[wplug] Linux newbie

Hagbard Celine wplug at wplug.org
Fri Oct 22 13:52:57 EDT 2004


On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 09:02:18AM -0400, Embery, Nathan wrote:
> FWIW, I totally agree... for a sys admin or power user.
> 
> I guess I should have posed my question like this:
> 
> Given the strides that mandrake, fedora, suse et al have made in making
> Linux accessable to 'normal' people, is it *really* necessary to for us, as
> established users, to tell people that they have to be able to edit obscure
> text files, even if all they want to do is just surf the web?
> 
> Of course, there's value in me knowing how to do those things, but I'm paid
> to know those things....
> 
> Also, I guess it depends on what one means by learning linux.
> 
Good point.  I, for one, am not trying to contend that the person who doesn't
know how to write a /usr/local/etc/Muttrc file is somehow inferior to the
person who does.  Heck, *were* I making that contention, I'd be slapping
*my own* face :)  The crux of the biscuit, however, is the fact that, within
Linux, you have the *ability* to wrte one, should it become necessary.

An even better (I hope) example:  When I built X-windows, I couldn't, for some
reason, get the GUI configuration tool to build and install (still can't, in
fact).  Now, *there's* a problem for you:  No X configuration => no X => no
graphical browser => no web surfing.  Under a paradigm such as MacroShaft's I'd
have been fubared.  Luckily, however, this was Linux.  I was able to root
around and find xf86config, learn how to use it, and eventually get a perfectly
servicable /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config out of the deal.  Now, even if a GUI
configuration tool *were* available, I'd be using xf86config, because I *like*
it (it helps, too, that I live on the command line, having been introduced to
computers at a time when you sat in front of an ASR-33, wearing a set of ear
plugs :)

I suppose, then, that the matter of text-mode configuration is occasionally a
matter of nexessity and occasionally one of necessity.  At least it's there,
for the times of necessity.

Hagbard

Oh, and yes, I consider myself a sysadmin and distribution designer.  I guess I
just proved your opening statement, eh? :)



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