Getting Flamed for helping a Linux New User

English Open Chat
1

I had something very intresting happen, I was over looking at the Ubuntu Forums ( Yes I read Ubuntu Forums) When I noticed somebody sent me a private message. It was from a person who wanted to know how to install Ubuntu and wanted a program to resize the WIndows Partition of his system from within WIndows using a free or low cost program after some back and forth about what he wanted, I suggested that he look at EASEUS Partition Master software. He thanked me and asked me if I was still using Ubuntu and how I liked it. I told the guy I was using Opensuse 11.4 and I did not use Ubuntu, but Ubuntu was a good Linux to start with and told him that Opensuse was a good choice, that he should give them both a try, I think I even suggested he look at Linux MInt and suggested to him to wait until he was a little more experienced to try Fedora. He thanked me and I thought that was the end of it. Until I get another private message from a user who ( I guess was talking to the guy also) who was pissed that I would suggest using EASEUS Partition Master software, and then wanted to know why I was even on the Ubuntu forums as a Opensuse User. I sent him a note, just told him I was helping the guy and answered a few questions, The reply was almost funny, go back to my own forums. I know this is not the par for the course for most users as I think alot of us have tried different distros, I just thought it was funny that passions can run so high over a OS. Sometimes I think people need to relax, I say use what works for you. I for one think Opensuse is a great Linux Distro and thats why I use it, oh and the community here is pretty stellar too , Just do not tell them :slight_smile:

:slight_smile:

2

I could probably pontificate on this subject for a long time, … but as my wife will often say to me "be careful, you will catch a nose bleed from the height of your podium ! " < gulp > so I suppose I should watch this, and not trip over my feet, as its a long ways down ! rotfl!

I’ve been annoyed many times from being flamed by a new user, but gradually I’ve learned to accept that it is their frustration coming out which hopefully only reflects a small part of their personality, and on a better day one might see the bright side. I’m not as polite in such dealings as I should be, and in my case my sometimes less than stellar response is a poor character trait of mine that I am working on. My gradually increasing age is helping to cure this lack of patience of mine.

I do know many users of distribution-A get annoyed when another distribution is ‘pushed’ publicly in the distribution-A forum (while putting down distro-A). I probably fall into that ‘annoyed’ category. Note the word ‘publicly’. IMHO private advice via a PM is a different matter and wb4bbc I see nothing annoying on your part response with the private PM exchange … I think your response in PM was fine.

However where I probably don’t see eye to eye with everyone else is if one is on a forum for distribution-a is helping other distribution users. I don’t have a problem with that (ie on forum for distribution-a, then I see its still fine to help users for distribution-b, with perhaps a caution that the distribution-b user is on the ‘wrong’ forum for best advice for distribution-b, and hence the reply that they get from distribution-a users may not be the best). Most people definitely don’t see it my way thou, and my (over generous help) views are VERY far from official forum policy (in fact I think my view may be just the opposite).

I’ve occasionally asked my self if my views conflict with each other.

Like why would I be willing (and find it acceptable) to help a user of distro-b on a forum for distro-a, yet I get annoyed when a distro-b user goes a step further and starts a glowing assessment of distro-b (while putting down distro-a) on a distro-a forum? In both cases its a distro-b user on the wrong forum. …

I have not figured out my feelings yet on this.

For some reason I find it acceptable to listen to misplaced help requests and to reply to those misplaced requests, but I find it not acceptable to be subjected to misplaced glowing comments (which are together with putdowns). …

I’m still searching inside for the answer inside myself.

… and again, I’m thinking public comments, while I see obtaining private comments (such as occurred with you) via PM is a different matter.

3

As my wife will say , I will talk to anybody hehehe . I just wanted to say I never said any of this in public forums it was all PM’s and one of the reasons I have a account on Ubuntu Forums is I used to run it. I never bashed any Distro , I suggested he look at them all and find one he likes. I know I have done that. I hate Drama so I think that I will just confine my Helping or talking about LInux to Opensuse Forums for the time being.Oh I guess the closest I came to bashing anything was suggesting that he use Linux awhile before trying Fedora. But its all good, my hope is more new people learn about Linux and start using it, There is something for everybody.

4

On 06/23/2011 08:06 AM, wb4bbc wrote:
>
> I just thought it was funny that passions can run so high over a OS.

i think such is a reflection of eons of social evolution…back in the
cave man days it was important to think of your on group as VERY
important, and the cavemen on the other side of the mountain as probably
VERY bad folks…

if you thought otherwise (and were not careful) those other folks might
come over the hill to kill your dogs and steal your wheat, livestock and
daughters…

its just ages old DNA to defend your own environment…

–
DD
Caveat
Hardware
Software
23 June: Sunrise 4:36 AM, Sunset 10:03 PM

5

I am sorry to hear you had problems with the poster on the Ubuntu forums.

I did not use those forums when I initially did a dual-boot. I already had Windows installed, and I used GParted to partition my system.

Since that time, I ended up disliking Ubuntu, so I installed openSUSE 11.4 instead. I also am still running Windows.

6

On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:24:05 +0530, DenverD
<DenverD@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

> On 06/23/2011 08:06 AM, wb4bbc wrote:
>>
>> I just thought it was funny that passions can run so high over a OS.
>
> i think such is a reflection of eons of social evolution…back in the
> cave man days it was important to think of your on group as VERY
> important, and the cavemen on the other side of the mountain as probably
> VERY bad folks…
>
> if you thought otherwise (and were not careful) those other folks might
> come over the hill to kill your dogs and steal your wheat, livestock and
> daughters…
>
> its just ages old DNA to defend your own environment…
>

IMO that’s one aspect of it. another one is newer: some people may not
have much of a real life anymore, sitting behind computer screens &
interacting via forums, facebook, and what not with each other. since
that’s what they perceive as their living room, so to say, they want to
arrange things (and people) just the way they like it. such a person’s
online presence becomes increasingly his only presence, i’m afraid.

–
phani.

7

lol !!

My wife and I enjoy travelling when on vacation (which is probably good since my family is from Canada, hers from Thailand, and we live in Europe). So between visiting both of our family’s once a year, and trying to squeeze in the additional visit to another Asian country (when in my wife’s part of the world) and of course visit Europe, we use every last second of our vacation on the road.

BUT we also spend a LOT of time on the computer. Maybe too much in the virtual world of computer interaction.

On our last trip as we were hauling our suitcases behind us, while walking to the taxi, we looked at each and said to each other (with a smile) : < gulp > oh no ! the REAL world !! We leave our ‘virtual comfort’ behind < gulp > < gulp > Gosh ! We are now about to face the REAL World !! Can we handle it ? < gulp > … and then we both had a good laugh.

What made it so funny, like a LOT of humour, is there was a small element of truth.

8

Hi,

The Ubuntu community is perverse.

I recall being chastised severely for explaining to a new Ubuntu user how to assign a password to the root account rather than doing everything through sudo. Apparently in doing so I had undermined the security of the whole Ubuntu distribution and I was almost banned from their forums.

They obviously abide by the “Security through obscurity” maxim.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

9

On 06/23/2011 09:08 AM, phanisvara wrote:
> another one is newer: some people may not have much of a real life anymore

good observation! (but, i’d rather steal someone’s daughter! [willing
and of legal age, of course])

–
DD
Caveat
Hardware
Software
23 June: Sunrise 4:36 AM, Sunset 10:03 PM

10

On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:06:02 +0530, neildarlow
<neildarlow@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> The Ubuntu community is perverse.

um, that’s perhaps a little strong i think.

> I recall being chastised severely for explaining to a new Ubuntu user
> how to assign a password to the root account rather than doing
> everything through sudo. Apparently in doing so I had undermined the
> security of the whole Ubuntu distribution and I was almost banned from
> their forums.

well, it’s their way of looking at things it seems. i’ve seen similar
exchanges on openSUSE forums / mailing lists re. logging into graphical
environment as ‘root.’ that’s certainly possible, even though a stupid
thing to do; therefore one needs to set a config. option somewhere to make
it possible. now & then people ask how to do it, and this sometimes leads
to (slightly) heated exchanges – as i said, similar situation.

personally i value my right to do stupid things with my system, like log
in as ‘root’ or compile an endless-loop into a kernel module. i like to
know that i can do it, which doesn’t mean i will, of course. and if the
question arises on a forum, i’d probably also comment negatively if
someone just gave instructions how to do it, without stressing that it is
really stupid to do so. (of course, i never had to do that; others always
beat me to it.)

> They obviously abide by the “Security through obscurity” maxim.
>
> Regards,
> Neil Darlow
>
>

–
phani.

11

Just my opinion. You don’t have to like it folks. :stuck_out_tongue:

Zoobuntu, glubuntu, foobuntu, shoebuntu…all suck like a bitter grapefruit.

Even worse I am discovering that many of the users are about as thin skinned as a an over filled water balloon.

12

I am one of those that allways step in when one obviously logs in as root in a thread. First to warn her/him (when it is not so obvious that she/he is that all knowing guy), but foremost to warn others not to do this. In short, when you post and it is clear that you did it, at least point to the dangers for noobs doing likewise. You will be amazed with what some noobs do “because it was in the forums”.

Apart from that, you can of course do with your system what you want. I will not stop you throwing it out of the window (local laws permitting).

13

On 06/23/2011 03:36 PM, brucecadieux wrote:
>
> Just my opinion. You don’t have to like it folks. :stuck_out_tongue:

maybe it is just me, but i don’t think that kinda slam would tend to
make us any better than them…

in fact, i think that kind of talk is both unnecessary and (just my
opinion. You don’t have to like it) overly juvenile, indefensible, and
incompletely thought through…

can’t we take a higher road? they are, after all, fellow brothers and
sisters in the world of free and open software…i say, they must be
pretty darn smart, maybe almost as smart as us, because at least they
have broken free from the billions world wide with an MS nose ring
firmly fitted, and afraid to try freedom!!

give’em credit for that, at least…please.

–
DD
Caveat
Hardware
Software
23 June: Sunrise 4:36 AM, Sunset 10:03 PM

14

On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:55:58 +0530, DenverD
<DenverD@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

> On 06/23/2011 03:36 PM, brucecadieux wrote:
>>
>> Just my opinion. You don’t have to like it folks. :stuck_out_tongue:
>
> maybe it is just me, but i don’t think that kinda slam would tend to
> make us any better than them…
>
> in fact, i think that kind of talk is both unnecessary and (just my
> opinion. You don’t have to like it) overly juvenile, indefensible, and
> incompletely thought through…
>
> can’t we take a higher road? they are, after all, fellow brothers and
> sisters in the world of free and open software…i say, they must be
> pretty darn smart, maybe almost as smart as us, because at least they
> have broken free from the billions world wide with an MS nose ring
> firmly fitted, and afraid to try freedom!!
>
> give’em credit for that, at least…please.
>

+1

even among linux users, people who insist that it has to be this way
aren’t that much better than M$, apple, & co, even though nobody gets
really rich in the process. apart from the money, it’s about freedom to do
what one likes. and even if people like things that i don’t, there’s no
reason to talk or think bad about them.

–
phani.

15

On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:06:03 +0530, hcvv <hcvv@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>
wrote:

>
> I am one of those that allways step in when one obviously logs in as
> root in a thread. First to warn her/him (when it is not so obvious that
> she/he is that all knowing guy), but foremost to warn others not to do
> this. In short, when you post and it is clear that you did it, at least
> point to the dangers for noobs doing likewise. You will be amazed with
> what some noobs do “because it was in the forums”.
>
> Apart from that, you can of course do with your system what you want. I
> will not stop you throwing it out of the window (local laws permitting).
>

perhaps you’re misunderstanding me: i certainly don’t advocate logging as
‘root’ into X, and am not doing it myself. if you & others wouldn’t do it
before, i’d also step in in those cases. i brought this only as an example
that there’s strong opinions among veteran distro users & forum members
about certain things, not only in *buntu land. distros have different
‘philosophies’ how linux should be used, and among ubuntu fans,
apparently, using the root acct. at all seems to be strongly discouraged.
(don’t like *buntu myself, but do like debian, where the root account
works as it should, IMO.)

–
phani.

16

Yes, we agree!

17

I am happy that you don’t like my opinion. Freedom of expression is wonderful thing. More important than the freedom to choose infoerior operating systems and software. :good:

Now where did that tinactin go rotfl!

18

On 06/23/2011 07:36 PM, hcvv wrote:
>
> Yes, we agree!

me too…
now lets all sing kumbaya!!

–
DD
Caveat
Hardware
Software
23 June: Sunrise 4:36 AM, Sunset 10:03 PM

19

Yes, let us sing. Down with the flame and thanks @wb4bcc for sharing this experience. Be welcome here!

20

If it were for users who have attitude i wouldn’t run Linux perhaps.
In the begin there was very little sympathy for newbies and some question. Read the f***** howto, dude.

There are always people that question others in what they use and run. I met a couple of people on the Ubuntu forum who ran very different types of distro’s.
One ran Arch, as he was a real believer in Arch.

But i would also not try to convert someone. Perhaps he got it wrong and thought you meant something different.
Life is to short to worry about such things.