Take care Jerry. 
Hi again, Jerry. Whatever you end up with, have a look at gnucash to replace Quicken. You can run it under KDE or Gnome and it is able to import your old data files (I think the format is called QIF).
Just noticed the name âgnucashâ. Please take a look at:
osFinancials Free Accounting Software - Open Source Accounting Software, itâs a gnucash fork/spin-off, very alive. I use it for my own business, have it implemented in an organization I support. Runs on my openSUSE like a charm, the Firebird database is supported for x86 and x86_64
I would like to address your ârtfmâ issue.
first of all, I see their being two âaspectsâ if you will to ârtfmâ. One being a contentious attitude which basically boils down to âGo figure it out yourself and leave me aloneâ. This is an example of the socially inept nerd with no ability to function in a multi-user experience community.
There is no place for such an attitude and it drags the whole community down.
The second aspect of ârtfmâ is the notion of â if you just give someone the answer, it is like giving them a fish, but if they learn to research correctly in the first place, it is like teaching them to fish."
In the long run, the Linux community has always advocated educating users over caving in to the âapplianceâ direction.
This has usually meant that people who just want the answer given to them are left disappointed because the community in general wants the people who come to Linux to be a part of the âeducatedâ user crowd.
However, in this texting type world, short, terse comments seldom carry the polite and friendly sentiment behind the suggestion and it is very easy to get it mixed up as the rude poor attitude type of ârtfmâ.
I like to use the approach of the local ice cream shop vendor.
I will give away one âfreebieâ with the additional information of where the information is to be found and how the user can find other information on their own by searching said resources.
This accomplishes multiple things all at once. It gives the user the one answer they need immediately giving them immediate releif. This is a token of goodwill.
It also educates the user by letting them know they can find future answers on their own and goes a step further by showing them where to look.
Now you have a new user who has had a positive experience, solved a problem to make their Linux usage more pleasant, educated a user rather than just placate them and empowered that user by giving them the tools to be independent.
rtfm is a lot more of an appropriate answer when it is a part of a solution instead of the only answer they get.
just my two cent.
Big Bear
Very well said. It is the first that I am most concerned with. The second, I do quite a lot myself. I strongly believe in teaching a person to fish, rather than giving him a fish. But teaching a person to fish is not âRTFMâ. RTFM is, as you so eloquently put it, the result of those socially inept. The problem is, I have seen it on the forum and in IRC. So if a forum is for social interaction, and for newbies and tenured users a like, then why would a person that has this personality frequent either the forum or IRC?
RTFM is indeed not only an advice, but also an expression of being fed up with reading the same questions over and over again - and while I am willing to help even the n00biest n00b with the most basic topics, I also think the point of a forum should not be repeating the same issues like a scratched record, but rather be a database of solutions for problems that could not be solved using manuals or google. Linux requires users to learn how to research things, if the user is not willing to do so â bad luck. Linux is not for everyone. And it shouldnât be either.
The idea of people helping each other regardless how unnerving it is to chew the same gum every day may sound nice, but sooner or later it will wear out everyones motivation.
I also note that this kind of discussions do only circle around the n00b and first-time user, as if they are the only ones using forums.
However - being polite (or rather: not being unpolite) is a must.
The target is not to make this center around newbies only, but everyone. We can not create a balanced distro, if we focus on one group only. So being polite, I agree, is a must.
I disagree that Linux isnât for everyone. I think it can be. Does Linux have to require reading? No. It doesnât. Linux has come a long way in becoming easier to use. Back when I started, there was no urpmi, yum, apt, or tools like that. One had to download all the packages and then install them. Now, we have tools that do that for us. We have zypper, smart, apt, yum, urpmi, and the list goes on and on. So I disagree. I think we can continue in the direction weâre going, and make it better. Make Linux even easier to use. Thatâs what X.org is trying to do with their hotplug/automagical configuration is all about. Udev and d-bus are also efforts in hotplugging. Before udev and d-bus it was fstab. However, I think most of the hurdles have to do with the user interface. Streamline the user interface, make it simpler and more smooth, clear cut, and I think that will solve a great deal. Not all mind you, but a great deal.
We could so easily start threads on some of these topics. Iâm not saying we should stop discussing it here, surely not. We can gain so much from discussing this back and forth. We may not all agree. We may not agree on all points. The point is to make openSUSE a better product and a better community.
Now, we have tools that do that for us. We have zypper, smart, apt, yum, urpmi, and the list goes on and on.
âŚand webpin being integrated in YaST and oneclickers, but: although these tools strive to make things easier, they still require a learning curve. You may have noticed that since webpin and oneclickers appeared, many users suffer from problems caused by lists of repositories which have twenty or thirty entries, including several dubious âhome:â- and developer-repos in the most meaningless combinations.
Why is that? Because no matter how streamlined and convenient the interface is, the actual task still has to be understood. One has to learn what a package manager does, what dependencies are, what âdebugâ means and how to manage all this, and letâs not forget that the internet is full of tutorials and wikis and the like - thereâs no need to repeat that in a forum over and over again.
But there is a need for every user to⌠RTFM. I did, you did, why is it up to us to read that to somebody else when they could read it themselves? It wastes our time which we should use to care for the real interesting topics, bugs and conflicts.
One more point: I like to have things without hassle and easy too. The other major parameter Iâm interested in is: control. Convenience and control do not contradict per se, the question is rather: what comes first? When easiness comes first, basically someone else has to think about how to make things easier for me. Microsoft and Apple do so, and the result is billions of systems being very much alike, although being used by billions of different users. When control comes first, itâs up to me to think about how to make a task convenient - the result is several millions of totally different systems for several millions of totally different users. Thatâs streamling!
But to gain this control, one has to⌠you know, RTFM.
I am not interested how many people use Linux - we have a strong community, even though itâs only a tiny fracture of the potential userbase. I want an operating system which I can control. And that defenitely is not a system for everyone.
Jonathan R wrote:
> I disagree that Linux isnât for everyone. I think it can be.
you may be losing sight of realityâŚthat is, Linux is already âfor
everyoneââŚ
and has been for a good whileâŚ
there are people using Linux every day that donât even know what Linux
isâŚor that it is inside their TV, phone, radio, camera, gps, etc
etc etc
on the other hand openSUSE is a very very long way from having that
kind of ease in the desk-, lap- or net-top spaceâŚand none of those
will ever be âfor everyoneâ if every machine owner user has root
access, and no compelling reason to not experiment with the dials
and switches with zero understanding (or care) for the potential
impact of âplaying withâ the gizmosâŚ
it just ainât gonna happenâŚ
you must face it Jonathan, there are folks with enough money in
their pocket (or their parentâs/guardianâs) to buy a pre-installed
Linux laptop todayâbut in 30 years they still will not have the
minimum mental capacity needed to administer it (nor can they pass a
driving test and they may still need lots of other assistance on a
daily or hourly basis)âŚ
nopeâŚthe day may come that openSUSE is as easy to use as is
(say) todayâs Motorola RAZR (linux mobile phone)âŚbut, just open up
the user/ownerâs access and/or need to administer the beast to half
as much as is MS-Windows desktop today and you will still have
people who can consistently murder the system in less than 45 minutes,
all the while trying not to.
nopeâŚimHo, there is a minimum level of understanding and rational
thought required to use a Linux/Apple/Windows/Atari/Unix/etc
computerâŚor safely operate an automobileâŚor cross the street
without someone helping by spotting and avoiding dangerâŚ
and, by the way: if âeveryoneâ donât have the patience necessary to
find and read what a line across the top of a window kinda like:
File Edit View Options Tool Help
might be for, and how to use itâŚyou will STILL have folks coming
here to say: WAAAAAAAAA, i clicked File > Quit and it disappeared! >:|
Linux SUCKS iâm going back to PlayStation, slam (the door)! as far as
i am personally concerned, in those cases iâm happy to note the both
openSUSE and crossing a street in traffic is not for everyone, and
never will beâŚ
obviously, ymmv.
â
palladium
I think that Jonathanâs use of âeveryoneâ, palladium, was meant to be everyone who makes use of a computer. Those incapable of crossing the street or being too chicken to make it, are incapable of a lot more than running a computer. It distracts from the majority of people that fall within the normal parameters of intelligence that make use of all kind of tools. Even those that drive cars with limited abilities are helped by properly engineering the cars interface. Or would you prefer that cars still had crank starts and manual timing adjustment thus keeping the âRabbleâ from using them?
I am frequently amused by the computer âEliteâ that carry a superior attitude that they are better than others because they work with computers. Now that may be true if they have abilities in lots of other areas outside the Software arena. However many do not and indeed are placed into the clueless unable to cross the street safely class, no matter how good they operate their computers.
Iâm going to try to address two people in this post.
palladium, I do think you missed what I am saying. I firmly believe that Linux is âreadyâ for the masses. It could be better, but is, and has been for some time. I never once said it wasnât ready.
you must face it Jonathan, there are folks with enough money in
their pocket (or their parentâs/guardianâs) to buy a pre-installed
Linux laptop todayâbut in 30 years they still will not have the
minimum mental capacity needed to administer it (nor can they pass a
driving test and they may still need lots of other assistance on a
daily or hourly basis)âŚ
This is also true of Windows users. Whether in Windows, Mac, or what not, some users just donât know how to administer their computer. They donât take the time to learn. There is only so much we can do. I am not, and never have, referred to these people. These people are beyond the scope of what we can do.
gropiuskalle, yes, webpin and such helps make YaST more powerful. But easier? Thatâs debatable. How many modules does YaST have?
I was doing email tech support for an openSUSE customer, since that is one aspect of my job. He had read the manual, which included the nice pretty pictures. He could not understand it. I wrote a step by step guide for him. No pictures. He preferred my set of instructions over the manual. He thought mine was done better than the manual. So itâs not always that people donât read the manual, or donât have the capacity. Sometimes people just need things done differently.
As to the repos issue, that is one the openSUSE buildservice is wanting to correct, or stream line. I, myself, have 73 repos. I can handle it. I can even debug and figure out which package and which update is giving me the issue. But say for example, the oneclick install, if the default was to temporarily add it to zypper/YaST and then disable it, or even delete the repo afterward, by default, this would streamline things and keep repos down. Itâs all about what features we want to stand out.
If every user RTFMâd everything all the time, weâd never have time to do anything. RTFM claws-mail. RTFM zypper, apparmor, rpm, deb, selinux, udev, d-bus, emac, vim, ycp, amarok, xchat, and the list goes on and on. I have over 4000 commands on my system, easy, and that doesnât figure any of the arguments that go with the commands, or the options that go with the arguments. You really going to attempt to convince me you have RTFMâd that much? I wouldnât believe it for an instant. I spend a good deal of my time researching, reading and so on. I also help with the openSUSE wiki. Updating articles and so on. I read more than the average user. I still havenât read enough to cover everything. Now in the spirit of the point I believe you were trying to make, is that users should empower themselves to become educated and knowledgeable. This I agree with. Yes, users should empower themselves to become educated and knowledgeable.But this is a process. A long, arduous process. It certainly doesnât happen over night.
You say we have a strong community, and we do. But it can be better. There is always room for improvement. That has been the theme through out this thread. Improvement. How, is open for discussion. We can never just sit there and say, we have arrived. Thatâs when apathy sets in and we stagnate. So we constantly need ânewbiesâ. Newbies can be in many different areas. Maybe a person is new to programming, but a tenured Linux user. Maybe they are new to Factory. Maybe they are new to Linux. Maybe⌠the list goes on. Whatever the case we should be willing to help. For the most part, I have seen that. On occasion, I have seen some rather unhelpful posts or chats on IRC.
Iâm not interested in how many use Linux, but like I keep saying, this is about Linux and in particular, openSUSE, getting better. Straight up. We should never stay still or settle for the status quo. We should push the boundaries in innovation, quality, and community.
You say your interested in quality, and thats great. So am I. How many people test Factory? How many people file bug reports? While I donât know the exact numbers, I do know we need a drastic improvement in this area. So if you want improved quality, jump in and test Factory and submit bug reports.
No matter where you are in this, we need your help. We need people to test Factory. We need people to do feature requests on openFate, we need an improved wiki, which weâre working on right now. All these things can also bring about a better community.
Thank you Matt. You worded that, and interpreted what I was saying correctly and conveyed it better and more concisely than I.
In the context last described, I can agree on.
For myself, I say that Linux is not âforâ everyone, which applies to Windows and Mac, etc⌠If one OS were, there would be no need for others.
For example, Linux is not âforâ Windows users who are expecting/wanting Windows for free. Many people come into Linux wanting the low/no cost and expect Linux to work exactly the same as Windows.
In terms of having to answer the same question multiple times, the beauty of a user forum is no one "mustâ answer every or any post.
If one tires of answering said question yet again, then simply donât answer it. I think that many people burn themselves out trying to do too much on a community forum and eventually by âover-doingâ their participation, end up becoming frustrated and burned out.
unless one is paid by a company to be customer support in a given forum, one should feel free to not answer posts as much as they should feel free to answer them.
I also agree that it just is not possible for anyone but those with photographic memories to read every âmanualâ out their. I am one of those admins which have managed to memorize an âindexâ of information sources rather than trying to remember all the information.
Regardless of experience level, there are areas that fall just beyond our day to day usage that when we do begin to deal with ânewâ aspects, we must seek out new information.
New users arenât the only ones seeking information.
BTW, I am merely expressing my own opinions here and no one should feel they are being âdirectedâ to do anything beyond what they would normally do.
Big Bear
So itâs not always that people donât read the manual, or donât have the capacity. Sometimes people just need things done differently.
True - thatâs why I am writing in Linux-forums at all, because I believe sometimes there needs to be a human link between âman vimâ and a beginner struggling with vim. But do not forget that âman vimâ is anything but the only ressource (I do not consider manpages to be a tutorial anyway, those are rather references for advanced users, though some manpages do offer quite nice introductions too). I repeat: there are wikis, tutorials, Google, forum search⌠so alternatives should be easy to find - honestly, I presume some n00b-users just do not want to even try researching before opening the tenthousandtwohundredandtwelfth thread asking how to set up mp3-support. And they wonât do so the next time they have some problem which they canât figure out within half a minute because thereâs no popup screaming âBANG! Getcha DVD-support âright here!!!ââ. They should at least try instead of taking our support as some kind of free customer-service (complaining, not showing valid information, being ingrate, not following hints given in a thread etc.).
Those users havenât got the point of Linux: itâs a system that the user is responsible for, not a forum, not a software-team, not an IT-monopolist and not the community. We do help, but the target should be self-help, and at one point or another it finally boils down to RTFM. That point should not be missed.
As to the repos issue, that is one the openSUSE buildservice is wanting to correct âŚ]
Oh dear lord, please. There are some OBS-repositories which are well maintained, but the majority makes the âhome:â-index look like a junkyardâŚ
But say for example, the oneclick install, if the default was to temporarily add it to zypper/YaST and then disable it, or even delete the repo afterward, by default, this would streamline things and keep repos down. Itâs all about what features we want to stand out.
That indeed is necessary. But you might agree with me that changing these settings will not save any user from having to learn how package management works. That is not hard to learn, not many of the Linux-basics are, yet it takes some time - because there are some other things one really needs to know. FHS (âOops, that partition needs some space⌠um, /usr/bin? Letâs remove it, itâs a user-path anyway.â), root vs. user (âMight as well log in as root, those pw-prompts get on my nerves.â), bugfixing issues (âWhaaaâ? 673 MB of updates? Never change a running systemâŚâ), dependencies (âUrgs, YaST cannot find younameit.so, I will tell him to ignore it since it obviously doesnât exist anyway and YaST offers that.â) etc. pp. - one has to learn nevertheless, with or without a community (âDarn, I am offline!â).
You really going to attempt to convince me you have RTFMâd that much? I wouldnât believe it for an instant.
Do I sound like an impostor this much? No I have not, of course. I was talking about the must to use existing ressources. âman $commandâ is only one ressource. And a thread in a forum should be the last option. Thereâs no need to work through all lines of âman bashâ (for most users), this is just inefficient and I never recommended that. CâmonâŚ
Now in the spirit of the point I believe you were trying to make, is that users should empower themselves to become educated and knowledgeable. This I agree with. Yes, users should empower themselves to become educated and knowledgeable.But this is a process. A long, arduous process. It certainly doesnât happen over night.
And for some this will never happen at all, because they simply do not want to. Many newbies switch to Linux because they are fed up with Virusses and Trojans, not because they have any real interest in Linux. It seems to me that you try to reflect your idealism on others, but believe me, most people do not even get the point of an operating system that âempowersâ. And that wonât change because of streamlined interfaces. Despite the usual rants of common Windows users, I believe most of them are pretty satisfied with Win.
You say we have a strong community, and we do. But it can be better. There is always room for improvement. That has been the theme through out this thread. Improvement. How, is open for discussion. We can never just sit there and say, we have arrived. Thatâs when apathy sets in and we stagnate.
Very true, but I donât quite get in what way my point of view would lead to stagnation.
You say your interested in quality, and thats great. So am I. How many people test Factory? How many people file bug reports? While I donât know the exact numbers, I do know we need a drastic improvement in this area. So if you want improved quality, jump in and test Factory and submit bug reports.
No matter where you are in this, we need your help. We need people to test Factory. We need people to do feature requests on openFate, we need an improved wiki, which weâre working on right now. All these things can also bring about a better community.
Right. However, it is valid to state also what people we do not âneedâ, namely the people who are not willing to participate in this community, but instead just take it as a free service they can ask to solve their problems. Once again I want to point out the risk of motivation being worn out. Believe me, I have seen it happen, and one result is a bitter and angry âRTFM!!!â.
Once again I want to point out the risk of motivation being worn out. Believe me, I have seen it happen, and one result is âRTFM!!!â.
I can understand your frustration in this, I succumbed to it myself a while ago. The most important thing I forgot was that I am not required to answer every post or request. Neither are you or anyone else in a community forum.
I had thrust myself into the midst of all the help issues and allowed myself to argue and become repetitive. I did not like who I was coming to be both as a linux user and a supposedly âhelpfulâ person.
Now, I will not answer any posts if I donât think I can provide a positive experience according to how I think it should be done.
I donât have to answer the same question a thousand times. As a matter of fact, by stepping back and letting someone else answer, it gives that user who might have just learned that information an opportunity to share their knowledge and enthusiasm that may have lost itâs lustre for me a long time ago.
just my two cent,
Big Bear
Wait a second, I should clarify this: I never wrote âRTFMâ in any comment I did (maybe toungue in cheek, but not while being serious). I am not frustrated, for me working as a mod (or regular member as in most forums) is mainly fun, really. I am not talking about myself here, but about the community in general. When I started working with Linux (or computers in general, as I have started with Linux), I indeed wondered how harsh some veterans could be when answering a post from a n00b, but meanwhile I do understand. Thatâs all.
One more thought: I personally often feel the need to wake someone up who is obviously capable of reading manuals, while yet not being willing to use the mentioned ressources. âRTFMâ or the like could also be translated into something like âHey buddy, you donât even have to ask, itâs all there, see? Use it, so this forum will not mutate into a scratched recordâ. I suppose we should not take this saying word by word in this discussion, as it is often meant more generally.
all good stuff!
i didnât intend to say that i think iâm âsuperiorâ to either folks who
canât cross the road, or use Linux, OR stop the eClock on their VCR
(for example) from flashin 00:00:00 24x7âŚi know a lot of those
folks, some are called âgrandmaâ and makes the best apple pies on
earthâŚa LOT better than i canâŚ
âgiftsâ are not distributed equally among all the earthâs breathingâŚ
and, iâm sure that we here in these fora see daily folks who may make
great apple pies and need to be using an operating system without
sharp edges and places they can put too much salt and kill their pie
even while trying to follow the FMâŚ
i do believe that working toward a goal of producing a
no-reading-required open source desk/lap/nettop is (probably) worthy
(certainly lofty)âŚand we may all get there someday, togetherâŚ
but if i had to, iâd bet Apple makes it firstâŚ(and, iâve neither
owned nor even operated a Macâand, donât intend toâŚiâm committed to
here, nowâŚbut, canât support the idea of working toward an
non-reader system as the first order of businessâŚ)
â
palladium
Ah but herein is a problem, and I notice it quite frequently, when RTFM. Answers are not cook book. Take for example gropiuskalle kind help for disabling ipv6. His code example was
zgrep CONFIG_IPV6= /proc/config.gz
CONFIG_IPV6=y
Just one problem with that is he put the response as well as the actual code together in his list of ingredients. The code necessary is the
zgrep CONFIG_IPV6= /proc/config.gz
in a terminal session followed by pressing the enter key.
matt@suse112:~> zgrep CONFIG_IPV6= /proc/config.gz
CONFIG_IPV6=y
matt@suse112:~>
A common person would immediately cut and paste the whole. (Not trying to isolate gropiuskalle on this it just was convenient). So reading is not always enough if the directions are not precise or contain errors.
You havenât got a blue ribbon for your apple pie recipe yet, palladium? You need to work on your skills, noob 
OT:
Just one problem with that is he put the response as well as the actual code together in his list of ingredients.
Argh⌠you are right. In the âoriginal thread I posted this command as suggested by you, but when I did the HowTo I felt the need to stick a bit closer to the article by Rain_Maker, so I did simple copy&paste. I shouldnât do forum work while having my niece at home who is trying to put my cats tail in an electric outlet (âMee-ow?â) and canât make her mind up or down about what to have for dinner (âI may have said pasta but I meant pizza!â) or what volume is appropriate for listening to music (âThis is fun haha!â). You know.
Maybe some kind mod will let me edit that, as I find this to be a valid point. Is that five minute countdown to edit a comment debatable at all?
MattBClassic wrote:
> You need to work on your skills, noob
decided to take a swing huh?
exactly what is the purpose and point of your slight? maybe iâm not
smart enough to âget itââŚ
do you think i should slink away and hide, crying?
btw, i make a pretty good apple pie tooâŚ
â
palladium