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2008.1 for better or for worse


Zac Medley
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Well maybe I just feel like an idiot because I have to ask for help...

 

This is new to me. I never had to ask for help before, and I've been working with computers for quite a while.

 

Nothing wrong with asking for help. We all need a little help sometimes.

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You are wrong, Zac Medley. These people don't pretend to be super-tech experts, just try to help.

You should respect those who offer you HELP without charging $500. If you do not like to ask for help do not ask.

 

I remember first day I met up PC (Windows!). I was just staring at the screen having no clue how the hell it works.

Edited by Valikhan
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This is not going to fly with people who have been told that this is a simple replacement alternative to Windows. This is really like a delightful blend of DOS and Windows, which I a happy to learn, but a lot of people will simply not bother.

 

Sorry for the O/T, but Zac is spot on, new users to linux, not PC's in general, are used to the windows way of things, for many simple point a click is enough to get them by on a windows system. The same can not be guaranteed 100% for the same person using Linux, buggy or insufficient GUI tools will have users plunged into CLI, an area that is not comfortable for them. Getting this type of user to adopt Linux will be most difficult IMO.

 

I was just wondering, reading your last post, did you know where to find everything in windows when your first started? or are you still finding little pieces? :P

 

I don't see your point, most people know enough of the simple stuff to get them by, with little effort. Linux requires more effort than "point and click", more effort than what average computer users wish to expell.

 

Again, sorry for the O/T, but I couldn't ignore the argument.

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Just relax. Well will all make sure that it won't turn into a flame war, as we are way too nice to newcomers. :D

 

Well, on a serious note now: As already pointed out, there is nothing wrong in asking thing over and over again, even if you think that those are idiotic questions, but rest assured: Thousands of users have the same questions day in and day out and - there are only stupid answers. :)

 

Our problem is at times, as we are already a bit more familiar with Linux than the complete newcomers to the Linux-scene, that we tend to take things for granted, e.g. what the MCC is. But then, based on the post count and, many times, based on the questions asked it is hard to know what level of experience someone has with computers, less a lone Linux systems. There can be some users who have maybe 1000+ posts who only use linux rom time to time and don't understand anything about the inner parts of an operating system, while there can be users with just a dozen posts, but who have a lot of experience already (sys-admins, programmers,...).

 

Thus, whenever you feel that we talk some gibberish that you don't understand, that we use some abbreviations that are a book with seven seals for you, that we take too many steps at once, let us know, slow us down. We are a patient bunch of Linux users. No one will make fun of you because we all once started with zero knowledge about Linux. ;)

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Hello Zac.

 

I have been with Mandriva for 5 or more years. Even though I hand out suggestions, I regularly ask for help to problems.

 

Here is something you should remember.

 

Linux is about community and sharing. That is how Linux the kernel, and GNU the packages, originated and continue to progress.

Unlike Microsoft which is not about community at all. It is anti community in fact. It amasses info from everywhere by buying it, stealing it or copying it and then hoards it with restrictive licenses.

In a community you help others and others can help you.

While documentation is a great thing if you are isolated from a community and unable to enlist its help, it is not the best solution when help is at hand. The community "documentation" is far superior to printed word. Example :- Anyone who has tried using Windows phone help knows how frustrating it is to ever get a solution from them. All they are doing is regurgitating "documentation", they have no actual experiences of any of the problems.

In any community forum such as MUB, This one has hundreds of eyes that look at your problem and if they have a possible solution then they pass it on to you. They even combine ideas until a solution is found. Most suggestions are from first hand experiences of the responders.

The old attitude of RTFM has largely gone the way of the T-model Ford as more and more people realize that the community forum is the way to go. Quicker solutions, faster resolutions and more pertinent solutions. Trying to search through thousands of documents to resolve a problem only to find that none of it specifically fits your problem is wasted time and energy.

The combined brainpower off the community is the most powerful tool for good (or bad) and is the most powerful thing in existence. The age of the computer itself helped create this gigantic entity by enabling us to communicate easily and quickly with oneanother....you sneeze and I say achoo.

Ever single one of us has been a newbie to Linux and we still are regardless of how long we have been at it. A Newchum..... Been there, using the Tshirt for cleaning.

 

Also remember Linux is not a clone of Windows. It does things differently to achieve the similar end results, even though it can be made to look and act like windows.

 

Now you are getting to feel the power of Linux it won't be long before you will dump Microsoft entirely, not because you will necessarily become Anti-Microsoft (maybe that too) but because you know you will be using a superior product and your data is not locked into the control of a convicted criminal monoply.

 

Cheers. John.

Edited by AussieJohn
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Well thank you to everybody who has responded either with help, encouragement or understanding.

 

I am really starting to enjoy this now. I started with 2007.1 GNOME, and was delighted. I think without realizing it I got 2008.1 KDE (it's what you get at the main download page) and so that threw me a little, but it is quite wonderful. I have since tried 2008.1 GNOME, but frankly, I think I'm going to stick with KDE when I install 2008.0 on a nice new fresh harddrive.

 

Why did it have to be 'K's? Perhaps you have to have lived in the South Eastern USA to develop an aversion to seeing big 'K's all over the place, but I'm not going to let that anachronistic prejudice stop me from learning how to use this OS.

 

I finally found the CD Burner. Do y'all realize that K3D does not exactly leap out and say "Hey, I burn CDs?" Even when you move the mouse over the icon there is no little yellow window that says "Burn CDs." There is no place in the tools menu that says "Burn CDs." If you don't know what K3D is and does (and why would anyone coming from Windows) there is a disconnect.

 

However, I have not experienced any bugs or technical problems whatsoever. My only problem is being a noob and having been left alone in the dark with MicroSoft for too long. B)

 

But thanks everybody :thumbs:

 

On my other forum (tombraiderforums.com) there was a member complaining bitterly about Vista and saying that they were going to go buy XP. I asked, is throwing more money at MicroSoft really the answer? And I recommended using Mandriva Linux. He responded, "I've tried it, it's crap." At that point I realized that there are some people who will never be happy, no matter what you try to do for them, or no matter what resources they have avaliable. I certainly don't want to be one of them. Thanks again everyone :D

Edited by Zac Medley
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Why did it have to be 'K's? Perhaps you have to have lived in the South Eastern USA to develop an aversion to seeing big 'K's all over the place, but I'm not going to let that anachronistic prejudice stop me from learning how to use this OS.

 

I don't care what anybody else thinks - I'm going to respond to that with nothing other than a grin and a chuckle because that's what your reply made me do - grin and chuckle...

 

On my other forum (tombraiderforums.com) there was a member complaining bitterly about Vista and saying that they were going to go buy XP. I asked, is throwing more money at MicroSoft really the answer? And I recommended using Mandriva Linux. He responded, "I've tried it, it's crap." At that point I realized that there are some people who will never be happy, no matter what you try to do for them, or no matter what resources they have avaliable. I certainly don't want to be one of them. Thanks again everyone :D

 

Zac - from what I've seen in your very few posts here to date - you'll NEVER be "one of them".

 

I frequent a few support forums like this, and my favourite slogan from all of them is:

 

"When people work for thanks, don't leave them short changed"

 

It's rare in my experience to see someone adapt to that (somewhat alien) philosophy as quickly as you have here - that's a credit to you, and nobody else.

 

Thanks for making me smile

 

Jim

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I finally found the CD Burner. Do y'all realize that K3D does not exactly leap out and say "Hey, I burn CDs?" Even when you move the mouse over the icon there is no little yellow window that says "Burn CDs." There is no place in the tools menu that says "Burn CDs." If you don't know what K3D is and does (and why would anyone coming from Windows) there is a disconnect.

 

Excellent point - very well made :D

 

Next you'll be telling me that "urpmi" isn't a direct yiddish translation of "install"

 

Or that a newcomer shouldn't be hung, drawn and quartered for not guessing that "amarok" is a media player...

 

You're just trying to destroy my faith in the surrealism of it all, aren't you ?

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You are learning a new "language". There WILL be pain. Accept the learning curve. Once that is done, the pain will lessen. Take for example...in MDK 10.2 K3b is listed under "archiving" because technically speaking, that is what you are doing to "save" your audio or data files.

 

 

1. Post a question to this and other forums. Configure your mind (as well as your schedule) to accept a reasonable wait for a response. That way, when a response takes less time, you are pleasantly surprised. (just a litlte reverse psychology here)....remember these are all people volunteering their time.

 

2. If you can't wait....learn the art of Google. One word or even the omission of a word can mean the difference between success and frustration.

 

3. Probably the hardest thing to overcome is your correct observation that if you don't know that you're supposed to ask a certain question....how can you ask?

 

4. Avoid the temptation to distro-hop as this will only prolong the learning curve. Mandriva is not one of the new "hot" distros, but I have been using it for business for over two years now. I have tinkered with Slack, Fedora, *buntu,CentOS,Xandros,PCLinuxOS, Vector,Kanotix,Puppy,SAM, DSL, and while each of them may have a nice feature in this area or that, overall, I think MDV has the best of all worlds in terms of usability, packaging, available apps, the very user friendly MCC (which gives a GUI to many administrative tasks that LOTS of other distros don't have), a decent balance between cutting edge and conservative stability, and last but not least, an attentive user base that is large enough to provide timely answers but not too overcrowded with the chaos found in some other forums.

 

5. Have fun!

 

Hope this helps

Edited by Trio3b
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4. Avoid the temptation to distro-hop as this will only prolong the learning curve.

Hope this helps

 

I won't distro-hop. In fact, I spent some time before I even tried a live CD looking at the various brands that were out there before I settled on Mandriva. I even entitled this thread "for better or for worse," because that is part of the marriage vows which are a solemn commitment between two people. "For better of for worse," I picked Mandriva and I'm sticking with it (which means that y'all are stuck with me....). :D

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Our problem is at times, as we are already a bit more familiar with Linux than the complete newcomers to the Linux-scene, that we tend to take things for granted, e.g. what the MCC is. But then, based on the post count and, many times, based on the questions asked it is hard to know what level of experience someone has with computers, less a lone Linux systems. There can be some users who have maybe 1000+ posts who only use linux rom time to time and don't understand anything about the inner parts of an operating system, while there can be users with just a dozen posts, but who have a lot of experience already (sys-admins, programmers,...).

 

Well, Arctic just described me perfectly. I've got far less than a hundred post, but I've been using madrake since version 7. I'd say there is no problem i couldn't technically solve by myself I've been using Linux so long, however, i always seem to come and ask questions just becuase the community has converted me. I once hated seeking out help, until i started helping others with the info I picked up visiting forums ike linuxforums.com, this forum, the Mandriva Forums, openSUSE.com suseforums.com, ..etc. Once you start helping you see the value of that help and how it's just easier when you know there are people that can get you on the right track. In my early days i loved Linux just because I knew it would be a challenge to get all the hardware to work. Windows was kind of like that, but I masterd it fairly quickly and needed to test myself (I suppose it's just the Computer Engineer in me). I'll never forget compiling my first kernel to get a scanner to work. I can't even imagine having to do that today Linux has come so far. Stick with us and the mandriva community will take good care of you. Hell we solve problems with other Distrobutions just as much as we solve mandriva/Mandrake problems, so don't be afraid to bring up those questions either. You don't realise it, but Mandriva was once what Ubuntu is today. it was cutting edge and the must have OS for people looking to take the Linux leap. If you think the community is solid today, man I wish you could have been around in those days. The software wasn't as rock solid as it is today, but the community could basically have any questioned answered in less than half a day no matter how complex.

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Zac, a few comments from my point - another old timer who's not got near enough time for Linux, but then a baby girl will one day become independent whereas computers will always need to be told what to do at a lower level......

 

1 - Welcome! You've found the right place for help with Mandriva / Linux

2 - Not distro hopping is the smartest thing, if you can sit through the early annoyances and if you don't have problems you can't fix with your current choice of distribution

3 - at my place of work, we had someone external who had a dualboot linux/windows laptop; windows to show powerpoint slides, linux to show off their software. He just couldn't get his RH to display at xga resolution (1024x768) so we were stuck at svga (800x600); I offered to have a look during the break, but someone higher up decided that our IT (UNIX) specialist should have a look. Now I'm the local Linux pusher, but not an IT guy (a designer instead). In walks the IT guy, sees me, goes: did you ask Rob to have a look?, they said yes, he said, well, that's probably what I would have done....

Moral: a 10+ years UNIX sysadmin has no problem asking a hobbyist 5 year (less experienced) Linux user about things _he_ doesn't _yet_ know about.

Neither should you.

4 - read some reviews about the various packages of software that are available for Linux. You can always mix and match KDE/GNOME and other type applications, but sticking with kde apps in kde makes things look more uniform. I strongly dislike the gnome file save/open dialog, but other than that mix and match to my hearts desire. BTW there are quite a few topics here on which apps are cool, have a look at those.

5 - take your time, but don't _waste_ your time looking for answers. Asking 'dumb' questions is not a problem, people who don't like your question can always ignore it.

Asking questions in the wrong way (as sometimes 'recommended' on Usenet, slashdot and other places: just rub Linux users to get your answer, i.e. don't say: I have trouble getting my printer working, but say: Linux can't even handle my printer which it supposedly supports - if it can't even do that, I don't see why I should consider it even over my old Win ME installation...) is a problem, but that has more to do with general politeness than anything else. It's like someone coming to your home and telling you that how you live is crap without having tried it. Reminds me, I actually had a guy over at my place (boyfriend of friend of my S.O.) whom I showed my (Linux) desktop and he went: "Linux? But no one uses that crap...!".

I would have thrown him out if not for his girlfriend being a friend of my wife...

People who come here complaining about Linux generally even get help, and I think that this board can take all kinds of abuse and still get people's linux problems fixed, so it truly is an excellent forum. Me, I just ignore the flaming messages.

6 - I do hope you will start answering as soon as you find you have anything to contribute - you're a new linux user, so you'll be much closer in terms of experience to what other new users have, so you can relate more easily. I can't relate to people switching from XP, because I never had XP and I never used it (at work, I still have a 2k machine...).

 

 

BTW K3B is (was?) actually called "Burn, Baby, Burn!" with the not-quite-mandatory K thrown in, hence K3B....

 

A last thing I'd like to add is that I have an exceptional situation due to my job (microelectronics designer), we have windows for email and office stuff, but run all real stuff on Linux machines (which replaced UNIX machines), so I see the other side of things compared to most people (who can't switch to Linux because their productivity software runs natively only on windows)...

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