don’t care if Linux…” — obnoxious because it implies ownership by developers. It implies that only developers have a right to determine what Linux becomes. In truth, the only people with a real right to determine the future of Linux are the users, to whom smart developers ought to pay attention.
If Linux is to survive, it has to become successful, gain marketshare, and make money.
I’ve always found that kind of sentiment — “We don’t care if Linux…” — obnoxious because it implies ownership by developers. It implies that only developers have a right to determine what Linux becomes.
Exactly right. Only developers have the right to determine what Linux becomes because only developers put in the work. We’re not there to make money. If you’re not happy with a free product then don’t use it. Don’t complain because your free OS doesn’t do everything you want it to do. You have no right to demand things be changed when you aren’t willing to change it yourself, which we afford you every opportunity to do.
If you haven’t noticed those programs do belong to the developers. We still use copyright. We still license the software. Why should joe shmoe have any say in what I code in my free time. If the code is good, people will use it, if people use it, people will fix it, if people fix it, it will get better. If it gets good enough corporations will sponsor it, or me, or both. Problem solved. If this never happened then Linux would not be as advanced as it is today but people would still be using it, just as people used it years ago when there were less features.
If Linux is to survive, it has to become successful, gain marketshare, and make money.
Bull. It survived fine for years without money. Linux will keep moving even if all the corporations that sponser its development go under. Of course development will be slower but unlike propietary software, the death of the company that produced it has no effect on its lifespan.
>>If Linux is to survive, it has to become successful, gain marketshare, and make money.
Says who?
Certainly not Linus. I just finished reading “Just For Fun”, his Linuxography. (By the way, GREAT read! Funny, sometimes light, sometimes quite philosophical, loaded with lots of insider thoughts about Linux and Open Source…)
If you’re thinking that the definition of “survival” is “the elimination of MacroPlush, you’re completely dead wrong. And that’s NOT my opinion, it’s logical fact. An Open OS does not need to supplant another OS to “survive”. It’s OPEN. It’s FREE – it simply is not bound by the same economic rules to which proprietary systems are tied.
Linux will survive as long as people are interested in using it. Period. Once something else comes along that is more interesting to the current users of Linux, they’ll switch.
(personally, I don’t see that happening… due to the fact that since Linux is free and open, if someone sees a functionality that they think is more interesting that Linux currently has, they can always incorporate the concept itself.)
G.B.Y.L.B.T, PastorEd
One only has to look at http://www.groklaw.net to see that the Linux community is alive and well.
I myself feel part of this community. I file bug reports, I answer newbie questions when they’re asked, I donate money to open-source software and I try to tell people about Linux and OSS in general. There are a lot of people like me, some users, some developers, others somewhere in between. That is what a community is.
It just so happens that a lot of corporate interest has gone into open source. That’s only natural, as it makes economic sense for pretty much everyone save Microsoft and Sun. As vendors of proprietary OSes (not proprietary software, though MS must surely worry about that too), they have the most to lose from Linux. But the fact that open source has a lot of corporate supporters now doesn’t mean the community doesn’t exist.
And stop being so condescending about it.
(As a side note, looking on Google for Linux help is actually quite effective once you figure out how to look for it – I myself was a UNIX/Linux neophyte just two and a half years ago, and most of what I’ve learned I found by googling.)
Please take note that ‘virii’ is not a word. Using it to mean ‘viruses’ just makes you look silly.
Read on: http://spl.haxial.net/viruses.html
I looked it up in my Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. He’s right – it’s “viruses,” not “virii.” Learn something new every day…
You may find this thread I started helpful which is full of useful links for playing games on Linux.
Games on Linux: http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75640
That’s the point, isn’t it? I didn’t deny the existence of a developer community. However, unless they’re paid to do otherwise, developers will write what they want to use, not what users want.
No that is not the point and that is not what you said.
You said that linux would be stuck back in the mid 90’s had it not been for corporate contributions. That is pure nonsense.
The developer/user community of linux and BSD for that matter works very hard and contributes more because of well sheer numbers than the corporations.
The corporations primarily working at the extremes of gui app and low-level kernel contribs to the community. Listen, I am glad they see the potential of the OS and its worth. I am glad they are out there.
I am glad for Evolution, IBM and Redhat contrib’ed kernel work and a bunch of other work.
But…..
That does not mean that the OS would have been stuck or even that the pace of development would have been slow by any means.
Re-defining what you already said and couching your statements in after the fact nuances does not change the sheer hyperbole of your original statement.
you seem to share in a common attitude that developers for free software owe you something. what have you done to help them? nothing. what have they done to help you? given you a program with rights to the level that you had written it yourself.
linux is in the control of the developers, and alwas has been. descisisions are made on the lkml, not in a corporate boardroom. sure, ibm contributes to the kernel, but they do not control it. read a few mailing lists, watch descisions being made, and then tell me its not the developers making them.
WineX 4.0 came out yesterday, and it supports DirectX 9.0, so a whole lot of new games will work:
Max Payne 2
Battlefield 1942
Battlefield Vietnam
Medal of Honor
Diablo II
EverQuest
Star Wars Galaxies
City of Heroes
World of Warcraft
etc.
I’m pretty excited because I’m on the World of Warcraft beta program. I’m going to test it first thing when I get home tonight! (If I can download it – looks like TransGaming has been Slashdotted…)
Statements that developers “own” Linux are simply arrogant. If I wanted to use FVWM and emacs, I suppose I might settle for the kind of product that developers turn out. If I want to use something that actually begins to meet my needs, I’m going to spend some cash and buy a distribution that includes the tools and the interfaces that exist because corporate support and money made them possible. Those are precisely the kind of things that were not happening when developers were busy developing programs only developers would use.
I don’t think developers owe me anything. (However, the business that sells me a shrinkwrapped version of Linux does owe me something.) I just hold the opinion that developers write programs that developers want to use, not real users. I’m not a developer, so compilers and other development tools are of no more interest to me than the tools used by the guy that fixes my car. My interest, in both examples, is what’s produced for my use by someone using those tools.
It’s obvious, even from the statements in this thread, that left to their own devices, developers would not be interested in turning Linux into an OS that’s attractive to normal desktop users.
You forget a very basic fact: developers are users too. Being a developer doesn’t automatically mean that you don’t care about things like UI, features, etc.
Case in point: K3B, one of the best CD burning apps on any platform. A small team of non-corporate developers is behind it, and yet it is very usable.
Ah, I don’t know why I bother, it’s clear you’ve made up your mind on this issue, and that you are busy pushing your agenda. Whatever.
What’s funny about your statement is that I find that community driven distros are actually better on the desktop than commercial distros. The only thing that seems to be lacking is installers, which would be trivial to port to a community distro (and it has been done). I spent the last six months trying out commercial distros with my brother, who is not tech savvy at all. I wanted something easy for him to use. It turns out that for everyday desktop things (movies, music, internet, email), the community distros are so much better. You can easily get all the codecs and graphics drivers to work. It was a much bigger pain to do on Suse, Redhat, and Mandrake than it was on either Slack or Gentoo.
Statements that developers “own” Linux are simply arrogant. If I wanted to use FVWM and emacs, I suppose I might settle for the kind of product that developers turn out.
It’s funny that you mention those two programs since they are both two of the most extensible and configurable programs that are out there. They are very powerful. If you want to use an easier desktop and editor (try nedit and xfce) those options are there too.
It’s not arrogant to say that developers own linux. It’s arrogant to demand that developers make programs that suit your needs for free. Think about it.
I think this site, with it’s nice mix of OS folks of all stripes and degrees, might make a good resource for anybody in the psychology field. Both sides accuse each other of “religon”. It’s too bad there’s little to offer as far as reasonable comments on the article.
I think the author is right, if not in detail, than in spirit. You need to approach anything new with a bit of calm understanding, OS or otherwise. I can’t help but laugh when I see “atheists” complain about “religious zealots”, then in the next breath, proclaim their everlasting love of their deity. Besides, a lot of times, it’s mood related. People go overboard all too often, no matter the discussion, when they feel the need to be right. I’ve never really understood it, but I’ve done it myself.
I prefer Linux, but I don’t have a really good soundbite for why. It’s a conglomeration of reasons. MS’s business practices and tactics play a good part. My need to have some illusion of control over the items I’ve purchased and paid for (a reason why I don’t buy DVD’s, and my player was a gift from a relative), despite the fact that I’ll probably never “dive into the code”, at least I can, if I so desire to do so someday. However, my need to tinker, more than anything, is the reason why I like Linux. Not, as mentioned above, the need to tinker with the code, but the need to tinker with the system. Most/all configuration files are text, so even if I don’t alter them (GUI or by hand), at least I can passively observe what’s happening, and why.
The other reasons are practical on some level, but the biggest is simply satisfaction with Linux. I haven’t been able to tinker it into absolute oblivion, despite my best drunken attempts, because there always seems to be someone who’s beat me to it, and figured out a way to help me fix my own failures.
Yes, I think that narrows it down better than anything else. With Linux, the “problems” are my own. I don’t know enough, I approached the problem incorrectly, I overextended my abilities. Some people may see this as a weakness with Linux. However, these are problems I can fix, given a little time and help, which the community readily supplies.
I can’t do this with a community which makes reboot/reinstall their motto. There is no logical reason in the world why a user should have to reinstall everything they use, simply because a program isn’t working right. There is also no good reason for MS to cripple DOS features of windows. If anything, they should have enhanced it along with Windows. If nothing else, it would be an unneeded safety net, there “just in case”, but ready for the work if needed, with everything you need to get your system back to par.
Some will argue that it’s not like that, if you have the skills. That’s fine, but most people can’t afford a few grand every couple years for each product they happen to use. They shouldn’t be punished for it.
So, am I “religious”? Maybe, but to myself, I’m just disappointed with MS. I backed them when they were barely a company. Then they went public, and they grew, becoming better in the process. Then they reached dominance, and gave up caring. Finally, they’ve become so filled with expectations and assumptions, they’ve become abusive.
In some ways, it’s like a domestic abuse situation. Linux users are watching from the sidelines (in the manner that it would be easy enough to just ignore the effects MS is having on their own users), trying to talk someone out of their problematic situation, but after spending a few hours under our roof, they’re begging to go back, and when we try and debate it, they get angry at us. Then, out of frustration and fear, we get a little nutty sounding. As long as the abuser is apologetic, we’re the nuts, knowing full well that it will continue to happen, until it reaches one of two outcomes. The person will finally escape the situation, or they will become a shadow of their potential, with just enough strength to crawl through their daily chores.
So, I extend my apologies on behalf of those of us who want to see you go beyond the cage that MS has tried to build around you.
All I can suggest, being a Linux user for the past few years (I use MS boxes on occasion, and to be honest, I’m usually tempted to load OSS software to make it run better, something that isn’t always an option), is that you offer your input to the folks at OpenOffice, or another OSS office suite. You say Excel is more powerful, offer areas of improvement, items that are specific to your needs. Just because OO isn’t ready for you now, doesn’t mean you can’t have a say in it’s direction in the future.
Being a MS user doesn’t exclude you from OSS, it actually makes your opinions more valuable to the community. I’ve been using Staroffice/OO for a couple years now (before Sun bought StarOffice), so I, like many users, are amazed by it’s improvement. It’s hard for me to fault a project that has come so far in so short a time, and also means I’ve found ways to work around defienciencies, so sometimes I’m just happy that I can work, and don’t think too much about the workarounds. However, you’re in a good position to see problems with the software. As long as you’re not hostile towards the project/developers, you should feel free to express your suggestions.
This hold true for any of you that have ideas for improvements that are keeping you away from OSS. While no one can promise you instant gratification, it’s a process that has long term benefits that are second to none.
As far as Excel/VBA, I don’t have a clue. My feeling is, as both are held by the same company (as well as your OS), there is little chance of a practical, easy-to-implement solution. Even if one exists, it might not be worth it to implement it, as MS has a nasty way of looking for key bits of code, and disabling them. (DR-DOS was a good example, by far not the only one.)
I have been working with computers about 15 years, I recently bought 5 books of Linux you know those 500+ pages books. I really wanted to get started but man when it came to Linux I was totally lost. I got very confused with the books I was reading….I got frustrated and dumped them on my dust colectibles….!!
Two days later I sat on my butt and googled the net, I came across of one of the best ever written documentation, It is Agustin’s Linux Manual it is totally free. I can’t belive how such good docs are outhere for free! After reading a while I found out that these docs came from nothing else than http://www.netcontrol.org, oh yeah you can find the e-books here http://www.geocities.com/webreplicator/ I am going to take secutity with them on July the 5th I hope I can keep you posted and see how it goes….Thank you for such good documentation Mr. Velasco!
I almost bought the book store and still couldn’t solve my problem. I search the net and came across this Agustin’s Linux Manual written by Agustin Velasco, his manuals are owsome completely step by step….I can’t belive how docs like this can be free when you go to the book stores and pay over 50 bucks per book. Oh, yes you can download these ebooks here http://www.geocities.com/webreplicator/
Mr.Velasco if some day you come across this note, I really want to tank you for putting such great work to the public, I hope they grow to appreciate it.
Thank you,
Robert
This article is completely useless and pointless.
There is no information AT ALL as to which steps to take, which are easiest for new users and which are harder, which things not to get started with early on etc.
I run Debian, Slack and Fedora 1+2 (daily basis, separate machines), and have become rather proficient at working with linux. Started out with Debian for 4 years ago and I remember those days like it was yesterday. Some notion as to where to start would have been a gift from the gods. For one thing, I wouldn’t have broken a toe kicking a miditower case across the room after trying to take on too difficult a task too early on.
It would be interesting to hear from others what they think would be a good roadmap into the Linux OS, instead of reading “20 ways to tell people how to act/think”
What annoys me most about this article and most of the comments to it, is the way it shows how many(most?) linux users are just unbelievable full of themselves and are more dedicated to stroking their ego than to actually supporting each other and potential newcomers (the actual thing the ‘community’ claims to be so proud of). Why must being a linux user apparently mean we have to be inherently condescending and biased (the actual thing we tend to hold against others)?
When will the linux community take off its high hat?