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On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Rebecca Ore wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 03:18:11PM -0500, Roger Scudder wrote:
> > On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Rebecca Ore wrote:
> >
> > I think it is safe to say that we have all been in the position of
> > being a confused, neophyte. I did my first Linux install not long
> > after getting my first PC. If it had not been for the lengthy chats
> > I had with Chris McKeen at World One BBS (one of the first Bulletin
> > Board Systems in DelCo to run Linux) who patiently answered my
> > endless questions, I may have been denied that wonderful early
> > experience with Linux.
>
> I installed my first Linux RedHat up to the command-line without any
> help at all. Chris Fearnley helped tremendously in getting X started
> and configured.
My first install was... I believe it was called SLS or something..
anyway it was pre 1.0 kernel. I am pretty sure RedHat didn't exist
yet. People complain about the state of the documentation now,
it was quite a bit worse then. What happened to me was I had
downloaded a set of install images and tried numerous times to get
them to install. Obviously it just wasn't going to happen. I was
unaware of the CD distros and didn't even have a CD drive (they
were rather new and expensive at the time). Then I met Chris who
turned me on to MDW's Install and Getting started, a set of working
disk images, and of course the midnight chats about *NIX.
I got X, PPP, and everything else running without any help. BTW,
I'm still an old FVWM tweaker, but the Gnome stuff looks B A D
so I will likely move to it.
> I work for netaxs now and bite people who bite newbies or psuedo newbies
> as a professional courtesy.
Cool... hey, if you bite me I promise I'll bark like a dog... honest...
for real though, what is a psuedo newbie?
> > at ease with the a GUI configuration system. Then there are those who,
> > for one reason or other, are more comfortable with a text based interface.
> > It is not unusual for those among the latter to actually find the GUI
> > intimidating. Your words suggest that you assume all Linux novices to
> > be among the former. Rather than make assumptions about the questioner
> > I requested specific information about the question.
>
> Did he email both of us? One thing I do in groups is try to catch
> newbies and help them before the turbo studs chomp them. I've also had
"Turbo Studs"? hehehe... believe me, I am far removed from being
one of them.
> someone tell me things that were undo-able, as the programmer who wrote
> the program said to me in email. The beauty part was when the guy who'd
> condescended to me asked a question. I answered it, correctly, having
> installed precisely those plugins in the same program he'd misadvised me
> on. He did't want to hear it from me and asked again. The whole group
> must have had the same opinion of him as I did. Nobody else answered.
> I explained it again. He tried it, it worked, and he did have the grace
> to thank me.
>
> >
> > > For programmers to expect programming skills of everyone smacks of
> > > immaturity or the sort of ridiculousness that some artists display when
> > > they say that the only people who count in society are artists and
> > > everyone else should go away (yes, there are artists who are as arrogant
> > > as programmers, with better justification as the money on the
> > > top is much better and most artists are better gardeners and cooks than
> > > programmers and have better taste in clothes).
> >
> > Hmmm... interesting insight. You should note that making generalized
> > statements about groups also smacks of immaturity... at best. There
> > may well be some truth in these words, however it is overshadowed by a
> > tone of hostility and prejudice. Words can be like swords. Be careful
> > how you wield them.
> >
>
> If I could make more than 20K a book wielding them other than how I
> wield them, I would.
Well, you could always switch to writing romance novels. I confess
I was not aware of your work, but I haven't read sf in over 10 years.
I will make it a point to read some of your stuff in the near future.
btw, I was a child artist too. By the time I was 16 I had an
impressive portfolio and hopes for a career in the fine arts. About
that time I discovered heroin which changed my life dramatically.
> > Now you're rewriting history. Please show me at what point I attempted
> > to teach him a "moderate skill level". The only person making any
> > attacks here is you.
>
> No, I'm teasing you. I'm the resident despammer scum on the Freedom
> Knights list, so I know an attack when I see one, but perhaps you don't.
yeah, whatever.... it was the closest thing to an attack that happened
on THIS list since I started reading last week. :-p
[many lines about RO's involvement in development projects trimmed ]
> I got tired of people assuming always that I was doing
> something wrong because I was female, non-programmer, fifty-years old,
> etc. If the intention is to provide good working code with boundary
> conditions for systems it works on specified in configure, then I'm your
> beta tester. If you want to provide code that needs to be massaged to
> get it to compile -- cool, I'll let you know you succeeded on that, too.
> And, while I can make mistakes, I generally do have a good sense of what
> I'm doing (i.e., if a Gimp or Gnome package doesn't compile, the first
> next thing to try is upgrading glibs and gtk, but if it's XEmacs, try
> some variations in configure options).
I can tell that you are very active and knowledgeable. I also respect
your ovaries out and in the wind approach. And I'm sure I could learn
a hell of alot from you. It's only when you start generalizing about
groups that you lose me. I think you're better than that.
> Boy, you sure do have a biased view of non-programming beta testers,
> don't you?
Huh?... Oh, yeah, your teasing me again. I never once made a
distinction between programmers and non-programmers. I mean I have no
biased views about gays or blacks or republicans, so why should I
feel differently about non-programmers???
Ok, Ok ...maybe I DO have biased views about republicans...
Roger C. Scudder Jr.
Philadelphia, PA, US
rscudder@usa.net
I'd rather be running Linux!
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