Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
Tech Ping
I will let Microsoft Windows 10 take over. : )
Before you begin, ask yourself WHY? Why Linux, why waste the time, now and in future? Is your time so cheap? Do you really have that big of a problem with Microsoft Windows or Apple iOS that you want to handicap yourself with Linux? Even my Linux friends have admitted that it is of limited value, for servers, NOT for desktop computers and all. We have three Raspberry Pi computers in the house with it and it is limited and for special project purposes only. Nothing more!
The burning question I have is: Why?
As a developer for over 30 years, I’ve learned that failure is not you friend but a necessary tool.
Another thing I’ve learned is not to say, “Xyz doesn’t work”.
“Doesn’t work” doesn’t work and your questions will be ignored.
“I installed apache on my Red Hat 7 system and I am in the process of trying to open port 80 on firewalld to allow web traffic. I typed the following command “firewall-cmd —zone=public —add-service=http” and it returned success. When I then tried to access the web server though I get “the server can’t be reached”. If I turn off firewalld it works. What am I missing?”
There’s a saying when it comes to Linux, that “Linux IS user friendly. It’s just very particular who its friends are.”
More seriously the part about mistakes is one of the real biggies. Many years ago, I worked as a networking instructor (I was a Novell Master CNI) and one of the required classes as called “Service and Support,” and for many students, it was their first time actually working on hardware. During the class we did talk about the possibility of making mistakes, and the sort of problems it can cause, from trivial, to taking down the entire network for an extended period.
Having worked as a field engineer designing, installing and troubleshooting networks for more than 5 years before I began training as an instructor, I had seen my fair share of mistakes and made a fair number myself.
The most important thing was trying to get users to realize that being human means making mistakes, what you need to do is try to minimize them.
I even gave examples of mistakes that I’d not only seen, but made myself, culminating with accepting a phone call from a panicing customer while finishing up working on a system at another site. As I was plugging in the connectors (back in the days of keyboard connectors using a 5 pin DIN plug, as I was talking, when I plugged in the keyboard, I heard a “pop” and smelled smoke. While I wasn’t paying close attention plugging in the cables, a so-called “safe” operation, I accidentally plugged a Stat-Mux (a communication device) power supply cable into the keyboard port on a Unix server, destroying the main system board. I was able to get another system board for their system, and get them up and running, but it took their system down for nearly 7 hours to get the parts, install them, load and configure Unix, then restore their data.
Also, the only “stupid question” is the one never asked.
Mark
“When is AI gonna learn the problems newbies face, and the way to communicate clearly with said people?"
#6 - get a book on Linux and read it
Scary article for beginners.
I’ve been dealing with hardware and software since the mid 70’s and one thing is the gold standard: Standardization is king. End users want what worked yesterday to work today. Adding new functions is great and people will slowly learn to use the good ones.
The current standards are Windows or iOS, Microsoft Office and Outlook. Asking end users to move to something completely different, like Linux for Libre Office will not find much success.
What people want and expect trumps quality and security, whether we like it or not. Linux will remain for us geeks for the foreseeable future.
That first tip basically boils down to “be technical”.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al