On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:56:56 +0100 Neil Bothwick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Fair comment. If you're talking about individual user/admins then the > learning curve of installing and administering a different OS (not > necessarily more difficult, just different) is a serious obstacle. > Based on my experiences, I'll disagree with you Neil. I had a couple of interns working for me last year. One was about to graduate from college and the other was in the middle of getting a Master's degree. Both were comp-sci majors. The Master's degree intern had been running Red Hat or something, but really didn't know Linux. The other intern used WinXX - college was teaching her Java, nothing much more than that. First thing I did was get them set up with systems and hand them a Gentoo minimal CD and url for the installation manual. Told them to ask anything they wanted at any time. Explained to them that they needed to learn Linux, but that RPM based distros wouldn't give them any type of broad knowledge, and wouldn't be any better than learning to install WinXX. They took about a week, with a couple of restarts, had them run fluxbox and Enlightenment before allowing them to run their choice of WM. Eventually, they moved to KDE, which is fine, but they had an X environment and additional knowledge, they could work while KDE was compiling. *Btw - they were also learning how to install and use Irix at the same time.) While they were there, they had no real problems with Gentoo. As part of their task at the time was porting/fixing former Irix tests to run on Linux, it was a lot easier to deal with the issues on Gentoo, then move the the tests to RH and SuSE, where all kinds of things broke. But they were more able to fix the tests because they had a better peek under the hood. While they've left to go to other companies, one of the interns told me that she misses her Gentoo system - she's back in the Java/WinXX world of Corporate computing. For training new technical individuals on Linux, source based distributions with package management systems that stay out of the way, are great tools. Even if the end of the road for many of them is some - keep your distance, GUI installer based, RPM Linux system. For a long time I used to think that starting a new user with a nice RPM based distribution was the right answer. I was wrong. It's the wrong answer. It teaches them nothing they can use in the future. It's painful during upgrades. It binds their hands in the shackles of - you will do things the way we tell you to do them. And letting new users utilize GUI based installers, always ends in - where is the install everything check box? They may migrate to another distribution, and that's fine. But they will be prepared and have knowledge. To use Holly's car analogy - they learned to drive a stick shift, but now want an automatic. No problem. (It's a poor analogy on my part - too simplistic and not fair to Portage.) Also, this isn't just the two interns. With only two exceptions - a Slackware user, and a remote Engineer who prefers to have Corp IS administrate the box, I've moved a lot of technical people to Gentoo. A few have gone to other dists, and a few have returned back to Gentoo - the others are just too painful to administer. But, in all cases, they are more knowledgeable because of having to "do things the hard way." And being more knowledgeable make them much more valuable as skilled employees. More so than any certification will. Bob - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
