Properly describing the modern linux community.

[FancyPants101]

I just figured out the correct analogy.

 

A penguin holds a fish and wishes to give it too you. You take it. You then spot and look over at a bunch of fishing equipment in the background. The penguin looks at you. Then looks at the equipment. He then looks at you again and shakes his head no gently and tries to act like it isn't there. Other penguins start moving around fake scenery to hide the equipment.

 

Because: Linux community. Giving a man a fish since the turn of the century. The rise of the millennial penguin!

[FancyPants101]

No.

 

Edit: If that statement can cause a flame war that statement is completely justified.

[themctipers]

[Mira Yurizaki]

Isn't this most of the so-called "PC enthusiast" community?

[FancyPants101]

I think that pic misses the point. The point is that those in the linux community, especially the new higher up ones, don't understand what information is needed for someone to learn something correctly(completely). You can't have partial information and guess work and trial and error. That is stupid and why the community is completely lacking in knowledge today. What you need is a dedication to teaching how things work completely and making sure such information is completely available at all times. This means you need to teach down to the electrical engineering side(or further is possible) and not just some diagram showing a generic description of what is going on. That is improper and ensures no one learns to completely understand the subject. This is something that changed since around the turn of the century. Before that you were expected to learn things and there was information at that depth and more and you couldn't avoid it. It was reasonable. and as in an intelligent(educated) reasonable environment with abundant information people are more willing to help. This is because when you have enough you are willing to give to others as it is easy and you have spare(IE they actually had the capacity to.). Now people mindlessly repeat older statement they don't understand and tell people to learn things without reasonable or even available information and have destroyed decades of prior work making and maintaing documentation and information for everyone to learn from. Basically today too many people don't understand what it took for them to learn that info or what it took for the person who told them to learn it and think everyone should be able to just do it out of thing air like it takes no work or specific information to do so. This is completely against all ethics in the programming community and it is supposed to and must be.

 

We went from an age of wonder where everyone knew how to and always used a computer documentation to it's fullest extent(links, crosswebpage design, etc.) to one where all documentation is written with no consideration beyond immediate target audience and minimal information. This stops people from learning and is completely wrong to do. It's also easy to avoid. All documentation is written like were were in the 1500's or earlier in a book hidden in a monestary for only a private group with distinct usage. That is find and all but it needs to be added in an appropriate setup to fill in the blanks to a broader target audiance like in the case of a freely available OS. Individual documents can be focused. But not in an inappropriate manner with no way to learn backwards to the source. If you do so it needs to be linked to a greater source of info.

 

The audience and hence focus of the documentation in an OS like linux is as broad as possible. So, it must be maintained in a way that deals with this. Not just for their personal networking buddies who already know, or half ass knew, their entire lives. That documentation is about the only thing holding linux back for 20 years now. Which is frightening as it was abundant and standard prior. That is how their buddies learned it. Or half ass learned it as they never bothered to fully.

 

What happens over time is people eventually stop learning enough to know the reason for things. They then assume, because they lack the understanding, there is no reason or need for something. They then stop doing it and eventually enforce this over the opposite. This then decays things until it minimally or completely ceases to exist. And in the case of the linux community this has been done with a bunch of things needed for others to learn the subject. You know, on their own, prior to asking question on a forum. How they ironically and stupidly always tell everyone to do.

 

The problem isn't doing it yourself. That is good and what used to happen. The problem is the means to do so has be destroyed. This is a problem on more than just the internet. Go to your local library and find an indepth book. Preferably one more than 50-100 years old. They are supposed to have maintained things like this and kept those going for as long as possible. They no longer do this and use fiction as an excuse to get everyone to the library. This was originally to get them to use the non fiction books. The only real point of the library. They have now sacrificed the point for a means to get the point. And everyone is so stupid they have not all been sued into the ground a jailed for the long term destruction of public information they were responsible for legally. That information doesn't come back once it's lost. It's lost forever!

 

In case nobody knows. Books, espeically with high end papers and parchments, can last for hundreds to thousands of years(And then be copied again onto said paper refreshing it's age!). It is the correct long term storage. The internet is not a long term storage means. It's a data transmission means. Which they and everyone else ironically stop at all cost voiding it's purpose so they can monetize things that are not theirs. They were all told this before they destroyed every library on earth and set us back on a path to the stoneage while violating every law and ethical/moral code in existance. So, have fun while you slide back into basics. You will find out one day how much this matters and much you need to learn to go without it. You should already know to boot. That is why it's so hard when it goes away. You are relearning. This is what the two brothers represent in greek mythology. Forethought and afterthought. Maintaining knowledge or learning it vs relearning it the hard way. You want to minimize relearning it. It's harder than you think!

[wasab]

56 minutes ago, themctipers said:

Arch is a pain in the ass to install. Well, actually, reading the wiki and googling the command is the actual pain, not installation itself. 

 

That said, don't use user unfriendly distro if you just want a working desktop experiences. Linus Torvald would agree with me. He competely ditch Debian cuz it used to be a pain to simply install. 

[wasab]

56 minutes ago, FancyPants101 said:

Snip

We need a distros and tutorials that will make learning intuitive for first time Linux users instead of looking like an IT certification courses for sever adminstrators. I mean why should any none techkies be forced to learn about display servers, linux file structures, file permissions and user groups, ip routing tables, as well as configuring bootloaders to use a freaking computer? They sound like issues a system admin would be concern with instead of average end users.

 

You don't do this as first time Windows user or Mac user but if you decide to go hardcore and use distros like Gentoo and Arch, that's what you will be dealing with. 

[FancyPants101]

We need everything. We need layers to help people from different situations. That is why linking information in a way beyond what a book does is important. And that basic info only goes so far. You need to have links to very in depth information. The smoothest way to teach is in an environment of absolutely completely information that can be found and read easily. Then it reinforces itself.

 

If you teach anyone something happens you need to always completely give them the reason why it happens. Or you have not actually taught them.

 

Basically, right now, we have all mid level information. We have no end user info and we have no indepth information. This is both stupid and a massive vulnerability to linux as a whole in all ways. Especially security ones. Everyone should know electrical/electronic engineering who uses a computer. They need to be able to go over detailed information to understand anything. Especially since we have lots of enthusiasts and increasing focus on OC and stuff. In the past you didn't oc anything without knowing every inch of how your hardware works. It's very hard to find good engineering info in general to. It's all simplified and dumbed down to the poing of uselessness. It's only useful in modern college courses if that tells you anything about it. And, oh god, the horror.

 

Diagrams do not an engineer make! 8\ They make the diagrams but the diagrams don't make the engineer.... Now it sounds like I'm talking about shoes. Which they also make. So, "shoes also do not an engineer make...." This is a fun set of sayings. Naturally ironic!

[Crunchy Dragon]

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