[members at lugog] Introduction:

[john lewis]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 20:25:05 +0000
Jake Davies <jdavies.thfc at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I unintentionally opened that can or worms, or did I? ;-) To 
> keep this short and sweet, I think to sum it up you can look at the 
> communities rather than the distros from a technical perspective. The 
> Ubuntu forums have a lot of people that really don't know what
> they're talking about. You tend to get much better responses on the
> harder to use distros. I think the worst thing about Linux (or
> GNU/Linux if you prefer) is the tribalism. I think of lot of people
> forget most of us either want to get on with our work or watch stupid
> youtube videos rather than configure text files or compile X

"Forums" for any subject are a pain in the butt and I avoid even looking
at them if I can. So yes, you probably do get a lot of clueless people
on *bunti forums who don't even know how to ask the right question.

But I really wanted to respond to the suggestion that using the command
line is only for geeks. You _can_ do almost all admin tasks using
gui tools these days but very often it is just as quick using the
command line or a text editor. 

Suppose I need to modify the repositories where I get applications
from, not something I'd need to do very often so won't have a clue
which gui tool to use. but it is very simple to go to an open terminal,
type 'vim /etc/apt/sources.list' and be able to modify it as needed and
then save it. 

I can do this so easily because I always have multiple 'desktops' on my
sytems and run (mostly) only one application permanently running on
each, so 

desktop 1 has two x-terminals
desktop 2 has claws-mail
desktop 3 has opera
desktop 4 has acroread
desktop 5 is used for things like Scite, The Gimp, OpenOffice or an
ebook reader and similar apps I don't need running permanently

desktop 6 has zim (for note taking) and osmo (my calendar app)  

I set it up so I can switch easily between apps using the otherwise
redundant window key plus left or right arrow keys. 

I should mention that Opera is used as a window onto my geneweb
database which is also a web server and uses html pages to display the
data and to enable access to various genealogy sites like
Ancestry.com for census records, FreeBMD to get details of births etc
and the IGI. Opera was my choice of browser because it was the first
to do tabs (and IMHO still the best at that) and I need multiple tabs
open at any one time.  

I need a PDF reader for all the genealogy data I purchase
on CDs from various sources. Acroread is still by far the best reader
there is although I do use the Gnome Document Viewer for some things. 

I use claws-mail as a successor to sylpheed mail which was the first
mail agent I ever used under linux.

I learnt to use the command line because for most of my linux using
life I used windowmaker as my preferred interface and unlike gnome that
didn't do things like popping up an icon when I popped a CD in the
drive, plugged in a usb stick or my camera. So I got used to the
idea I had to go to a terminal and type in 'mount /dev/whatever' 

It wasn't difficult and it didn't take me long to learn how, I
suppose I had learnt about things like using batch files in my CP/M
days but I am totally unskilled in programming otherwise. But I did
write the pages for my website* using vim as I found gui apps
totally confusing to use. I just bought a couple of books about HTML
and CSS and played around until I'd got it right.

I suspect that people who have never used anything but MS windows or
the Mac Oses do find it strange that Linux users take this sort of
thing for granted. It would be a real eye opener for them to see a
skilled user of the command line at work. 

I know I used to be amazed when I went to HantsLUG meetings with a
problem to be sorted out, the person I'd asked for help would open
several x-terminals on my system, type away at a high rate of knots and
within seconds it seemed the problem was fixed with not a gui app in
sight. It would take much longer for them to explain to me what they
had done. 

I have compiled apps in the past but not often as most things I am
likely to need are available as debs, I certainly not need to
consider compiling X or anything as complex as that, those jobs are
best left to the maintainers ;-)

I finally made the move from windowmaker to gnome when I set up this
64-bit system and I don't really want to go back to having to manually
mount things, but then I am using usb sticks, portable hard-drives and
downloading pics from our digital cameras much more these days.

apologies for the very long posting, it would be so much easier to say
all this face to face with a laptop in hand which is one of the reasons
we need to try to have even the occasional meeting. 

* http://startx.co.uk/Kingsclere
-- 
John Lewis
using Debian sid