Wal-Mart shipping PCs with Lindows preinstalled

[Tia Haenni]

I totally agree. I am what you would term a newbie to Linux and everyone here has to admit that 
there was a time when they, too, were not infinitely knowledgeable on Linux or Windows or any other 
OS for that matter. I admit that most of what is discussed here regarding Linux goes over my head, 
but does that mean that I can't comprehend topics and become somewhat of an expert myself? Of 
course not. A condescending attitude towards those who are less knowledgeable than yourself only 
breeds the kind of contempt that many hold for the folks at M$. 

On 6/18/2002 2:59 PM, \"GodfatherofSoul\" Bellamy <mbellamy at kc.rr.com> wrote:
>I think this is a very dangerous attitude to have towards newbies. 
>
> Linux elitism breeds contempt for ease-of-use which leads to neglect 
>
>for features which make it easier for the newbs to adopt Linux.  
> Lack 
>of fresh blood leads to death.  We've got to be encouraging everyone 
>we 
>can to use Linux, even the friendlier distros.
>
>A stretched analogy for you, I was a big time Netrek player back 
>in the 
>heydays.  There's some pretty complicated strategy for such a simple 
>
>program, but after a while the experienced players would get annoyed 
>
>with mistakes and persist in flaming the newbies every time the screwed 
>
>up.  The newbies started getting discouraged and stopped playing. 
> Now, 
>Netrek is a dinosaur of a network game and hasn't gone through any 
>
>considerable upgrade in years as the player population has dwindled. 
>
> There's only one trafficked server now, as far as I know.  A bit 
>more 
>dreary a future that Linux will ever have, but it doesn't take mch 
>to 
>get going down that path.
>
>Teach.
>
>atechsol.net wrote:
>
>>Hang out in my chat room, you'll see it daily.  The wonders of mandrake 
>is it seems to attract the most clueless newbies. 
>>Clueless to linux, clueless to maners, clueless to pretty much everything. 
> I've seen some give up, I've seen some excel.
>>I've seen some crash bang hack and reboot their way into a machine 
>more broken than I've ever produced in _any_ OS. 
>>(They dont call me crash for nothing.)  When a user joins my room 
>and asks 'how do I start windows' after a few minutes of teasing 
>them we inform them to call it atleast X windows if not XFree86 and 
>kindly tell them to 'startx/Xtart/X' whatever the choice of said 
>person may be.  With proper support and not-so-broken releases linux 
>can go a really long way.  
>>
>>>Of course.  But right now thier friend can't tell them that they 
>got screwed
>>>into buying a "non-compatible" operating system.  A retarded monkey 
>can run
>>>windows.  Maybe it's just my ego but I like to think that Linux 
>takes some
>>>brains.  Think of all those clueless Windows users the first time 
>thier
>>>machine boots to runlevel 3 instead of 5.
>>>
>>>Aaron
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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