Post #21,587
12/15/01 12:19:41 PM
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Re: The Reg takes on "Overqualified Linux Teachers" (!)
Rob(in the article) is right about certain thinngs but...
I several people, I challenge to do something... they come back and just "WANT THE ANSWER" and/or me to do it for them. At the *BONK* the time will be "*BONK*-Thirty"... *BONK* (Sorry for the Justice Friends Puppet-Pals rip off).
NO, I just give them all the clues/resources needed to figure out the answer. I had one person think setting "X" with GNOME 1.4 and Ximian as default with BlackBox, Windowmaker, FVWM (etc...) all selectable, to be a cinch. He just whipped out RPM's and did it on RH for Intel... Okies I said, great... here is a box I need the same setup on(grin):
SUN UltraSparc with Solaris
He kept trying to bail out of it, cause he was failing badly, he just never read DOCS or anything. Then a few hours later after I told him to go RTFM, he said couldn't be done. I showed him another UltraSparc I had... with it ALL-DONE. He Bitched about me having him DO work I already did. I said to him, if he can't figure it out, then he obviously is not cut-out for Enterprise System Support. That fired him up. A few days later, he had GNOME all working properly (a few trivial things were wrong), but he could not get the sound to work properly, nor could he "switch" Windows Managers...
I showed him exactly where to get the info he needed, to my suprise, he came back a day later and took my setup a step further... He got CDE to work too. I complmented him. And asked him how it felt to do an "IMPOSSIBLE" task all on his own.
Now mind you, this guy when I first met him was COMPLETELY and Utterly an M$ Shill^H^H^H^H^HBiggot^H^H^H^H^H^HDisciple, fully believing every product M$ put out was the best. He even wanted us to Use W2K RC? (don't remember which one) for prouction, as he was a BETA (Alpha, hehe, he meant) Tester, and it was SOLID.
Well, shortly after that, I showed him how I took a "thrown-out" P5-90Mhz with 32MB RAM and proceeded to out perform his PII-400 128MB with W2K on it with just basic file and print services... Then NFS concurrently being pounded on, Still outperforming IIS with throughput on Apache, serving the exact same content (static all-be-it). Then we pulled half the RAM from teh W2k machine and the Linux machine.
W2K ground to a halt booting, Linux could serv NFS and Apache, not much else though.
He saw a glimmer of the light. Soon he saw the error of his ways. And now see *NIX as the savior of the world.
greg, curley95@attbi.com -- REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!
In 2002, everyone will discover that everyone else is using linux. ** Linux: Good, fast AND cheap. ** Failure is not an option: It comes bundled with Windows. ** "Two rules to success in life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know." - Sassan Tat
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Post #21,592
12/15/01 3:04:54 PM
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Heh.. bet you Enjoyed that (too much)
..esp, the nicely timed tweak.. well, if you ain't Man-enough, sonny.. can't grok grep n'stuff - better stay with the nice toys, hmm?
I have to agree with your method. It's (exactly?) same one used on me - from the first day when I wandered in to look at our New! fancy smoke-acrylic encased 'tiny' PDP-8s, and foolishly asked.. WTF is THAT ?? Hey.. can I play too?
"Why.. suuuure, sonny. Here. This be a BCD-encoded paper tape; why'ncha get the TTY to print out the data?" {sigh} Anyway, my teechur was the guy who helped BART (SF's Bay Area Rapid Transit) get their computer system designed & working. He would *never* 'just give me The %^#@& ANSWER, Don!'
Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle.. Cackle..
Anyway, your guy not perzackly a good test case for the better than average, somewhat curious one (who wants more than some cookbooked system with a list of procedures typed out - to get mail yada yada). I mean, if this guy fancied self a "Enterprise (Oh Gawd - shades of Infotainment World !) Systems Support" candidate? And thought ... 'gosh, all I gotta do is memorize some more menus' ?? maybe yer describin the heat-death of minds, catalyzed by Billy: endless often seemingly random switches stuffed into equally endless chains o' menus :( {sigh}
(Yeah.. I watched several hours of KCSM (PBS) late-nite "M$ Classes" - all them MBA majors tryin to get an extra Credit so's to find work after school's out at College of San Mateo.. The guy was tryin rilly hard.. to emulate Billy's whiny voice too - to a T. This was pure ROTE instruction: find the menu with the cutesy MSloth-Name. Scary to watch the indoctrination process.)
[English-impaired rant]
But back to \ufffd1: Some of us (I be one) like to fucking *Read well-formed sentences* which give first, an outline er bare-bones coat-tree : upon which we can hang first the underwear, then the pants, coats, hats and Penguin feathers. Y'know? READ as in *book*-type things? er written by say, Mike Huber (?) and not Mickey Rat. (Not intentionally compressed jargon - to show how cutesy-small ya can make the file, as if all ya got is 64K memory for the whole OS and MAN and WordStar too)
MAN is a pretty piss-poor substitute. (WTF can print out them all - then in What Order - alphabetical? Hah!) And who wants to stare even more at this &^$&(% illuminated (bad for eyes) Screen ya can't take to the john or outside, or bookmark with notes or... ??? Not Me.
Anyway, it's just logic and I can grok it. I just despise the low-valuation attached to creating Any literate documentation - not so much fun for the volunteers as coding? - but *NOW* this stuff isn't just for programmers and sysadmins: WTF i$ Red Hat et al [NOT] Thinking Of?
They want to be *paid* as in profit-making, and they just blew a Golden opportunity to piggy-back on Billy's Billions for propaganda.. press releases: Install-a-Thon(g); Comparisons, Pix of Star Office DOING something. GUI acing out the puerile Ex Pee smarmy Deskcrap Face.. Yada yada.
They Fucking Failed. Period. (Do they employ Any technical actual Writers at all?)
I Hate This: it prolongs the defeatist lazy mindset - that M$ has the entire world by shorthair and Nothing Can Be Done.. Oh Sob. Oh Crewel Knitting World.
In the end - doesn't matter that I'll get my box working. What matters IMhO - is how accidentally.. that will occur, and how lengthy is the search to see the rationale behind the storing of various .ini bits and where they point; grokking the Why is how one creates an internal map - as much as the What and How. THIS we all have to do by random association, today. Unix, CP/M - grok One and the next is just as logical. *Most People\ufffd* have not grokked even One. (And no one Can grok the moving $up-grade target that Rulez, except vaguely, temporarily and Always with Great Irritation)
And that's apparently ~Why it is, that All the Distros Blew It on the Beast-XP Launch Opportunity. It's the Vision Thing. There isn't one.
[/English-ignored rant]
Ashton
Yeah, if I were your acolyte - I'd get the map much sooner, no doubt. (But see: I've done this before, and over lots of years - and there've been lots of good hints rightchere on zIWE). Rest case.
US needs a $Billion Grant: How to write for a techno-besotted lazy pampered mass o' PHB-wannabe sheep, with short attention span. Ya plays 'em as they lay (er.. lie. A lot).
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Post #21,625
12/16/01 10:02:55 AM
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Teaching, and installing, Linux
I've read the article. I don't run Linux; sufficient disclaimer?
The reason I don't run Linux is just what Ashton specified. The only "customization" I ever do to a computer is, after a new windows install I go through and turn off everything accessible to me that says "help", "Active", "magic", or any other cognate for the-programmer-knows-best; it takes about an hour with 98 or 98SE, half an hour with NT4. Don't think it's possible with XP.
I think I could probably install Linux, given sufficient time, if the info exists anywhere in the documentation. Years ago, I spent three years maintaining a PDP-11/34 with RK06s, as a "side job" (not my primary work), without a service contract or any assistance other than a tech visit if something actually created smoke; I had no training, no experience, and very few of the concepts -- at the time I started, I didn't know what an "interrupt" was! When I left, they replaced me with a guy to do my main job, a service contract, and a contractor who got roughly my salary-and-benefits for coming in half-time or less. No, I couldn't do anything like that any more; more importantly, I've done that, thankyouverymuch. Some people like to ski, some like to skydive, some enjoy crossword puzzles, and some get off poking around the Net looking for obscure sound-card drivers. I like and respect some of the people I've met in all those categories, but I don't belong to any of them.
If Linux is to take the desktop, what's needed is something that just installs and works -- no presenting of options required; stick the disk in, go away for an hour or so (I can find something to do with the time), and upon return the computer boots and works, and most routine things can be done with it. Why? Well, for the time being you're not going to kill the pre-installs, and that's what you're competing with. Most users never do an install, and never see that Microsoft has very nearly managed to make Windows installs as painful as Linux ones -- the Linux one requires more knowledge and more decisions, but the Microsoft one requires more PITA, sitting there and pressing [OK] from time to time as the Operator Presence Detector requires.
The No-Brainer Install[TM] doesn't have to do everything, and it should have an escape to Geek Mode Install[TM] for those who want to fiddle; but it should end with a clean, working computer, perhaps with some issues. No, Microsoft doesn't do that unless it's done by somebody with a lot more knowledge than the average user; but, as I said, you aren't competing with Microsoft's installer, you're competing with factory pre-installs.
And unfortunately, if Linux is really going to take the server space, it has to make significant desktop inroads as well. PHBs are guaranteed to make wrong applications of perfectly good principles, and one of those is "commonality". If the PHB sees Windows running on his own desktop, and is able to do a few things with it [not terribly unusual], he will overgeneralize, and conclude that, "Well, since I can cope with Windows here, it means I can probably cope with Windows on the server if necessary, so if I have to fire those geeks, something can be done to continue." He's wrong, but the conclusion is inevitable, and it means he's going to specify Windows on the server if at all possible.
If you really want Linux penetration, somebody should invent a PHB Mode install -- one that, in reality, is fully automatic, but wherever possible asks faux questions and does something in response. The objective is to make the person running the install feel like he's done it, and done it both right and well (the logo could well be a brown ring :-) Hand that to the CIO and let him do a couple of desktop installs with it; he's as subject to "warm fuzzies effect" as anyone else, and you'll have another advocate for Linux in the server space.
Regards,
Ric
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Post #21,627
12/16/01 10:22:45 AM
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One poss. scenario
After reading your response, I got to thinking that one of the things that makes a Linux install more (ahem) "hands-on" than a Windows install is the amount of choices the user has to make. For example:
- How do you want your disk(s) partitioned? ("Partitions? What?")
- Would you like to do a server install? A workstation Install? Custom? ("Hey, I just want this thing to work!")
- What packages would you like to install?
So forth and so on....
Granted, this kind of flexibility and power is great for the sysadmin setting up a server (or even their own workstation) but for the user who just wants to get e-mail, Web and do a little word processing, it's (and I hate to say this) too much choice.
Now, I like choice. In fact, I prefer having lots of choice so I can put together a solution that does exactly what I want. But I'm not like a lot of typical end users.
The best *NIX desktop install I've every seen:
Mac OS X.
You boot off the CD, answer a couple of questions to customize your setup and you're done. (It even looks pretty.)
Need developer tools? Insert the CD, double-click on DevTools.pkg and you're done.
Now, I like Linux/UNIX/BSD a lot. (I have *NIX machines at home and teach a Linux admin course.) But I don't use it as a desktop because OS X is so much more hassle-free. (Whatever else you may think of Apple, they *do* have some expertise in crafting a good user experience.)
Tom Sinclair
Speaker-to-Suits
"Of course, just because we've heard a spine-chilling, blood-curdling
scream of the sort to make your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn't
automatically mean there's anything wrong."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)
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Post #21,631
12/16/01 10:33:46 AM
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Precisely.
...partioned? "Uh, Ethel, do you know what a partition is?"
"Sure, Bob, this [knocks on cubicle wall] right here..."
Yeah. ONE choice, right at the beginning:
1) Basic install for normal use
2) Power install for developers, with all tools
3) Geek install, with millions of hard choices
Number 1 is the default. If you pick it (or let it time out) the computer just trundles away and comes up asking for your Internet phone number, username, and password.
Works for me (or rather, it doesn't, but I wish it did)
Regards,
Ric
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Post #21,633
12/16/01 12:35:21 PM
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Nice summation, Ric. Send suggestion to Red Hat.
Or, the Linux distributor of your choice.
Seriously, you show insight into the situation.
Alex
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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Post #21,652
12/16/01 6:04:06 PM
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Amen, brother - second the suggestion: Tell RH! Please.
Seriously. Your credentials might be enought to get it read. (They don't care about my otherworldly experience with Big Science 'systems', I suspect.)
Precisam\ufffdnte: after time-out, implement the Mac OS-X scenario (if RH et al are smart enough .?.) And that IS the proper order for any new OS IMnsHO: *FIRST* get the $&*(#$ Thing UP. Next, as you learn what Else you need, or think might be kewl: ADD that. Modularly. [the FATAL flaw in all Billy n'Bally thought from the first, and ongoing. May it lead them to the earliest possible grave - if all goes well soon.]
Couple this philosophy with the hiring of several very good technical writers - documenting all the add-in modules, why you'd want them, where their .inis are yada yada. (And a few portals - ALSO written by English-speakers and not 'computer science' drop-outs. [Hah! talk boutcher oxymorons] Let these handle links, mirror-sites maintained du jour - for the aforementioned add-on bits & pieces.)
Then you'd have actually have: Tyro, Intermediate, Pro levels - and without stepping on the peculiar talents of anyone.
Is this kinda stuff particularly hard for folks to grok, after they've run C++ for a while? Does something in that experience.. break certain neuronal common-sense connections - after too much exposure to, say jump indirect to self ? (and other brain loops)
{sheesh} .. at least in octal, ya could memorize the mnemonics - but ya sure wouldn't expecta a &*#$* User to do that. Well, These 'marketers' Would. They think their customers all long to compile; what most want is to surf and generate illegible e-mails, to make the office-time pass less agonizingly slowly.
Ashton
Marketing Dumbth R'Us Ltd.
Like too: the PHB illusion of having Done something! - goes to the heart of modern Murican sinecures for the Suited set.
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Post #21,808
12/18/01 6:22:13 AM
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Reg. gives Mandrake the nod - this week
Handles however you likes yer CDROM select set: over-easy or sunny-side up. RH gets an F.. for not even knowing that was a question, and not telling you why it broke. SuSE at least offered a safe-mode SYA. {sigh}\ufffd
[link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23436.html|Why it even.. beats XP install! ]
...even if it missed the chance to show everybody, back when it mattered - like, when they might have noticed?
Well.. maybe just in time for .NET then?
Ashton
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Post #22,004
12/19/01 4:37:52 PM
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I have always had good experiences with Mandrake.
While I haven't bothered to install 8.1 on any of my machines here, I have to say that Mandrake 7.2 and Mandrake 8.0 are great at detecting hardware.
On both my Compaq M700 lappy and my home-brewed Athlon system I have only seen Mandrake get the video card wrong during the install on the laptop. Fortunately, I knew what the correct card was and corrected it before it became an issue.
As our "old friend" Brett G. would say, YMMV.
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Post #21,663
12/16/01 8:05:32 PM
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Re: Teaching, and installing, Linux
Well, you see the GUI/Pretty install Can be JUST that simple. Just take the defaults and let it determine the FS partitions and all.
Now, if you want Dual boot, then you ain't wanting a "No-Brainer Install"™.
Yeah, you gotta answer a few questions, but overall, they ain't really bad.
Now, for the CIO... easy-cheesy... modify the syslinux.cfg (on the CD with re-burn or Bootdisk) and pass on the param's from there...
OMG, hrumph... I wonder if in fact RH could make it that easy themselves. I KNOW THEY COULD.
*note to self*: Contact RH install group via e-mail on Monday. And keep on it.
greg, curley95@attbi.com -- REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!
In 2002, everyone will discover that everyone else is using linux. ** Linux: Good, fast AND cheap. ** Failure is not an option: It comes bundled with Windows. ** "Two rules to success in life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know." - Sassan Tat
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Post #21,688
12/17/01 1:41:19 AM
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RH 7.1 is close to that IIRC
There are predetermined partition layouts when you select workstation or server install. The rest of the install decisions are pretty minimal too; autodetected video, network settings, and locale I think.
--
Chris Altmann
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