OK, so you all know that I’m a Linux fan-girl. I love the operating system and I love the principles behind the operating system. But there’s one thing I utterly cannot stand, and that’s (most of) the forum users, and I am filled with sympathy for all the new Linux users who’ve bought their shiny netbooks with a “weird” operating system on it, and are trying to make the best of an unknown deal.
In Windows, because it’s a commercial product, there exists documentation. It may be of varying quality, but it exists. Because Linux is more a volunteer effort — and everybody hates writing documentation, especially developers — there is little good documentation around. (As an aside, though, may I recommend http://www.linux.org/lessons/ for any newbies with rare slices of free time? I’m going through it myself. But back to the subject at hand ….) Which means that, sooner or later, you have to steel yourself to register at one or more fora in order to get answers to your questions.
The answers (and the users you get them from) usually fall broadly into one of several categories.
Category One: Brash ‘n’ Ignorant. The reply that says, “why would you want to do that anyway?”. That’s all it says. Notice that there is a difference between “why would you want to do that anyway?” and “why do you want to do that?”. And my answer to the former is: It’s none of your goddamned business. If a user wants to take a screenshot of a game in progress, or get their box’s LCD display to recite the Gettysburg address, then that’s their problem. It is not up to YOU to decide whether their action is worthy or not. Piss off.
Category Two: Superior Bastard. The reply that says, “read the manual and you’ll find out”. Yeah, okay in principle, but (a) Linux is a huge beast, (b) maybe the person posing the question is at the end of their tether, (c) maybe the documentation that does exist is crap. I mean, this is sooo not the way to build a Linux convert. Of course, you could say, “try this, it does this, and after it’s fixed, go to this link where you’ll find more information on the topic”, but you don’t because you’re a sanctimonious ass. Piss off.
Category Three: The Geriatric Co-dependent. The reply that says, “(I know you’re asking specifically about WinKillerLinux version 23.54 but…) I remember using the Version 3.40 beta of WinKillerLinux, back when it was called Fred. I can’t remember exactly, but I think the command I used was something like “del896axgv -x -A”. Or something like that.” Do these people even realise that software changes? Listen, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, then don’t post. Got it? Now, piss off.
Category Four: Insouciant Bastard. You ask how to install a printer in Linux and get back, “run cups”. What the hell is CUPS? Where do you find it? How do you find out what it does? Insouciant Bastard doesn’t care. He’s demonstrated his mastery of Linux and it’s now up to you to bow and scrape and abjectly and humbly beg for more help. At this point, he’ll usually turn into Superior Bastard. So a double piss off to you, you wanker.
Category Five: Just Do As I Say. The user who says: “run the following command: egrep 67nu45.31 | python cntu.py -<today’s date> That should fix it”, without explaining what any of the goddammned commands DO! I won’t tell Just Do As I Say to piss off, because they’re usually holding the only lifelines you’ll find in the Tempest of Linux Knowledge-Gathering. But I just wish they’d think a little before posting. It’s the “give a man a fish” thing, guys, okay?
Category Six: The Patronising Shit. The commands are given, some background is shared, but it’s wrapped in such patronising language that it’s as difficult to swallow as a spoonful of cut glass. Even worse than Insouciant Bastard, these people will add that the font you used to craft the message sucked, that you have not used ISO9000 standards to format the code fragment you’ve included, and that maybe you should go away and Not Bother Anyone until you can comprehensively recite from the Linux Adminstration Handbook. These people never had to learn Linux themselves. Oh no, they emerged full-blown from their mother’s loins with instant root access and man pages for brains, and they don’t want you to forget it. I’ll take your advice, you Patronising Shit, but your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.
Category Seven: The Half-Arsed Expert. Everything is going fine and dandy. You seem to find a poster who is both personable and helpful. They tell you to finger the fossick and you try it, but you don’t get the response they’re expecting. Try again, they say. You do that, but you still get an error message. Oh, then it gets nasty. “You must be doing it wrong,” they snarl. Or, “What the hell are you doing?”. This may be followed up by the precious, “Do you know *anything* about computers?” Notice how the victim is the one being blamed here. It’s not because they either (a) can’t explain anything worth toffee, or (b) know absolutely nothing outside a very narrow list of steps. Oh no, it’s your fault for not having a machine that is set up identically to theirs and, thus, behaves exactly like theirs. These people are even worse than Brash because they lull you into a sense of false security before dropping the equivalent of a phosphorus bomb on your head.
Category Eight: The Student Psyches. Look, they really don’t see the problem. It’s all very simple. Are you taking notes? You download gbh+4.05 from sourceforge and hunt for the dependencies. The documentation listing the dependencies should be somewhere, just do an internet search for it. Right. Now, download the dependencies. Check against the current version of the kernel you’re using and you may have to also swap in some other files if you’re running an older/newer kernel. You can check with Kurt in Berlin, who’s keeping track of the kernel changes, if you really want to be sure. After you make the source, ftp into the server at MIT. If that one’s too slow for you, try sunflower at Cape Town University. There’s an iso there that will do whatever it is you want to do, although you may have to set a number of parameters after you download and burn the iso, and before the boot process completes. The parameters depend on your monitor type and graphics server, but Bob in Canada seems to have a handle on all this, so IM him during Canadian time and he’ll walk you through it. Etc. etc.
These people have major time on their hands. Staying up till 2am to talk to someone halfway across the world means nothing to them. They don’t have kids that have to wake up early for school the next day, to get into uniforms that haven’t been ironed yet. They haven’t gone through a gruelling day where — you swear — Lesley from Finance has been trying to get you sacked. There are bills you have to pay, a job you have to keep, a seminar to attend, dinners to prepare, people to pick up and drop off, spouses to talk and listen to. And these Student Psyches are completely surprised (and more than a little disappointed with your attitude, to be honest) when you metaphorically grab them by the collar and, through gritted teeth, say, “Just tell me how to solve the problem, okay?”. As with most of the other categories, such users have absolutely no idea that you’re trying to learn Linux in your spare time. Precious, scant, interrupt-driven spare time that you’re trying to put aside to learn something piecemeal because the very idea — the concept of Linux — was something that appealed to you, and you think you’d like to support. I like Student Psyches, so I won’t tell them to piss off, but I just wish they could see outside their navels from time to time.
Category Nine: The Helpful Poster. Like a burbling oasis in an expanse of desert (make that an aboveground oasis on Arrakis), the helpful poster is someone who understands that everyone has to start somewhere and is open to answering further questions in a helpful and non-judgemental manner. They are the reason I keep using Linux but, unfortunately, I have to get through multiple iterations of the other eight categories before stumbling across such a person.
(And, as such, am reminded of what I learnt in psychology about the efficacy of intermittent positive reinforcement over constant positive reinforcement, and the subsequent realisation that I am little more than a rat, pressing the lever over and over again in faint hopes of sustenance, and perhaps dying of starvation as a result, in the Cage of Linux.)
Which made me think. J is of the opinion that most Linux forum posters are complete asses because they don’t know anything and use arrogance to hide their ignorance. That’s an interesting thought, except there is no imperative for them to reply to a question. I mean, it’s not as though you’re talking to Half-Arsed Expert or Brash ‘n’ Ignorant to their faces, are you? You’re not personally putting them on the spot. In fact, they don’t have to post at all. So why do they? I always look at the number of posts from such people and they are often in the thousands. Does that mean they’ve been saying, “why would you want to do that anyway?” thousands of times? What’s the payoff for them? The little number-of-posts indicator underneath their avatar? Are their lives really so small and mean that they feel themselves defined by a virtual counter somewhere? I’m still thinking this through, but that’s where I’ve got to so far.
The problem, though, is much wider than a handful of wankers making life miserable for people who genuinely want to learn something new. It is my personal belief that, even though Linux is a superior operating system to Windows, it will fail to gain wider traction. And the major reason for that will be Linux users themselves. While these asses are trying to big-note themselves by posting utter rubbish, the consequence is humiliation of and/or confusion for new users. As a writer, I have a rhinoceros hide, so I just roll my eyes at most thread comments and move on. But if I was a tentative newbie, the experiences I’ve suffered would be enough to put me off Linux forever.
Windows, for all its flaws, does not call new users the equivalent of idiots, or drop smug pronouncements on what they’re attempting to do. If you’re unsure of something, you can go to the online help, which doesn’t patronise you or diss you (at most, it just annoys the hell out of you which, when all’s said and done, is a lesser sin). There’s a lot to be said for mutual respect. And the Linux “community” just doesn’t have it. Not by a long shot.
