On Thu, 2003-06-26 at 12:39, DonaldKGeorgi at aol.com wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> It seems that I was chastised for bringing my plans for implementing Linux to 
> this forum.

Sorry to hear you feel that way.  I would find it a bit hard to believe
that you didn't expect to get a few nasty messages when sending a
message with the subject of "Masochism"...

Anyway, this comes up from time to time.  People have suggested in the
past that the mailing list be divided up to more specifically target
newbies, system administrators, and other sub-groups.  However, this
idea is generally rejected because that would mean that people who have
wide interests would have to subscribe to a number of lists, rather than
just one.

However, I think the main difficulty new members of the mailing list
come across is the fact that their problems aren't "sexy" enough.  This
is something that cuts across whole swaths of the worldwide open source
community.  Lots of smart people like to work on things they enjoy, but
certain subjects are just boring to them.

Additionally, many members of this list are system administrators or
technical support personnel, and I'm sure they get sick of hearing the
same problems all of the time.  Of course, some people are just
assholes, or got stuck in asshole-for-a-day mode.

A few things to remember:

1. Without a good support infrastructure (like in a corporate
environment), Linux requires you to be willing to learn.  This is true
of any operating system, of course, but it's more apparent to people who
grew up on Windows.

2. Google is your friend.  Learn to love keywords.  Also, Linux has a
lot of documentation available on the system (`man man', or look in
/usr/share/doc/...)

3. Certain areas of Linux have their own vast communities.  Laptops, for
instance, have the wonderful resource of http://www.linux-laptop.net/

-- 
 _  _  _  _ _  ___    _ _  _  ___ _ _  __   A clear conscience is
/ \/ \(_)| ' // ._\  / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__   usually the sign of a bad
\_||_/|_||_|_\\___/  \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __)  memory.
[ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ]
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