[The Great Satan]

Whenever I have to use Linux, it's like being transported back in time 30 or 40 years -- or like being in the Soviet Union. Everything is old and moldy, nothing works, there's no service, no documentation, everything is "being fixed." That is "no accident," as the Marxists like to say, because having no-nothing idiots like Ralph Nader dictate what software everybody should use is the very essence of Communism.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

As a new Linux sysadmin myself, from the Windows world, there are a couple of things...

1. What the h@ll am I doing compiles and makes?! I'm not a programmer. I can't review source. I don't know makefiles. The programmers I work with dont' like messing with other's code and I would never ask them to help. But, here I am doing ./Configure makeclean make make install. From DejaNews (Google), I see other Linux "experts" dispensing wrong advice, haphazardly, all over the place. What percentage of the people doing this stuff can actually go in there and fix a broken makefile? You get good at separating bull from decent advice. I can fool most people into thinking I'm an expert, but I'm not kidding myself. I'm at the mercy of people who write this stuff and if it doesn't work - tough - write your own. If there was no Internet, Linux would die in a heartbeat.

2. Try to get tech support for mcrypt. Why no tech support? No incentive. No one cares.

3. Try to set up sendmail. The docs for simple instructions just point you to the 100 page user manual. simple.

4. Latest php (4.2.1) has a bug in the makefile when run under RH 7.x. Put /libs in the source tree before "make". How do I know that? It was mused on the net somewhere. This is a rediculous way of doing software. But they say it's better.

That being said, IF you don't give up, it can work - well. I can't even think "support" and Linux in the same sentence. If it ain't in the docs or in newsgroups, you're done. End of story. There needs to be much discipline administered to the community. Which I can't see ever happening.

And lastly, why should anybody pay a bit of interest to what a socialist & luddite has to say about any technology?! Listening to Ralph Nader on technology is like listening to Rosie O'Donnel address supermodeling.

[dwollmann]

Whenever I have to use Linux, it's like being transported back in time 30 or 40 years -- or like being in the Soviet Union. Everything is old and moldy, nothing works, there's no service, no documentation, everything is "being fixed."

No documentation?

• The Linux Documentation Project, searchable online HOWTOs and other documentation
• xman ('man' if you prefer console)
• info <topic> or info and use info's built-in search functions
• apropos <search string>
• /usr/share/doc/ (/usr/doc/ on older distributions)
• if you still can't find it, this will search all the online man pages:
  $ find `man -w | tr : ' '` -type f | xargs zgrep -l '<search string>' | sed 's!.*/\(.*\).[0-9]$!\1!'