[ILUG] Favourite flavours

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Timothy Murphy (tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie):

> I've been very impressed with the quantity and quality of advice
> given on the fedora-list mailing-list/newsgroup .
> (I read it as a gmane newsgroup.)

Yes.  The Fedora community has much to be proud of, and I salute them.

> Most of the issues that arise are not distribution-specific,
> as you say - but I like to be told exactly what to do
> ("go to $HOME/.kde/share/config/... and edit ...")
> and that does tend to depend on the distribution.

You may "like to be told" that, but it's not good for you.  ;->

I mean that semi-seriously:  Even something like KDE configuration is
not particularly distribution-specific.  (Remember, you're changing
topics in mentioning it, since you were speaking of hardware problems a
moment ago.)  So, your $HOME/.kde/share/config/ example doesn't actually
support your point.

That having been said, I _deliberately_ try to keep my solutions to
people's problems as non-distro-specific as is feasible -- in most cases -- 
for multiple reasons, and I really don't give a damn if that conflicts
with the querent's desire for a rote-recipe quick-fix.

_That_ is the sense in which I mean "it's not good for you":  If I give
you a quick-fix rote solution to your problem that teaches you little or
nothing about -how- to solve such problems, then the odds are that
you'll be back with the same or near-identical questions, continually,
thereafter.  You will not have really benefitted meaningfully, over the
long term.  Furthermore, *I* will not have achieved _my_ primary goal,
which wasn't so much to make your immediate problem go away as to help
others learn and further the Linux community's understanding, in the
same way I was helped in my day.

So, when people tell me they don't like the fact that my answers require
them to understand what they're doing, and that they'd prefer simple
numbered-step recipes, I advise them that they're welcome to seek help
from others, and good luck.  I'd rather spend my time helping those
looking to help themselves, and to learn.

> Anyway, my advice to any newbie would be to try a Knoppix CD to see if
> Linux runs on the machine in question,

...and moreover, to document the drivers and chipsets, courtesy of
Knoppix's excellent autoprobing.

> and if it does to install Fedora-2 -

I would not.  I respect Fedora, but it's suboptimal for novices.

Your Mileage May Differ<tm>.

-- 
Cheers,             "Don't use Outlook.  Outlook is really just a security
Rick Moen            hole with a small e-mail client attached to it."
rick at linuxmafia.com                        -- Brian Trosko in r.a.sf.w.r-j