On Friday 19 March 2004 06:02 pm, Chuck Mattsen wrote:I'll agree with everything you just said, Tom. I'm 13 years old, and started using Linux because I was bored, and wanted to learn some new stuff. Now, I don't use Windows at all. I started on 9.2 a few months ago, right away upgraded to 10rc1, and now I'm using the CE. It just takes common sense really. For instance, I just had a problem with resuming from my swap partition. I'm not sure why it was trying to resume, but it was. I took a wild guess, and typed 'linux noresume'. Then after seeing an error I realized my swap partition was probably hosed. I used diskdrake to format it and remount it.
On Fri, 2004-03-19 at 17:42, Tom Brinkman wrote: ----- snip ----->8
I, for one, appreciate your rant./mild but accurate rant The problem was and isn't the cooker developement process. The problem was _users_ who wouldn't install the upcomming release until cooker reached at least the RC stage. BUT, by then it was far far too late. This new release cycle (still every six months) might help, but I now see people now sayin, "I'm gonna wait for the 'official', 10.0-CE is nothin but RC2". If I were them with that attitude I'd keep it to myself. What they're really sayin (to me anyhow) is "I'll let some others test drive the new release for me. I'm not willin to take part in the community developed distro I use".
Anybody can test, and newbie confusion/user problems with
the distro equates to a bug that needs correction. Plus the
additional hardware base they contribute, as they're the most
likely to buy/have hardware with little to no regard for/
knowledge of Linux compatibility. EG, the current 'CD1 won't
boot' problem for some users. With 9.2, the LG cdrom deal.
end mba rant/
As a newbie, both to Mandrake and to Linux in general, I've
been a bit confused about the varying attitudes toward cooker,
the RCs and now the Community download. On the one hand, when
a question is asked concerning a problem a user is having, I
often hear, "Well, a newbie has no business running cooker,"
or, "What did you expect with an RC?", etc. I can see why some
would shy away from anything but a full, official release.
So can I. I believe you understand my comments were aimed at those who dissuade others from testing, and/or those that complain about issuses after the fact when they weren't willin to help out an test.
It's good to hear that some appreciate users' willingness to experiment with the latest releases, whether newbies or more-seasoned users.
Of course, if the problem is brought to the list in the form of
a raving, angry complaint, then the "what did you expect?"
response is probably justified. :-)
Unfortunately, some cooker'rs and developers often display the sentiment 'well maybe you're not up to runnin cooker'. Some only do so when they're frustrated, or as you point out, abused.
Fortunately the prevaling attitude is that newbie input is vital for a community based distro, and they'll bend over backwards to try an get usable information about problems and preferences from newbies. They also understand this process can be intimidating to the newbie, and frustrating for them. I'll use Civileme as an example. Even tho he's no longer around, many on this list still remember him.
Newbies only have to be willing to get their feet wet... an sometimes accept that they don't have the best hardware for Linux use.
Common sense...that's something Americans could really use these days...
--Marc
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