*** Reply to message from Anders Johansson <andjoh@rydsbo.net> on Thu, 15 Apr 2004 00:57:36 +0200***
"They don't have documentation, so I have to install everything"? Hm
okay, now I'm going totally blonde ... this conversation is confusing the heck outof me... And I thouroughly agree w/ Anders "hm" !! In spades..
Discussion on this thread seems to repeatedly confuse support with the publication of documentation. With thorough, quality, documentation, you don't need support unless you haven't the time to read documentation or are lacking the skills to understand it.
Which is what happens to a lot of newbies, and they are inundated w/ information they can't absorb as quickly as we throw at them.. so on occassion, must be led by the hand to get past something. My husband, who is not what anyone would call a geek.. tho he is learning ( Geek in Training, somehow comes out to a none too flattering accronym (G) ) He has learned to look up things, he's even learning the varieties of googling ( froogle, news etc. ) But ... he like a lot of folks tends to look at something he doesn't have a gestalt moment w/ and completely panic... and I can guaranty you he will need heavy duty support until he is past the panic. It's the same thing that happens to some kids in schools, really smart, even know all the material and can put it to new uses ... BUT, come test time, they look at the paper and go completely blank, then they go ballistic... and that takes a lot of retraining to get rid of. And FWIW he is now doing something he never would have thought of doing a fw months, let alone years ago... he is putting my computers componants into my nice lovely Aluminum case ... which is now proudly wearing a Suse enamaled case badge , from the earlly days, when tech companies could afford nice little goodies like that! So a little hand holding now and then can get folks past the panic, and sooner or later they realise how much they really do understand. OF course we do still have to get past what is being pounded into the heads of so many these days. Linux is too hard for you to use, it's for Government, colleges, big companies ( we can only hope) you're an idiot when it comes to computers, better stick to Windows, at least you can get your email all the time ( say what?) ( I can't imagine why anyone would tell a person that sort of thing? But they do. (sneaky smile) ) oth, I have never called tech support for install support either... but I usually buy the box w/ those hefty text books in 'em. Can't say I can get anyone other than myself to actually READ them... but that is another story..
That policy doesn't work well when you want to tighten security by installing the minimum set of software that meets your needs, and then install additional packages as needed in the future.
Isn't that what you do now? look in hte /usr/share/doc/packages , or even in the Admin book they have on the disks ( isn't it installed as part of the defualt pkg? ) Along w/ all the documentation you could want... when you do your install, take a lok at the documentation that is included and install it! There is a heck of a lot of it... -- j -- nemo me impune lacessit