RTFM is not a Linux-ism, but a Unix-ism, and that precedes the Micro$oft power monopolies. I think there is an old thing in Unix culture that delights in being 'smarter than the other guy' and there can be a dangerous pride in obscurity, which I think may be where RTFM originated--in a certain intellectual arrogance that you find in technical gifted people. Microsoft, is a different culture with
woops, sorry, I thought it was M$ orientated because the first time I heard the phrase was from folks that was running Windooze:-) I do know from what little playing around that I've done with win95, os2 and linux, linux is by far the easiest to set up for networking:-) It is also the easiest to set up as far as users goes too:-) The only exception to the user thing may possibly be novel and from what I've heard, Novel got its start from the Unix community? I have tried to set up OS/2 warp 4 and Win95 as servers on my little network, and there was just no go without and going out and buying a lot of 3rd party software, but Linux has all the networking capabilities built in:-) Also, OS/2 has no user desktops, it seems to have been created with the mentality of one keyboard, one monitor, one user! Linux on the other hand you can have 6 users all logged in on the same keyboard (more if you want to set up more terminals:-). Win95 made an attempt at setting up a users database, and it even went so far as to set up user profile directories, but many a time I've gotten on my win95 machine after my son has changed something in his desktop only to find that the changes he made also affected my desktop. I've yet to see this happen in Linux:-) Also, there were questions that came up about how to set up my win95 machine for networking in which I found the correct answers in the linux community:-) (hmm:=)
nature of Unix and it's spin offs is probably where the arrogance comes from: knowing you've got your shit together and that the system truly rocks and does it's frigging job. This different mentality is at the heart of software culture, I think, and it shows in the products
True, but for the most part, perhaps where Linux has exelled even over Unix (and yes, I am aware that Linux is a take off from Unix), but the LInux Community seems for the most part to be more inclined to lend a helping hand (or a kick in the pants if needed:-). Whereas with M$ and Os2, to get the tech support that is needed to work out those bugs when they are discovered, it costs bucks. About like the other day I was talking to someone who spent 200 to get a virus removed from his system when all he had to do was spend about 40 bucks at walmarts to get a decent virus scan (I think I paid 39.95 for my copy of Norton Antivirus for Win95 and about the same for my copy of IBMav for os2/dos/win). Which brings up another point, most of the virus scares that comes up are aimed at the monolithic os's, but even though I did read a couple of messages on another list about the possibility of viruses getting into "unix", the upshot seemed to be that very little damage could be done because of the innate permissions related to a unix style system. Basically to the effect that if you don't have the permission to change a file, you can't:-) And I have seen some programs in linux, that will not work at all unless you are logged in as the superuser (su doesn't work for those programs, and when I've had to use them, I've had to log in as a superuser to get the job done).
in a normal society at a common function someone tells a joke and people laugh... among hackers, one simply tells the joke _number_ and everyone laughs without the joke even being told-- cause they automatically know what you mean. :-)
hehehe -- cya l8r Leon McClatchey leonmcclatchey@homemail.com Linux User 78912 (Win95 Box) - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e Check out the SuSE-FAQ at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A">http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/</A</A>> and the archiv at <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html"><A HREF="http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A">http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/suse-linux-e/index.html</A</A>>