Suggestion for Newbies [Was: Curt Tone]

Craig White craigwhite at azapple.com
Fri Jul 16 18:34:30 UTC 2004


On Fri, 2004-07-16 at 09:55, Amadeus W.M. wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 02:40:04 -0400, Mathew Brown wrote:
> > but the command lines and everything else in linux compared to windows 
> > is completly different, thus making me as smart as a fence post when it 
> > comes to using it, i don't deny that. 
> 
> You seem to confuse intelligence with knowledge. Intelligence - one is
> born with (or not), knowledge - one acquires. An intelligent person may
> not have the knowledge for this or that, but certainly has the ability to
> acquire it, if need be. I don't think anybody made negative comments about
> either one. There were some suggestions on how to address the problems you
> have with linux. I don't see why you should feel "smart as a fence post"
> (in your words) when you're learning something new.
----
Actually, much of Windows NT (and derivatives Win2K and WinXP) borrowed
heavily on UNIX type configuration models and much of the administration
can be done (possibly even better) from the command line than from GUI.
The GUI allowed Windows users to feel as though they knew something
about maintaining their setup/systems by hopefully finding the right
thing to click on.

The real power is actually in the command line. It is the ultimate for
troubleshooting. If you want to see why a program isn't working, you can
launch it from a terminal and it will print standard error as messages
directly on the terminal (or you can capture them to a text file).
Configuration files are text files which can be backed up and edited at
will.

My experience is that people that truly understand the basics of
networking and the true underpinnings of Windows have few problems with
Linux - more than likely because they already have solid problem solving
skills and when they understand the vast array of tools for Linux, they
become converts quickly. The people who fool themselves and others into
believing that they know Windows because they have learned some of the
points to click on can't fake their way through Linux and get
frustrated.

Craig





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