 | | | newbie | newbie 2003-06-26 - By afme@(protected)
Back
I looked at both urls
www.webmin.com The man knows how to write and put up a webpage. IF only one
could get that installed in
linux, instead of windows which won't allow that, and I cannot get INTO linux
beyond gnome, so far.
Consider the bugs, fill in the search box when I don't even know what bugs to
look at, also looked at
the list, I might as well be reading swahili. The bugs are topic and task
specific, which requires one
already knows how Linux works and can use it. Then some or other detail won't
go as EXPECTED and one
focusses on solving that within one's grasp of the subject. It means one must
at least have some grasp
to things. So far I have none. Now how can an expert make it easy to understand
to a newbie? Which
inverts the issue as put up by the next one.
<http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
The man makes several wrong assumptions about asking smart questions. To do so
one first has to know the
other person's mind set and mindstyle and its contents, or be quite familiar
with that. I once spent
half an hour having a Physicist ask me questions to get to know what I knew
about transducers & Physics.
After that he took 5 minutes to explain it. Having taught people one first
feeds in an idea and a bird's
eye view, after which it takes between two and four weeks to percolate around
inside their unconscious,
after which they begin to ask some questions and do this again. My son once
wanted to know whether the
sun was bigger than Auckland, the city he lived in. It too months of getting
books, visting a
planetarium, with weeks intervals between until he told me "can we go again".
The last visit was when I
tested him for some ideas he told me" Oh, I know all that" and the subject was
never broached again. All
he wanted was to get oriented in his world.
There is no such thing as a smart question except in the mind of an replier who
knows it is a smart
question, because he knows his subject. One asks questions according to the
level of insight one has of
something. Had it once when the new maths - set theory - was introduced. The
math teacher had not a clue
and the students told me, cause they knew they could ask me anything. So I read
the book, once, passed
the test included at 86% which I thought was good enough, taught them Set
Theory and so annoyed the hell
out of the math teacher by having the student ask him smart questions he knew
not how to asnwer. Of
course they were posed and suggested by me. Sets work like words do. Alkl I
used as a model was a paper
bag and kitchen drawers, something they already knew. When abstractions are
well firmed up in someone's
mind they know not how to renders them transparent to someone who does not know
that much. A medical
degree, which takes several years to learn can be actually taught in three
months, the rest is
superfluous waffle. But then one cannot do that unless one already knows the
crucial aspects that make
all the difference and has a working model of how people who do not know
actually think. Then one has to
figure out transfer notions to poke them in the other person's head.
I gather, infer, surmise that you are intent on having me ask topic and task
specific questions so you
can reply in Linux jargon. I ain't got that far yet. That's how all the
documentation works for
computerese. Compare that to taking one's car to a mechanic, something wromng,
does not sound right. The
mechanic turns it on, listens and says "Oh, you need a so and so fixed". He can
only do that because he
has in his mind a working model of a car and engine, knows which bit does what,
has a further model of
how a "perfect" engine should behave and a pile of other stuff and data about
what can go wrong. We live
in a world of experts and specialists and professionals who do things for us,
but that implies there is
no need to explain it, just foot the bill. Now how does one get to be expert
starting from nowhere. Yep,
I'm am expert in several things other than Linux. Anthropologists are trained
one how to learn a
language and get to know a culture of the "primitives" they study.
The one on "Making it easy to answer" riles me. How can one do that when one
lacks familiarity with the
topic in hand? One can transfer data but one cannot transfer understanding,
grokking something. Where
and how does one start? In ignorance, which does not mean a lack of
understanding. Apart from that
programmers and computer geeks have different mindstyles than ordinary folk.
What is easy for a chip on
a computer is hard for people. WHY, it's the difference between the well
defined word versus ambiguity.
Sorry, end of rant
Adrian
I would fancy one first makes a directory setup. adjusts the kernel, gets some
programs, oops packages
going, integrates them with the kernel, etc Since most administrative tasks
have to be organised in
root, etc blahh.
I got gnome and nix else works or can be found. Giving me text Linux commands
is no use unless I can get
into the shell, is that what it is called? I've tried every command in the
menu with the red hat icon
and that gets me nowhere either. The manual and info is there and I cannot
grok that. Just imagine me
sitting in a stratocruiser plane and no pilots license. Add someone telling me
:Do this< no thank you, I
might kill myself.
Since I tried some of that which did not work, because ALL I get is gnome, no
Nautilus, no Konqueror,
Kmail, etc. none of the other goodies, just 5 proggies on the bottom panel and
I am not in the habit of
typing in letters when I don't know what happens. I suppose "man mount" means
setup the manual, which
I've already
read. It's available in gnome. Cannot get the modem working. I'll try those
URLs, and I've read the dang
manual TWICE + the frisbie docs and the white handbook. What I lack is a bird's
eye view. and, pliz,
that does not consist of giving details in jargon., sorry, do I sound confused,
you're right I am, but I
know what confuses me.
Adrian.
Earn $52 per hosting referral at Lunarpages.
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