I guess I feel obligated to respond. I can only assume that my "naming" puts me in the basket as one of the "rude / inconsiderate / ill-informed posters". I am almost certain I have never been rude on this list (please let me know otherwise), and as I usually write a draft and think at least a little about the recipients before sending posts, then I am probably not inconsiderate. I could conceivable be ill-informed though, so I am willing to accept that tag - at the tender age of 42 I still believe there is much to learn.
As far as the specific post to which I responded, my aim was purely to counter Peter's obvious frustration with Linux in general - very specifically his comment " why why why can't Linux ever just work?" . I merely hoped to demonstrate that it can and it does, at least from my experience with Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu doesn't always work - I have 3 or 4 open bug reports that I have filed for the current testing release. I also have to compile a new kernel module for my wireless card everytime I upgrade the kernel. Easy to be done (for me at least) - but it is against what I think Linux should be. As far as your feeling that "Red Hat specific answers" are unwanted, I think that is a shame that you feel that. A mailing list isn't IRC, so even posting a few days after the original question is often still useful if pertinent. (There used to be a "I'll post to the list a summary" etiquette which my have waned of late). I have installed and used all of the Fedora releases, as well as Redhat back to version 3.0. I have also done most of the SuSEs since about 9.1. I even haved mucked with Puppy Linux of late. So I hardly believe that I live in a Ubuntu monastery. I for one need to know how SuSE and Redhat works. At this stage any Linux work that I do for customers is going to be around the Redhat or SuSE product space (as well as those things with Linux embedded like VMware ESX). I think there is great opportunity for cross-distro understanding. One project that I want to kick-off in fact is a sort of quick reference matrix that describes how a particular administrative function can be done across the major platforms. For instance, all of the distro's use /etc/init.d to contain the control scripts for system services. But the additional feature that Redhat has is the "service" command which abstracts these when you which manually control the scripts. Similar "chkconfig" exists in Redhat to define which runlevel a service starts in, yet in Ubuntu you need to use "update-rc.d". So sure, you will see some distro religiousity here, but I really don't agree that we are all that bad. Regards, Martin Martin Visser Technology Consultant Consulting & Integration Technology Solutions Group - HP Services 410 Concord Road Rhodes NSW 2138 Australia Mobile: +61-411-254-513 Fax: +61-2-9022-1800 E-mail: martin.visserAThp.com This email (including any attachments) is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above and may contain information that is confidential, proprietary or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify HP immediately by return email and then delete the email, destroy any printed copy and do not disclose or use the information in it. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Del Sent: Wednesday, 5 April 2006 3:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [SLUG] debian vs FC threads (was: presidents report) James Purser wrote: > While there is a large population of Debian/Ubuntu users it hasn't to > my mind precluded fans of other distros availing themselves of either > the mailing lists or irc channels when seeking help/assistance. In > fact one of the most recent(and active) threads is seeking help in > installing VMWare on Fedora Core 5. On the irc channel there are > gentoo users, debian users, fedora users and more. Yes, but on the majority of the threads that commence with "I would like help doing X on Y (non-debian) distribution", the comments that follow mostly include things like "you should switch to Debian". That's not a particularly helpful comment when you have already decided to / must use distribution Y. Personally, I refrain from telling Debian users that they should switch to Red Hat (except where absolutely required, e.g. to get multi-path fibre SCSI working through a SAN backend, but that's not a common situation outside of the largest data centers), so I don't see why the Debian users continually feel the need to tell users of other distros that they have to switch to Debian, without analysing the problem as presented. My experience pretty much parallels that of Philip: If you're not a Debian user then there are certain elements in SLUG that aren't really interested in talking to you, except to convert you to Debian. If that attitude were to change then I'd probably participate somewhat more in SLUG, but I haven't seen it change for a number of years now despite the best efforts of many of the people on the SLUG committee. It's not a problem with SLUG specifically -- I've noted that attitude from many Debian users outside of the SLUG community. In fact I think that it's time that a general vote was taken that Debian evangelists should just keep their evangelising outside of Fedora / Red Hat specific threads, and we'd all get along much better. >>As well there's these perceptions of too much influence by few >>individuals that alienates many would be members, newbies and professionals alike. > > > Which individuals? There is - as with any group - a core group of the > most active community members, as can be seen on the mailing list/irc > channel. However the environment I have seen and participated in has > been one of come in and join the fun, just leave your flames at the > door. There are a couple of people who seem more inclined to argue > than others, however you get that with any group and it is a good > indication of a communities viability in how they deal with such people. OK, since you want names, and dates: * Martin Visser (responding to a how-to-get-VMware-working on FC5 thread by suggesting a switch to Ubuntu). 3/4/2006. That's probably stretching things a little, Martin's email was polite and informative, but the original questioner stated that they needed to do it on FC5, so the post was at least off-topic -- at least change the subject line please guys. * Craig Sanders (responding to a post about time zone files on FC4 with the comment "reformat and install debian."). 26/3/2006. Come on guys, is that the best you can do? You suggest a solution to a 1 hour timezone file problem that involves reformatting and reinstalling? * Craige McWhirter (responding to a post about RHCE exams by saying "or even better, do the LPI[1] exams". So what if the original poster's employer is a Red Hat shop and requires him/her to have an RHCE certification as part of his job skills / training? You're suggesting that he throw his job in to do a different, non-Red Hat certification? Now this is unusual for Craige, he's normally a very helpful, informative, and polite poster, but think before you press that send button please. (Yes, there are several large employers in Sydney that have a lot of RH boxes, and require their employees to have or obtain RHCEs. Some of them are quite good places to work, so I hear.) * Dean Hamstead (responding to a post about Red Hat consultants: "a really savy consultant would recommend a move to debian"). 25/1/2006 Sorry, this is just flame bait and I don't see any reason not to target it as deliberate flame bait. Why? What if the system required drivers or features that are only available in Red Hat? Well, that's 4 in the last 2 months. Do I need to go back through the archives any further? Let's not bring up the consistent RH/Debian flame wars of the past please. Remember that it only takes a few rude / inconsiderate / ill-informed posters on any particular subject to spoil the reputation of an otherwise helpful and informative group. I'm not suggesting any form of list censorship here -- merely backing up what the original posters have said. The people mentioned above, not to mention those few others that have posted on the same lines may like to consider that it's actually the reputation of the Debian community that they are harming here, as well as the reputation of SLUG. Now I don't think that anyone's suggesting that the normal run of the mill distro-comparison discussions are anything other than helpful. However if someone's asking a question about getting something done on Red Hat or Fedora then perhaps either start another subject on how to do it on Debian, or refrain from replying altogether. Otherwise you're (a) driving people away from the community and (b) driving them away from SLUG. I don't have time to check my SLUG mail on an hourly basis, so it's often the case that when someone asks "how do I do X on Red Hat" there are several replies that say "you do it by switching to Debian", so there is no point me replying with an actually useful, Red Hat specific answer. So in addition to harming the reputation of the community you are actually stopping people finding out the information they are after, and let's face it there is no Linux distribution where the documentation is *perfect*. I'd also like to add that in comparison, the Ubuntu folks have been generally more pragmatic (minor exception noted above). While I disagree with Jeff Waugh's statements about Ubuntu's market perception vs that of Red Hat, he does at least take the entire conversation aside into a separate Ubuntu thread, and recognises the position of Red Hat in the market place and addresses that directly. Some of the other folks could follow the lead there. -- Del -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
