Langa bashing (was Re: Problems getting Linux into homes)

[William Hooper]

Sean Estabrooks said:
> On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 20:29:46 -0400 (EDT)
> "William Hooper" <whooperhsd3 at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> > Fails at what?   He was relaying his personal experience not making a
>> > bug report to developers.
>>
>> Fails at providing useful information to anyone wanting to try Linux.
>> You get his side of the story, but no way to relate it to your own
>> situation.
>
> Point taken, but isn't that a criticism of his writing style rather than
> coming to terms with the rather obvious underlying argument?
> We all want Linux to be the best it can be and ignoring or shouting
> down the real experience (and perceptions) of current users might not
> be the most helpful response.

Constructive criticism is good.  Unfortunately, Mr. Langa doesn't provide
that, he provides "it doesn't work".  That leaves the question of what the
actual problem is.  Off the top of my head:
1) The sound card doesn't have drivers
2) The distro's auto detection routines didn't detect it correctly
3) The volume is muted and he hasn't noticed it (we are talking about
ALSA, right?)
4) The test is playing an audio CD and there is no audio cable to the
sound card

If his post had been to this list asking for help, the first response
would have be to ask for more information.
--
William Hooper