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"During the first ten years of this HOWTO's life, I reported that from a new user's point of view, all Linux distributions are almost equivalent. But in 2006-20

"During the first ten years of this HOWTO's life, I reported that from a new user's point of view, all Linux distributions are almost equivalent. But in 2006-2007, an actual best choice emerged: Ubuntu." Ubuntu sort of spoils users by making a fancy GUI available for most every aspect of system management and administration. When I was starting out with Linux, I must've went through about a half dozen of broken Slackware installs (and a lot of banging my head on the keyboard) before I really got the hang of how to work with a Unix system, but it was a great learning experience nonetheless. This isn't to say that Ubuntu isn't a great distro--it is, but I'm afraid that its ease of use impedes the whole "learning to be a hacker" process, while other distros practically force you to learn a lot to use them, and that's a Good Thing.

ivankirigin 19y ago
Forcing you to learn something isn't good. Think about an analogy with python. Learning C first would force you to learn memory management. Python doesn't, and it's easier to learn programming because of it. To master Python, you need to understand C. It comes with time - at the right time.
mechanical_fish 19y ago
I'm afraid that its ease of use impedes the whole "learning to be a hacker" process I have extensive graduate training in the art of building transistors from raw silicon. I guess I'm some sort of god in your world. :) In my world, however, building transistors from raw silicon is an esoteric skill that doesn't have much use. Most of us prefer to spend a few bucks to buy our transistors by the billion, because transistors are a solved problem. And I'm happy to use Ubuntu and the Mac to actually get things done, rather than pretend that repeatedly fixing bugs in the Slackware installer represents a valuable form of education.
Hexstream 19y ago
I think it's more likely that being hard to use would deter users who don't care what makes computers tick from using it, not force them to learn. They'd just go back to Windows.

ivankirigin 19y ago

Forcing you to learn something isn't good. Think about an analogy with python. Learning C first would force you to learn memory management. Python doesn't, and it's easier to learn programming because of it. To master Python, you need to understand C. It comes with time - at the right time.

mechanical_fish 19y ago

I'm afraid that its ease of use impedes the whole "learning to be a hacker" process I have extensive graduate training in the art of building transistors from raw silicon. I guess I'm some sort of god in your world. :) In my world, however, building transistors from raw silicon is an esoteric skill that doesn't have much use. Most of us prefer to spend a few bucks to buy our transistors by the billion, because transistors are a solved problem. And I'm happy to use Ubuntu and the Mac to actually get things done, rather than pretend that repeatedly fixing bugs in the Slackware installer represents a valuable form of education.

Hexstream 19y ago

I think it's more likely that being hard to use would deter users who don't care what makes computers tick from using it, not force them to learn. They'd just go back to Windows.