[techtalk] Delurk/Getting started

[Kai MacTane]

At 5/23/01 02:21 AM , Ruhiel wrote:
> > In this case just make sure you actually read the comments and questions
> > written on the setup screens before proceeding with [Enter].
>
>You can count on that. I'll probably be spending several hours reading
>and rereading everything prompted ;)

Yeah, you'll find that one of the big differences between Linux (most if 
not all Unices, really) and Windows/Mac is that the Unices are 
techie/engineer's operating systems, not end-user OSes. This important 
distinction underlies a great many of the smaller details.

When you tell Windows to do something, and it throws a dialog box in your 
face saying "Are you sure?", the answer is invariably not just "Yes", but 
"Yes, I'm fscking sure! Why do you think I told to do it in the first place?"

When Unix asks you "Are you sure you want to do that?" the answer is 
usually, "Hmmm, I'd better think about this before I proceed..." (which 
often eventually turns into "No, I'm *not* so sure!").

Note that this will affect the wording of dialog boxes and other messages, 
too. I generally find Unix messages both more terse *and* more informative 
than those in Windows (or MacOS, but I hardly ever have to use that 
one...). They're more terse both in the sense that they don't popup up any 
more than they have to, and in the sense that they aren't particularly 
long. They're more informative, despite their terseness, because Windows 
error messages are often completely useless. Contrast:

    There was an error sending your mail. If you wait a while and
    try again, it may work. If that doesn't work, contact your
    system administrator.

with:

    Error sending mail: couldn't contact SMTP server mail.gothpunk.com
    on port 25.

(Incidentally, since I *am* my own system administrator, what am I supposed 
to do with message #1?) The Windows message is there to basically pat the 
user on the head and treat them like a baby; the Unix message doesn't give 
a damn if you don't know why port 25 is important. The assumption is that 
you're an engineer, which carries with it the sub-assumptions that you care 
about finding out what the words in your error messages mean, and that you 
aren't afraid to do the research necessary to figure out what this problem 
is (and possibly even how to fix it).

In essence, Unix assumes that the user is at least a little bit of a DIYer, 
and it assumes that the sysadmin is *very much* so.

I hope that knowledge -- of that basic stance difference between Linux and 
end-user OSes -- is helpful to you in the months to come. (And I hope I 
wasn't just giving you information you already had.)

                                                 --Kai MacTane
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"But every night I burn,/Every night I call your name.
  Every night I burn,/Every night I fall again..."
                                                 --The Cure,
                                                  "Burn"