On Monday 23 July 2001 00:18, Randy Donohoe wrote: > I'm writing to ask your help in evaluating a column I'm considering > submitting to some sites and newspapers. The column is called "The > Curve", and is basically a tutorial on Linux for the raw beginner. Randy, meet John Rigby. John, meet Randy. You two have a lot to talk about. > There's help for the beginner out there now, but it's so fragmented > it's frustrating at best. But how does producing yet another resource reduce fragmentation? Not meant as a flame, really, but I see that as a contradiction. If fragmentation is your primary concern why not rather pick an existing resource and throw your weight behind it? >If you don't live near a college that teaches > Linux, have friends running it, or have a LUG in your area the learning > "curve" is a nasty one. I picked these lists because I've belonged to > all of them in my whole eight months of Linux usage, consider them > fair, and are a more serious forum than the chat rooms. hehe >I know some of > you could care less if the community attracts the mainstream, but due > to attrition and stagnation it's a necessity, and besides, maybe other > people like me, who live in the middle of nowhere, would like some > fellow users to commiserate with. So what's the idea with this? You want a quick lit-crit on it? Can do, but don't take it as a flame, OK? > > The Curve > by Randy Donohoe > > A Beginner's Guide To Linux Proficiency > > "The Curve" is a roadmap for learning the Linux operating system by > use of the information superhighway. Brrr - I thought that horrible cliche had died already. >If you've wanted to try Linux , > but don't have a college or university nearby, a friend using it, or a > local Linux users' group, here's your reasonably assured of success > chance. The column will be,for the most part, lineal, although I > reserve the right to digress at times. I will try to keep it a little > on the light side, with some humor thrown in like a grenade here and > there, so it won't be like eating cotton balls. The writing will be as > non-technical as possible with respect to a computer operating system, > and where technical I'll explain profoundly. Each week will deal with > the next progressive step(IMHO) and I will assume you'll deal with each > in the correct order. Everything necessary to learn and use Linux is on > the internet, although not in a cohesive unit. My experience is very > limited but by using the internet I've went from Windows to being able > to setup, run, maintain, compile kernels(the Holy Grail), switch > hardware, and perform most everyday tasks with Linux. If, through > inexperience, I drag you through gravel, mud, and broken glass, I'm > counting on the gurus out there to get us back on the paved road and > tell me what other professions I also wouldn't be suitable for. Copy-editing? Actually it isn't that bad, but try to use shorter paragraphs. This one could easily have been split up at "Each week" >This > first installment will consist mostly of background you'll need to get > started. If you're of reasonable intelligence, aren't terrified of your > computer, and want to give Linux a try, let's go. > I won't bore you with the history of Linux as I'll assume most > people have some knowledge of it if they're interested enough to try > it, but it's a pretty good story of a young, unintentional dragonslayer > if you get a chance to read about it. What I will bore you with is a > little of the politics of the movement. Microsoft is considered to be > the antithesis of the Linux movement by a great majority of that > movement. I would love to see someone sing the praises of Linux while ignoring the Evil Empire completely. For long enough have we defined ourselves as the non-Microsoft. The time has come to pretend that MS doesn't exist, to simply ignore it to death. I know it seems incredible to us, but most people out there *admire* Bill Gates and can't see what Microsoft has done wrong to be broken up by the government. If you are simply going to blast Microsoft, half your audience will turn the page or click away from your article. Remember, you're not preaching for the converted now! >Linux and it's applications are generally free, although a > lot of the users believe in buying the CD's from the companies to help > with development costs and a lot don't mind buying applications if they > fill a niche. You can download most distibutions for free over the > internet if you have a big enough pipeline You said that you are going to submit this to both sites and newspapers. How raw are your newbies, then? Ex-windows or first-ever computer? The latter group (and even some of the former) might not understand that "a big pipeline" is a metaphorical expression. Make that "a fast connection" instead. First rule of creative writing: define your audience! But: keep pushing "free beer" as much as possible. > and whether you bought the > CD's or downloaded for free, you can actually modify the code. To a raw newbie, this is totally meaningless and irrelevant. What you could say is:"... for free, you have the absolute right to rewrite it to suit your own purposes, once you know how everything works. And once you have done that, you are completely entitled to give away those changes to someone else." You don't have to tell them that this is quite a long way off ... >Those > last nine words probably have them bending over and reaching for > garbage cans at Microsoft headquarters. Do you have to spoil my appetite? >Microsoft charges exorbitant > prices for buggy software, doesn't allow any modification of it's code, > has licensing restrictions tighter than a whalebone corset, is > determined to control every aspect of your computing, This is broadly true of all proprietary software houses, so make it more generic > and even has a "...and one of them, Microsoft, even has..." > neat little clause in those licenses that they can come in and go > through your hard drive with a fine tooth comb(which they're doing with > greater and greater frequency these days). Not only your paragraphs, but also your sentences are way too long. >On top of all this Microsoft > has called Open Source(even though they use it themselves) un-American > and communistic. They've dug up ole Senator Joseph McCarthy and brought > him back to life somehow. If they want to talk about un-American they > should compare that clause in their license to the amendment in the > Bill of Rights about unreasonable searches. If they want to call us > communists for a bit of community spirit they should should look at > those dangerous groups like the Amish(they actually help each other > build barns and gather crops, can you imagine?) or maybe the Pilgrim > story could be rewritten to tell what pinko commies they were. As much > as most religions warn about greed and the thirst for power I'll bet > there's more than one person in Redmond with 110110110 on his scalp Raw newbies don't think in binary. And if they did, someone out there might take this literally and go postal up in Redmond. Do you really want to be cited as State Exhibit #1? > under those Dennis the Menace haircuts up there. Too much work for one > Antichrist. OK, I've digressed enough for this week, and besides, Billy > G's cadre of winged, big-teethed monkeys with law degrees have probably > already been dispatched in my general direction. Sorry, Randy, this whole section comes across as script-kiddie petulance. OK when it's among ourselves in the inner circle (I've done it myself), but not OK if you're trying to make an impression on the outside world. > The politics having been taken care of, The politics of GNU/Linux transcend the existence or non-existence of Microsoft by far. Read the writings of Stallman and Raymond, see where they differ and agree. Stallman is basically an anarchist philosopher, while Raymond pushes a pragmatic, libertarian line of thought. The differences between them are almost as great as between either one and Bill Gates. For Stallman, Free Software is a question of unfettered liberty versus restrictive mercantilism: for Raymond, Open Source is a question of building better software and to hell with the wider philosophical implications. It gets a lot more subtle than that, of course, and there are attractive elements in both. But the point is that even if Microsoft had never been founded, Stallman's analysis of Free vs Proprietary software would still hold true (and in fact he started off with the FSF when Microsoft was not nearly the monolith it has since become) and Raymond's recipe for building better software would still be accurate (or not, of course, depending on your POV). And that's just the politics inside the Linux world (I could add that the Gnome/KDE wars are seen by some as Europe vs America, but let's move on). In the outside world, notably in Asia and Latin America, but increasingly in continental Europe as well, Linux is seen as a way to escape from American domination. That's right, **American** domination, not just that of Microsoft, but also of Apple, Novell, Sun, Oracle ... They have nothing in particular against American people, mind you, but a lot against U S corporations and their Washington DC puppets. You haven't even scratched the surface of Linux politics, never mind taken care of it. >let's go to your first > step, picking a distibution. The best way to do this is to read > everything you can find about the different distibutions out there. If > you put Linux in the search box of any search engine out there you'll > get enough hits to guarantee blindness before you read all the hits. But that doesn't get you directly to the distributions. a couple of URL's would be good here theDukeofURL and ArsTechnica regularly review distros, for example. On top of that, you really should give them a list of the five or six most friendly distros to investigate, probably including (in no particular order) Mandrake, Redhat, Suse, Debian etc. If they could do all the reading to narrow the 100+ distros out there to such a shortlist, then why bother reading your article? > Each distribution is a little different and sometimes a lot. There are > ones aimed at the home user, Which is what the newbies most likely are. Don't hang them out to dry: tell them what to look for and where! >servers, security(firewalls), size, even > one specialized for music. Once you find one that seems to fit your > need, get on their mailing list and get a feel for the distro and it's > community. Here you should put a quick plug to the effect that for very little money you can buy a whole handful of distros from cheapbytes and actually try them out before you decide. >A word of advice about the mailing lists, hang around awhile > before you post anything. The people on these lists are on there > because they like or use that distro and they also are probably not > that fond of Microsoft. If you dis their distro or try to advance the > Microsoft cause you'll be smokin' when they get done if not outright > incinerated. If I can find someone to buy this rag next time we'll get > started on the resources available on the internet. > Randy Donohoe > [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the last week or three, there have been some good columns on LinuxPlanet on how (and how NOT) to evangelise Linux. You might want to look into it. At some stage, you will have to talk about repartitioning. You won't be able to avoid it, but you can make a strong recommendation that people should buy a second hard drive rather than risk their windows data. "Hard disks are cheap and even if the Linux thing doesn't work out for you One good thing - you've stayed away from the server issue. The wole server world makes the average newbie's eyes glaze over IMHO. Good luck with your series of articles, then! I hope someone picks it up. -- Michel Clasquin, D Litt et Phil (Unisa) [EMAIL PROTECTED]/unisa.ac.za http://www.geocities.com/clasqm This message was posted from a Microsoft-free PC Free Dimitry Sklyarov!
