[NTLUG:Discuss] Linux Distro

[Steve Baker]

Rev. wRy wrote:

>>I have a lot of questions about doing things using a GUI.  I don't get
>>many answers from the guys on this list because most of the guys on this
>>list live on the CLI.  At least, that's what someone from the list
>>posted to me one day in response to some question I had that I never got
>>a response to.  That could be taken as rude (i.e., no response), but it
>>could also mean that just no one has an answer.

> This is very true.  I avoid gui's simply because most of the time I
> don't need one.  It is awfully hard to click on the latest pr0n link
> from lynx though. ;p

One way that CLI methods win hands down over GUI mechanisms is that
in an email, it's a lot easier to tell someone a string of shell commands
than it is to describe a set of check boxes, dialogs and menu entries
to do the same thing.  So regardless of what is or is not easiest to
use, email answers are heavily biased towards CLI or config file edits
rather than point-and-click solutions.

When people complain that Linux is ill suited to newbies and
non-computer-literate people, I like to quote this email from
my good friend Curt Olson (University of Minnesota Sys-admin by
day - FlightGear developer/manager by night):


     From: "Curtis L. Olson"
     Subject: [FGFS-Devel] anonymous cvs down tonight

     The flight gear anonymous cvs server is down tonight.  The floors in
     my office are being stripped and waxed and we had to shuffle some
     stuff around to clear off the floors.

     We gave our janitor a Unix account and helped him set up his home
     computer to run Linux so he gives us extra special treatment.
     Whenever a professor comes in squawking about how he or his students
     can't be expected to deal with with Unix because it is so obfuscated
     and hard, we point out that the janitor runs unix at home and has no
     problems with it.  Hehe, we've brought more than one prima-donna back
     down to earth with that one. :-)

     I'll hook everything back up in the morning ... or pass out from
     stripper fumes, which ever comes first.

     Curt.
---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
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