Sorry to pipe in, but I must. The fact is that the learning / use curve of Linux, particularly compared to Windows, is very high. I completely agree that the man pages are confusing. They often lack real world examples as well. This can be very imposing to the new user. The response "well they obviously didn't read the man man" is just plain stupid and completely misses the point (sorry, no offense to whomever posted that remark, it's very a very typical response). It's as far off base as "they didn't read the how-to's in the LDP". The point is the average newbie doesn't have a clue about these things. That's the definition of a newbie.
Now, conversely I'm not suggesting that these newbies become instant sysadmins. Absolutely there is a place, and a need, for people and documentation for those well versed in Linux. So, I understand where those with a great deal of experience are coming from. However, I've got twenty books here. I'm only a casual user of Linux and I don't use it day in and day out but I use it as often as I can. It can be very, very difficult to remember exact commands and syntax and most of the time the man pages do little to clear things up. They do an excellent job of giving me the full breadth of a command but are far weaker for telling me how to make something work. The books do a far better job but it's awkward and difficult to always have the books around. Also, although man pages are in the same general format some are pretty good. Some are... ummm, not as good :-) It has always amazed me just how recalcitrant the Linux community is about making the system easier to use. Note that I didn't say less complex. Just some way to lower the entry bar. Many people, such as myself, learn by getting their hands dirty. If I screw it up too badly I just reinstall. Despite a great deal of reading I've found very little in the way of good beginners guides (I've read quite a few weak or poor beginners guides) and certainly nothing built into the system. So, any newbies out there just keep reading and learning. This list gets fairly interesting sometimes but I don't think I've ever seen a question go by without someone answering it, no matter how difficult or simple. In fact I've seen some pretty amazing problems and concepts batted around here. Some of the people on this list are really, really good. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > In a message dated: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:08:21 EST > "Mansur, Warren" said: > > >One problem I see with man pages is that they throw off the newbie user > >by putting every possible option at the top. If a new user sees this, > >they will probably be as confused as ever: > > Well, yes, but I often find that people's problems with reading man > pages is that they don't know how. Why? They never ran 'man man' > which clearly states: > > The following conventions apply to the SYNOPSIS section > and can be used as a guide in other sections. > > bold text type exactly as shown. > italic text replace with appropriate argument. > [-abc] any or all arguments within [ ] are optional. > > So, for this one person reading the tar man page, all they needed to > know was that all those things at the top were *options*. > > Every now and then I hear this argument that "man pages stink and there > must be a better way!" > > Why? They've worked great for over 30 years. At one time I was a > newbie and didn't have a clue about Unix, but I got through by > reading man pages, asking questions on mailing lists and usenet, and > surfing the web. If I can do it, anyone can, as long as they're > patient and willing to roll up their sleeves and read! > > ***************************************************************** > To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. > ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
