[H-GEN] Linux Dialup Configuration

[Anthony Towns]

On Sat, Feb 13, 1999 at 01:04:43AM +1000, Doug Young wrote:
> Yes well :<)  .... its taken me weeks of aggro just get this far ..... it
> was

Could you please set your mailer to wordwrap at around 75 characters?
Anything longer is a pain to read and a pain to quote. Thanks.

> ...and then there is all
> that weird "mount" stuff and *.tar.gz and all the other other arcane
> commands

If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend getting one of the numerous
Unix / Linux / RedHat [0] books that are out now. Trying to learn a
new OS by guesswork's a waste of time, and, personally at least, I
don't find online docs all that convenient when I'm learning something
completely new. [1]

> to worry about, and it still won't let me copy/paste like in more civilized
> o/s's,
> make nice :<) WAV / MIDI sounds like in Win whatever,

Cutting and pasting is just done differently to Windows (it is, in fact,
more "selecting and copying"). It's generally fairly well supported
though. It's one of those things you need a book for, or someone at a
nearby desk to ask.

> I guess RedHat has gone a fair way toward making what must be the
> most user hostile o/s on the planet 

`user hostile' ?

As opposed to `user friendly', I guess.

`User friendly' presuming being defined as `not requiring any thought
on the part of the user', as it usually seems to be. Forgive me while
I shudder.

*shudder*

There, much better. Now, what was I saying?

There are different types of users, and there are, consequently, different
types of `user friendly' -- some people like different things.  Duh. Just
because one thing appeals more to some people than another doesn't make
it less friendly, it just means some choose to reject its overtures.

Let me be a bit more concrete: Unix is a bunch of tools that work really
well. A large bunch of tools. If you want to make your computer do
something, there's a couple of Unix tools that will let you do exactly
that, reliably, exactly how you want it. Sure, you'll have to grab
the tools yourself, you'll have to get a bit of material to work on,
and you'll have to pound a bit, but you'll get exactly what you want in
the end, and you don't have to drive to a shopping centre or whatever
and pay more money to get it.

Windows isn't this. Windows is a bunch of shrink-wrapped off the shelf
stuff. You buy it, it does what you want, lucky you. It doesn't, or it
breaks? You might get a warranty replacement, or you have to go buy
something that does do what you want. You get cheap tacky instructions
written in bad english. You get labels saying "batteries not included".
Still. It _is_ easy, it _is_ common, and it doesn't require thought,
training or any skill.

Is a hammer "user unfriendly" just because it doesn't have a label on the
side that says how to use it to bang a nail into a bit of wood? Is it
"user unfriendly" because if you're stupid you can pull your eye out
with it just as easily as a nail? If it "user unfriendly" because if
you're careless you can hit your thumb instead of a nail?

Maybe it is.

But that doesn't mean it should be changed.

Cheers,
aj, who thinks sometimes education *is* the answer [2]

[0] Please note: these terms are alternatives, not synonyms. But that's
    a rant for another day.

[1] I recommended Sobell's Linux book to a friend on the basis of the
    introduction by Linus, and I'd be happy to do so again. Personally,
    I bought _Running Linux_ by Matt Welsh and someone else, largely
    because it's an ORA book, iirc. It's currently either lost or on loan,
    probably the latter.

[2] I'm a tutor. I get paid to say this.

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.

``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
  for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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