From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1I5ynQ-0001uF-U6 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 04 Jul 2007 06:57:05 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with SMTP id l646tlCi023345; Wed, 4 Jul 2007 06:55:47 GMT Received: from py-out-1112.google.com (py-out-1112.google.com [64.233.166.179]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id l646pKKw018497 for ; Wed, 4 Jul 2007 06:51:20 GMT Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id d32so4429944pye for ; Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:51:20 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=A54D8sJ9NcuSKBcuyP3vnunDCCVTwVLldUAUCDVnoWtZoR/mRdMHol8H+RJZbvR2TmZA4o0ax5WYs3xoggL0ZxJxr50Ax9leAccwcM9hwc1kBp7gLksDnBF/Uaar6fyXwm1me+nhea3wHRWWYk92fSoASGEdnCdkG+1p/kpK5/0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=TZRzSUK7A/REOktC6iH1RcDh69TD1MQMY+8Dv4uE4N37z/5bBKLY5hPUDvpbRD0AjNkdmSAvy4Mipo272QGch3pDHzIb95HywySjxHyWiNVB5HVQQG1e20lenV68Ph3e6KgaST/8VvE8u7enPfRFZ+SU0CakjTdjfpq5RB3xfj8= Received: by 10.65.139.9 with SMTP id r9mr12323708qbn.1183531879648; Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:51:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.64.251.15 with HTTP; Tue, 3 Jul 2007 23:51:19 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <8cd1ed20707032351g5e491506n8cae6a200fd66d49@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 18:51:19 +1200 From: "Kent Fredric" To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Is Gentoo Healthy? (The Return) In-Reply-To: <49bf44f10707030907jaa9f524maef27beb2a7c9df@mail.gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <49bf44f10707030907jaa9f524maef27beb2a7c9df@mail.gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: b8cb5f97-15ad-45e3-928f-281722d2c93c X-Archives-Hash: cdb770bd74a1ad712bfee9f086a137ba On 7/4/07, Grant wrote: > In December 2006 I started a thread titled "Is Gentoo Healthy?" in > which I was roundly put down for raising the possibility that the > decline in the number of Gentoo users could possibly affect the > remaining Gentoo users in a negative way. I see people leaving gentoo as some sort of self voluntary step in the natural progression of a distro. People moving from Gentoo to $OTHERDISTRO raises the average intelligence of both distros ;) > Is everyone still toeing that line? The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter > hasn't been published in almost two months. Is Gentoo destined to be > just another distro starved for contributors and struggling to stay up > to date? If so, I really misjudged it. The meta approach of Gentoo > is superior to any other in my mind, and I think it's growth and > potential are being stunted by the "we don't need them" attitude which > perpetuates Gentoo's lack of usability features for beginners. The problem is if you focus on usability for newbies, you'll focus less on features and customization, or you'll have to find a way to hide this customizability because customization confuses newbies, and spending time dancing around the lesser populace is time wasted on doing practical stuff ( While I'll admit theres got to be a half-way, or gentoo will never get any fresh blood, but I'd prefer to entice fresh blood from people who have some potential to improve the distro ) And if your introducing a newbie to Linux, maybe gentoos not the right thing to teach them. Thats why we have distros out there like linspire ( .... ) . IMO, gentoo is already user-friendly enough, if you take it from the perspective Gentoo is LFS + Userfriendlyness. > Gentoo needs as many users as possible to reach its potential. It's a > short-sighted mistake to think that non-contributing users do Gentoo And theres no point in targeting a distro at an audience who still don't know what a power button is, and are confused about downloading attachments from hotmail. Some usuability is good, but you need some boundaries of sanity, and I think gentoo is currently hitting the perfect target audience for people who want control and customization, and are willing to experiment with things to get things done. ( and if you really want to introduce a total noob to gentoo and don't mind wasting some time... your best option is to set up for them, and show them it just works, and then show them information on a strictly 'need-to-know' basis when they come asking ) > no good. Non-contributing users become contributors as time passes. > Car mechanics all start as car drivers. > > - Grant > -- > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list > > -- Kent ruby -e '[1, 2, 4, 7, 0, 9, 5, 8, 3, 10, 11, 6, 12, 13].each{|x| print "enNOSPicAMreil kdrtf@gma.com"[(2*x)..(2*x+1)]}' -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list