Stats comp.os.linux.misc last 7 days 1112

On Monday 08 May 2006 21:50, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.misc...:

Oh, absolutely! ;-))

That is indeed what it means, and I actually remember that now that you mention it. I guess I just wasn't too interested in doing any look-ups.

The thing that puzzled me was the reputation AOL users had, as I've never come across any flagrant displays of stupidity from any of them, or at least, not in such a way that I would still remember it.

Well, if he runs Windows, I suppose that this scenario *is* highly

I take it you mean "dumb"... ;-) Well, the answer to that must be "no", actually. I don't think my knowledge of GNU-Linux or UNIX in general has vastly increased over these last few years.

It's not so much the newbie's problems themselves that are starting to irritate me - if that were the case, I'd leave Usenet alltogether - but rather their growing ignorance and laziness.

I've already mentioned top-posting. This already existed years ago, but back then, people actually heeded our advice. Now there's the whole Google Groups thing, where most posters with a problem are actually posting from Google Groups - as opposed to Outlook Express, as it was a few years ago - and are unaware of the fact that Usenet is not a part of Google Groups.

People also don't seem to care anymore when you tell them that constant rebooting or reinstalling isn't necessary in GNU-Linux, or that folders are only icons in a GUI. No matter how many times you tell them, they *will* continue to use the word "folder" for a directory, and they *will* continue to reboot their machine for the slightest change.

In addition, a few years ago, you could tell people to open up a terminal window and issue a few commands, but that almost seems like a taboo these days. Everything *must* be done in the GUI.

There is an evolution going on allright. It's just not with me but with them, and it sure isn't an improvement in their intelligence either.

Well, the rudeness lies in the verbage, because we all know that the "F" in "RTFM" doesn't mean "Fine". ;-)

Pointing them to the manuals is not a bad thing, of course, and I do that all the time myself. I've just always kept on doing it in a civilized fashion so far. ;-)

I don't think it's so difficult at all. TheHowTodocuments installed in *-usr-share-doc* in most distributions are mainly in HTML format, and others are in plain text format.

Those who useKonqueroras a webbrowser and-or filemanager can easily see the contents of those documents, *and* they can also viewmanandinfopages by simply typing...

man:-commandnamehere

... and...

info:-commandnamehere

... or...

man:

... and...

info:

... into the address bar. I presume several other GNU-Linux browsers offer the same functionality, even.

Most newsgroups also post a FAQ - this one, among others - but what good is a FAQ if the newbies won't read it? And why would they read it, since they're not really monitoring the newsgroups anyway; they're just posting a question "on Google Groups" and then check for the replies.

This is all part of why I've said earlier that there's little hope left for mankind. People don't want to learn or advance. People want to be lazy and dumb, keeping everything as seemingly simple as can be - "seemingly", because it's actually totally illogical... :-

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)