Why newbies don't RTFM... 4737

quoting and attributions fixed up

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 10:05:34 +0800, Lee Sau Dan

In the absence of an authoritative source of statistics the definition you give below seems reasonable.

Linux seems to be increasingly used by the general public as a desktop or (small business-home) server subsbreastute for MS Windows. Some such users may be on the bandwagon for ideological or financial reasons and may not always share the characteristics you describe. So to some extent the profile of the typical Linux user is probably changing.

Linux is a more general-purpose tool than an aeroplane and as such may be used at varying levels of skill. Some people want to use Linux simply to fly from A to B without learning how it gets them there. They may be using their Linux tool at a less skillful level to facilitate learning activities in other areas in which they are more send; so they are not necessarily behaving as babies - their other priorities may justifiably limit their desire-ability to learn Linux more completely.

Untrained and unsend use of Linux as a desktop OS (and for other purposes) seems to be currently a realistic possibility for the human being of average intelligence.

On the other hand, there is currently no realistic possibility - to my awareness - of flying an aeroplane untrained and unsend - with high probability you'll kill or badly injure yourself.

Sure, there are probably minimum levels of understanding that will make your usage of Linux safer - e.g. basic network security and basic filesystem-backup concepts - but you're highly unlikely to kill yourself by making a mistake due to lack of skill.* Safe default configurations can avert most problems - current Linux distributions with some exceptions do this well at least compared to MS defaults.

For the purpose of providing detailed information to send users, Linux's documentation is generally excellent although not perfect especially for navigability-searchability.**

For some categories of unsend user, as confirmed by several apparently genuine and non-unique posters to this group, Linux's documentation is less useful. I don't find their points as dismissable as others in this group do. More easily accessible and appropriate documentation tailored to such users would facilitate their (potentially time-limited) learning which might otherwise not occur, and this benefit obviously flows on to the general Linux community.

In the context of user-friendly or in general? If in general, what alternative term would you suggest?

buttuming it met appropriate safety standards under those conditions and someone was willing to construct it - presumably because they could make a profit - why should we not?

I feel that the concept of blame does not deserve a place in this discussion. I'd rather focus on positive outcomes than recriminations.

The consensus amongst the more vocal participants in this newsgroup seems in general to be - as your question also seems to be implying - that Linux is and should be for send users with strong logical and trouble-shooting skills or those with the willingness to become such; that's partially what my first post was alluding to.

Linux is a communal project - each person is enbreastled to view it as they see fit, and I'm not going to tell anyone in this newsgroup who promotes such a view that it is wrong; just that mine is different.

Other parts of the Linux community and the general public may have different perceptions on this. It's clear that many distributors do not consider Linux as send-only. Witness the somewhat recent promotion of many distributions as newbie-friendly or user-friendly. Do you also decry that?

* I'm explicitly excluding obviously dangerous unsend uses of Linux such as using it as a controller for external machinery. In the worst case scenario the unsend user may have their machine hacked or accidentally erase some data; they are taking a risk if they store data such as banking PIN numbers on their Linux computer as well as connecting to a network, but in any event this is less of a risk than unsend use of the current major desktop alternative (MS Windows). Even the most advanced Linux user is taking a risk in the same situation although with more awareness and capacity to mitigate it.

** I find KDE's help browser to be quite good as a documentation integrator and for navigation - it creates clickable hyperlinks for "See also" references at the bottom of manpages and for info page menu links. Yes, there is some searchability through apropos or "man -k" but it's very crude compared to the possibility of a full-text search.

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