Can we ban these questions?

[Azgoth 2]

11 minutes ago, bob51zhang said:

Do you know if we could do "This section is for educational purposes only" for that thread in particular so that we can suggest Kali/other unethical distros?

Kali isn't an unethical distro (I say this without having read any of the previous discussion about it in this topic).  The majority (maybe all?) of its tools are available in the Debian repositories; Kali just has them pre-installed and makes a few changes to the kernel.  Plus, there are many perfectly valid uses for Kali and the various tools it comes with--teaching, testing the strength of a network or machine's security (e.g., as done by an IT/security professional working for the network/machine's owner), etc.  I see no reason it couldn't be mentioned or linked to, as long as it's not described as "you can use this to hack into computers, and you should use it for that", though I don't particularly care one way or the other if it's mentioned or not.  It's a fairly niche distro, and may not be something to mention anyways if the aim if to guide new Linux people.

 

I would imagine, regardless, that this putative pinned topic might be best served by avoiding the mention of specific distributions as much as possible, and talking about things in broad strokes, so that there's minimal need to go back and revise it in the future.

[Bigun]

Perhaps a matrix of each distro and a set of categories on how each distro performs.  Maybe if we can agree on a set of categories (ease of use, ease of install, maintenance, package availability, et.al.), a matrix would be much easier to scan through than pages and pages of opinions when deciding on a distro, especially if the user reading it know what they want/need more than anyone without poking and prodding for details.

 

[CRSaka..]

14 hours ago, Azgoth 2 said:

I would imagine, regardless, that this putative pinned topic might be best served by avoiding the mention of specific distributions as much as possible, and talking about things in broad strokes, so that there's minimal need to go back and revise it in the future.

I'd like to see the LTT guide pointing to the distributions guide(they are open source and under constant development no need to keep updating here unless a broken link occurs). The developers have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours documenting their software. I do not see a need to replicate that effort here.

 

@Bigun I like the matrix idea.

 

@bob51zhang I still feel it would benefit to the admin, moderators, forum owner, and users if a generic "We are not liable for your actions" was added to the Code of Conduct for the forum. Imagine advice leads to a loss of profits for someone or some company. There is nothing to stop them from coming after us or the forum for damages. It's standard practice to have such a clause.

 

Just to clarify my view on Kali: I like Kali and the users of such software but I believe it is irresponsible to point someone who has declared interest in Linux to Kali. Furthermore if you were to suggest Kali I feel you should point the individual in the ethical path and provide links to the documentation they need to learn ethically on Kali(honeyd, vms, etc..). To qualify for an ethical hacker certification(who knows what they will be called soon enough) you cannot have a felony record. I'm not trying to discourage people with aspirations towards pentesting....I'm trying to protect them.

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you want to ban that question, we should ban "what pc build should I get?", "will I bottleneck this graphics card?", "what should I upgrade to?" because they too can be generalized and be made into a sticky.

 

Besides a sticky would be one person (or a few people's) opinion on the matter and people shuffle in and out of here every day. And if someone has something to say against what is in the sticky, how do you change that? Or what if some distro is discontinued or no longer recommended as highly?

 

The landscape can change rapidly, having a sticky around just kind of cements you in dull area.

[Bigun]

*deleted*

Edited October 10, 2016 by Bigun
deleted

[Mira Yurizaki]

5 minutes ago, Bigun said:

Glad to see you read through the topic to see where it landed.

I don't know how to take this statement.

[Bigun]

11 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I don't know how to take this statement.

I read the first sentence and replied, it was obvious by the rest of the reply you did indeed read where the post went.  Take my reply as a brief realization of my foot in my own mouth.

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Bigun said:

I read the first sentence and replied, it was obvious by the rest of the reply you did indeed read where the post went.  Take my reply as a brief realization of my foot in my own mouth.

Maybe I should stop line breaking so much :B

[CRSaka..]

25 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Besides a sticky would be one person (or a few people's) opinion on the matter and people shuffle in and out of here every day. And if someone has something to say against what is in the sticky, how do you change that? Or what if some distro is discontinued or no longer recommended as highly?

I'd imagine any sticky would be owned by the moderators.

 

The way open source works...We argue like h*ll until we come to a general consensus. (sign up for ANY open source mailing list. We go back and forth on issues all day.)

If we both disagree with each other then the answer is more than likely somewhere in the middle.

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 minutes ago, CRSaka.. said:

I'd imagine any sticky would be owned by the moderators.

 

The way open source works...We argue like h*ll until we come to a general consensus. (sign up for ANY open source mailing list. We go back and forth on issues all day.)

If we both disagree with each other then the answer is more than likely somewhere in the middle.

I'd imagine in those cases, it's just feature A over feature B. But if someone's wanting to grab and OS, they should be told what it can do for them. Or at the very least, they need to tell us specifically as possible what they want so we can narrow down the options for them.

 

If it's just a "hey guys, i wanna try linux", then pester them for what they want it for or what they want to do. Or just hand them Ubuntu or Mint.

 

I just roll with the mindset that a lot of people don't want options. They want someone to tell them what to do.

[CRSaka..]

7 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

1. If it's just a "hey guys, i wanna try linux", then pester them for what they want it for or what they want to do. 2. Or just hand them Ubuntu or Mint.

1. But I'm lazy, is it too much to expect a good question without having to pry out the details?

 

2. Again this is why we want a sticky addressing general "I'm new to Linux, where do I get started?".

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, CRSaka.. said:

1. But I'm lazy, is it too much to expect a good question without having to pry out the details?

 

2. Again this is why we want a sticky addressing general "I'm new to Linux, where do I get started?".

I wouldn't be against a sticky for newbies, but not for a grand list of things for the more advanced people. If you're dwaddling in more than a curiosity, I think we should expect you to know what you're doing. But then again, how far do you go? Like for example, should a newbie get a crash course on the command line? You might go "of course they should, Linux lives and dies by it!" But that turns a lot of people off.

[CRSaka..]

On 10/7/2016 at 1:38 PM, CRSaka.. said:

Suggested Solutions: It would be of benefit to the forum to implement a bot that auto locks and posts a pointer to the appropriate open stickied thread, this could of course be overridden by proper moderators who believe the question has some form of originality that could not be answered with a general explanation.

@M.Yurizaki As I've suggested. I agree these questions can sometimes be very detailed and looking for very specific solutions.

[CRSaka..]

4 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Like for example, should a newbie get a crash course on the command line? You might go "of course they should, Linux lives and dies by it!" But that turns a lot of people off.

Personally, I feel they will naturally find their way into that information. In my view, start with Ubuntu, use it like you used Microsoft and give it a few months. That's my advice to newbies. Unless you're asking about what Linux distribution you should put on you're vision impaired grandmothers computer in which case my recommendation is altered drastically. < yeah Linux has a distribution for that use case specifically

[Bigun]

Any suggestions on how to get a matrix properly formatted in this forum?