Linux and Windows XP on the same PC 2935

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:56:31 +0100, Peter T. Breuer staggered into the Black Sun and said:

Augustus asked a question about installing DozeXP after installing

Augustus, Pan has a killfile feature somewhere. You could killfile Peter and never hear another word from him if you want. I think that'd be a mistake, because Peter's very experienced and knows a lot. His main problem is that he can't seem to pitch his responses to folks who are a lot less experienced than he is.

snip

These 5 lines (taken out of context, yeah, but check the original in groups.google if you must) sound kind of like a combined rant and personal attack. I think that was what Augustus objected to. Also, the answers that Peter gave were technically correct, but not given in a way that a somewhat inexperienced person who's never booted from a rescue CD and reinstalled a bootloader before could handle.

Do you ask your peers questions like, "What kind of question is that? You demand the universe does as you say? Where do you get your perception of the world from?" ? Maybe you do; I don't know. Text-only media elides tone of voice and facial expression and such, so you might have meant those things in a different way than what I read 'em as.

To provide good tech support over Usenet-e-mail-IRC, you've gotta judge a person's experience level by the tone of their messages, then adapt your response to that. Someone who's been using Linux for 2 weeks has different needs from someone who's been using Linux for 2 years. If you can respond to both people at levels they're comfortable with, you can get a lot more problems solved in less time, and everybody's happier in the long run.

-- Matt GThere is no Darkness in Eternity-But only Light too dim for us to see Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong