Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo Badges

[Willie Wong <wwong@Princeton.EDU>]

On Fri, Aug 05, 2005 at 01:41:03AM +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> If you're going to learn Linux, why not start with a distribution which
> caters for newbies when making design decisions, rather than one which
> assumes that its users know what they're doing?
> 
I partially agree. 

In my mind, learning linux is about two things: 
  1) getting familiarized with the user interface and userland tools
  to be productive in everyday tasks.

  2) system administration. 
And I happen to believe that it would be unfair to force 2 on someone
who is not familiar with 1. If I were to set out on a crusade
converting people to linux, I would first give out Knoppix CDs for
them to try out the environment. A little hand holding should allow
them to get over the fear of the CLI. After building up their
confidence and some basic skills (understanding the directory
structure, basic bash bulletins; simple things), then depending on
their level of commitment, I will give them one of Gentoo, Debian, or
Mandrake. 

One of the things I wished someone explained to me when I first
installed gentoo is choosing the various tools for system
administration. The pros/cons of different cron daemons, different
MTAs, different logging utilities. My choice of vixie-cron + metalog +
logrotate + postfix is arbitrary and contrived, and sometimes I wonder
whether I would be better off running syslog + qmail. But I do not
feel like completely rebuilding my system from sketch to redo those
design decisions. Heck, if people come to me for advice, I would
probably just tell them to install ssmtp...

Anyway, my point is that it is only harmful if an individual relies
too much on a gui for system administration. People should be forced
to learn the joy of administrating by hand editing the config files in
/etc. But for someone who just want to try out "this lie knocks
thingie" or for someone looking for open alternatives of userland
tools, a pretty/easy to use GUI might probably be a better and gentler
introduction to free software. 

W

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