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> limiting my enthusiasm I think its better to present enthusiasm alongside frustration in sortof a story arc: - Inciting incident: see an opportunity to do s

> limiting my enthusiasm I think its better to present enthusiasm alongside frustration in sortof a story arc: - Inciting incident: see an opportunity to do something cool. - A Conflict Arises: run into a roadblock -- be honest about the frustration. - Satisfying climax: solve the problem and are able to do the thing. Genuine excitement. I think that lets you get across your emotion of excitement, while also being honest about the facts on the ground-- Linux does genuinely involve a fair amount of config struggles. The hard part is that debugging can be quite a long and winding road, so it is hard to compress it into a concise enough narrative to hold people's attention through it.

suls 7y ago
This is really great advice. I have always read about story telling being important for presentations etc. but somehow never thought about it in such a setting.
eitland 7y ago
I guess I mostly agree, but this part has me wondering: > Linux does genuinely involve a fair amount of config struggles. Am I - insanely lucky? - forgetful? - or do I just have very limited scope of what I want my Linux machine to do (non competitive fps gaming, development, mail, simple spreadsheets and word processing) ? - or have I just been very unlucky with my Windows installations for 15 years? - or am I just born to be a Linux user? Since Ubuntu 06.06 I've found one or another Linux easier to install and use than Windows. I remember having to install an official package (915 something?) to get my resolution correct back in '06. I remember a bit of struggle to get it working in dual boot once secure boot came (but only because I wanted dual boot). The last year I remember learning that balena etcher is now the way to make bootable usbs. Meanwhile on Windows it is a constant struggle each time I get a new machine. It keeps getting better but with two or three exceptions there's always something that makes it laggy, even on high end laptops. Solving it might hours of work and weeks of calendar time, and sometimes there's notjing I can do and I just have to wait for an updated driver. In my eyes the advantage of using Wimdows is that the IT department will support it. On the other hand I also only need support when I work on Windows. (Have used and supported Windows since 3.1, so I know it better than many others even if I don't line it : -)
- vidarh 7y ago
  My son has a Windows laptop, and I run Linux, and I have far more problems being "tech support" for his Windows laptop than my Linux laptop. Most recently trying to upgrade his laptop to an SSD and clone his existing drive turned into massive frustration as his drive didn't have a second drive slot and the USB->SATA adapter that came with the SanDisk SSD just caused error messages on Windows, while Ubuntu instantly recognized the drive with the same adapter. Turned out you had to dig through forums to find some random link to a download patching something to get it to work on Windows, and most of the recommended solutions I saw was to forget Windows and clone with a Linux live CD (I was about to, just as I stumbled across the link). That's pretty much what I've come to expect with Windows. I remember when it used to be the reverse, and I used Linux despite assorted driver and software problems. Now that's what it feels like to try to help my son with his laptop, with the only redeeming feature being that not all the games he wants runs on Linux. That's not to say I don't occasionally have issues with Linux too, but mostly because I run a very unconventional setup - my few small problems start once I start tearing out the parts of Ubuntu I don't want; such as replacing the desktop environment with bspwm. And occasionally I run into driver issues - the individually led controllable backlights on my laptop keyboard doesn't have a Linux driver... But not with anything that matters to me. Don't get me started on last time I had to deal with printer drivers for Windows. What used to be lengthy checks to see if all hardware worked has now been reduced to a quick search and "some random person on a forum says it mostly worked" means it's almost certainly going to be flawless if the post is a couple of months old, with sufficient certainty that I've bought my last 3 laptops on that basis without regretting it.
  - shrimp_emoji 7y ago
    A while ago, Microsoft deprecated Windows System Image backups[0], and, on some Microsoft page I can't find now, they recommend third-party software for OS backups. (Although, weirdly, the option is still present in Windows 10, and, AFAIK still functions???) How astounding when, in Linux, you can just `dd` the Windows drive to another and the clone works perfectly (didn't even trigger any Windows activation DRM for me)! This resonates with your anecdote. However, the average person probably isn't comfortable (dare I say should be trusted?) with block-level utilities that can wipe the wrong drive at the drop of a typo. To propose that they should be comfortable with a terminal at all is, to put it kindly, delusional, and it's a great example of the post's mythical excellence. This is the current meta I see: - Linux only offers "excellence" to A.) EXTREMELY SIMPLE users who never stray from compatible use cases (which is a surprisingly unsafe assumption) and B.) EXTREMELY ADVANCED users who aren't sufficiently advanced for BSD and can overcome any Linux software compatibility issues or elide them by forcing themselves to use possibly suboptimal alternatives. - Windows only offers "excellence" to AVERAGE users technical enough to debug in vague, indirect, salt-over-the-shoulder ways (like practicing neuromedicine), but not technical enough to feel comfortable with terminals or desire stuff like more comfortable programming workflow. (Also, bonus: it covers virtually all prospective user software and hardware.) [0]: https://www.digitalcare.org/system-image-backup-windows-10/ https://www.digitalcare.org/system-image-backup-windows-10/
qqn 7y ago
This reminds me of https://stilleatingoranges.tumblr.com/post/25153960313/the-significance-of-plot-without-conflict https://stilleatingoranges.tumblr.com/post/25153960313/the-s.... I wonder if there's a way of presenting new Things as a merging rather than conflict resolution approach and, if so, which would is more effective.

suls 7y ago

This is really great advice. I have always read about story telling being important for presentations etc. but somehow never thought about it in such a setting.

eitland 7y ago

I guess I mostly agree, but this part has me wondering: > Linux does genuinely involve a fair amount of config struggles. Am I - insanely lucky? - forgetful? - or do I just have very limited scope of what I want my Linux machine to do (non competitive fps gaming, development, mail, simple spreadsheets and word processing) ? - or have I just been very unlucky with my Windows installations for 15 years? - or am I just born to be a Linux user? Since Ubuntu 06.06 I've found one or another Linux easier to install and use than Windows. I remember having to install an official package (915 something?) to get my resolution correct back in '06. I remember a bit of struggle to get it working in dual boot once secure boot came (but only because I wanted dual boot). The last year I remember learning that balena etcher is now the way to make bootable usbs. Meanwhile on Windows it is a constant struggle each time I get a new machine. It keeps getting better but with two or three exceptions there's always something that makes it laggy, even on high end laptops. Solving it might hours of work and weeks of calendar time, and sometimes there's notjing I can do and I just have to wait for an updated driver. In my eyes the advantage of using Wimdows is that the IT department will support it. On the other hand I also only need support when I work on Windows. (Have used and supported Windows since 3.1, so I know it better than many others even if I don't line it : -)

vidarh 7y ago
My son has a Windows laptop, and I run Linux, and I have far more problems being "tech support" for his Windows laptop than my Linux laptop. Most recently trying to upgrade his laptop to an SSD and clone his existing drive turned into massive frustration as his drive didn't have a second drive slot and the USB->SATA adapter that came with the SanDisk SSD just caused error messages on Windows, while Ubuntu instantly recognized the drive with the same adapter. Turned out you had to dig through forums to find some random link to a download patching something to get it to work on Windows, and most of the recommended solutions I saw was to forget Windows and clone with a Linux live CD (I was about to, just as I stumbled across the link). That's pretty much what I've come to expect with Windows. I remember when it used to be the reverse, and I used Linux despite assorted driver and software problems. Now that's what it feels like to try to help my son with his laptop, with the only redeeming feature being that not all the games he wants runs on Linux. That's not to say I don't occasionally have issues with Linux too, but mostly because I run a very unconventional setup - my few small problems start once I start tearing out the parts of Ubuntu I don't want; such as replacing the desktop environment with bspwm. And occasionally I run into driver issues - the individually led controllable backlights on my laptop keyboard doesn't have a Linux driver... But not with anything that matters to me. Don't get me started on last time I had to deal with printer drivers for Windows. What used to be lengthy checks to see if all hardware worked has now been reduced to a quick search and "some random person on a forum says it mostly worked" means it's almost certainly going to be flawless if the post is a couple of months old, with sufficient certainty that I've bought my last 3 laptops on that basis without regretting it.
- shrimp_emoji 7y ago
  A while ago, Microsoft deprecated Windows System Image backups[0], and, on some Microsoft page I can't find now, they recommend third-party software for OS backups. (Although, weirdly, the option is still present in Windows 10, and, AFAIK still functions???) How astounding when, in Linux, you can just `dd` the Windows drive to another and the clone works perfectly (didn't even trigger any Windows activation DRM for me)! This resonates with your anecdote. However, the average person probably isn't comfortable (dare I say should be trusted?) with block-level utilities that can wipe the wrong drive at the drop of a typo. To propose that they should be comfortable with a terminal at all is, to put it kindly, delusional, and it's a great example of the post's mythical excellence. This is the current meta I see: - Linux only offers "excellence" to A.) EXTREMELY SIMPLE users who never stray from compatible use cases (which is a surprisingly unsafe assumption) and B.) EXTREMELY ADVANCED users who aren't sufficiently advanced for BSD and can overcome any Linux software compatibility issues or elide them by forcing themselves to use possibly suboptimal alternatives. - Windows only offers "excellence" to AVERAGE users technical enough to debug in vague, indirect, salt-over-the-shoulder ways (like practicing neuromedicine), but not technical enough to feel comfortable with terminals or desire stuff like more comfortable programming workflow. (Also, bonus: it covers virtually all prospective user software and hardware.) [0]: https://www.digitalcare.org/system-image-backup-windows-10/ https://www.digitalcare.org/system-image-backup-windows-10/

qqn 7y ago

This reminds me of https://stilleatingoranges.tumblr.com/post/25153960313/the-significance-of-plot-without-conflict https://stilleatingoranges.tumblr.com/post/25153960313/the-s.... I wonder if there's a way of presenting new Things as a merging rather than conflict resolution approach and, if so, which would is more effective.