Why do you say " Linus " like you know him? Why have you even bothered making a comment here? If you were involved in the discussion or even read the previous posts here you will see that Chinaman was following a document posted on www.tldp.org, he asked me a couple of questions about the document and I answered them. Nowhere do I recommend that symlinking is the thing to do, we merely discussed the contents of the document. I followed the instructions in the document so I could understand the question that chinaman asked me. Can't you see this thread is dead! If you have something to say, write an email with your recommendations to the author of the document or the editors at www.tldp.org. ( And the " you want to know why? " question if you remove the standard kernel and kernel headers the /usr/include/asm and /usr/include/linux will be removed by the package scripts automatically " god halp us all, stiles from texas is here to teach us Debian administration techniques, yeeeee haaaaw "

If you refer to "telling someone the correct way to do something with a given distribution" as "going to such lengths to contradict you", then I do it because it's the Right Thing To Do (TM).

So you like to do things your own way, big deal. That doesn't mean they are the easiest way. What's so wrong with me telling people how to use the tools they hav available to them? You seem to want to forsake the work that people have done in order to remain comfortable yourself and that anyone else's ideas for how to work with a system comfortably are wrong.

Okay, and? All I did was interject that there are much simpler and more "correct" ways of doing it for Debian. I never criticized anyone either. If you think I did, read my posts again until you realize I didn't

Go for it. I'll choose to do it the standard way for whatever distribution I'm using and I'll take advantage of whatever tools are available to me. To suggest that I am wrong for doing so is just stupid and insults the people who developed those tools.

Ha, "people like you". I guess you aren't aware of my well-documented history of dedication to helping Linux newbies. Don't worry, I won't stroke my own ego going into it, but there are plenty of people here who do recognize what I've done and continue to do.

Dude, re-read my post. Never do I say that one way is better than the other. I simply stated that my way is easier. That's not subjective, however, as it is OBVIOUS that my way requires a lot less work.

mrhyde, I recommend that you read posts carefully before taking them personally. Not everyone is out to get you when they post an alternataive way of doing things, and shame on you for forsaking someone for doing so.

First of all, it's "Strike"

Funny, I never assumed that. I simply said that "you didn't really learn how Debian uses [runlevels and init scripts]". Read carefully.

Yes, in my several years of helping thousands (literally) of newbies get started with Linux, I know very well that most people expect hand-holding. But you generally won't see me providing it because people need to learn how to find their own solutions, it's just that sometimes they don't know where to start. I gave a much more "hand-holding" style post than I usually do this time, actually. I pretty much did tell you step by step what to do (and since I've done it for my own setup, I'd definitely say that I've double-checked it and made sure that it works).

Trust me, I don't fall into this category.

Excellent. Keeping notes is a superb idea.

I'm pretty sure it won't, but it wouldn't hurt to look (Gentoo clones Debian in many other ways, so maybe it does so here too).

Actually, sorry, that went right over my head. Not sure what point you are trying to make there.

What flame? And all I offered was constructive criticism. I never said anyone else's advice was wrong (in this post ) or stupid or inferior or anything. I simply said "hey, here's an easier way to do it." And it is easier, there's no debate about that. It takes two seconds of work and leaves very little room for making errors.

I don't need recognition for helping newbies. I've gotten that already (I see you also don't know who I am, but that's fine as I've been "out of the game" for a while) I do it to help people, of course. I provided you with a nice easy way of doing what you wanted, didn't I? Where's the harm?

No offense, but I think you're doing them a disservice. I think in a lot of cases that encouraging people to just cry for help when they can get their own solutions relatively easily (i.e. by reading, since you said they "don't want to read") is a bad idea. People don't learn much by having their work done for them. You don't see teachers giving tests where the process and answers are already there for all the questions, because they expect you to have figured out how to do things on your own by now.

Why do you assume he's presenting it as if he knows Linus personally? He says "Linus" because that's his name, and he's the one that said the stuff that he summarized. If you look in the document that he is talking about, you'd see this:
Ding ding ding, this makes everything you say from here on out look much much dumber. Why are you taking all this so personally when nobody in this thread ever made a personal attack on you? Why must you resort to personal attacks on others? Besides, stiles and I are pretty heavyweight in our Linux knowledge (him probably more so than I though I may have him topped in the Debian arena, but I'm not sure about that), and we're both from Texas, so that's probably a path you don't want to go down. Please, don't bring personal issues to threads. Thanks.

What irritates me is your quoting crap, if that is not a personal attack, quote quote, then what is? You came along with a suggestion about administering Debian linux, great, when we continued discussing this topic and I didn't make any recognition of your suggestion ( Chinaman praised you for your efforts ) you started all this quoting contradicting crap, now you keep on doing it, SAD, there are loads of threads here with 0 answers or suggestions, why don't you and your pal stiles go and use all this amazing talent to help somebody who needs it, just look at the amount of time you've put into this thread, for what? I'm not going to change my minde about you. In my opinion you are an idiot, you are boring me to tears now, the only reason you are keeping this up is you don't understand what I'm talking about. Ding dong, there are only steers an queers from Texas, which one are you numb nuts?... " Heavyweight! ", tut tut

It's called "context", so you can know what exactly I am referring to. It's especially important when I am not replying to the post that immediately precedes mine. It's also nice so that I can direct my statements at particular portions of a post. Like I'm doing now. This is (and always has been) a standard forum practice for every forum I've been on and I'm not about to change.

My posts are only contradictory in that they suggest an alternative to what you suggest. Never do I state that your way of doing things is wrong.

And, as you can see, I will continue to do it because it makes sense and it makes things abundantly clear (not to mention it makes it easier for me to make posts that deal with multiple portions of someone else's post).

Well I already dedicated over two years to running the forums at linuxnewbie.org (now justlinux.com), a lot of which was single-handed. So I don't feel the need to justify the fact that I can't get to every post. Besides, egging you on so you make yourself look like more of a moron is more fun.

If I don't understand what you are talking about, then perhaps instead of resorting to personal insults (btw, this post was reported) you should figure out what it is I'm not understanding and try harder to make things more clear. I've seen plenty of your kind before and I'm sure I'll see plenty more, but I'm not going to become so petty as to stoop to your level of snide remarks and childish insults.

OOOH I'VE BEEN REPORTED, YOU ARE AN IDIOT, YOU HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE! CHILDISH? IF WE WERE DISCUSING THIS FACE TO FACE I'D HAVE PUNCHED YOU BY NOW, I'M GOING TO FIND A FORUM ON MATURITY NOW, SO I CAN GET UP TO YOUR LEVEL. Ah come on, we're having such a laugh here at your quotes, and amazing sys admin skills!

Strike,

Just below was the original offensive remark you made. There have been many more since then. You did say that mrhyde's way of doing things is wrong. You are now counterproductive to this thread. Please just leave it.


If you are still interested in helping newbies, I, for one, could keep you busy for a long time. If you consider it hand-holding, that doesn't bother me. I have a small amount of knowledge concerning the most-used os, and most of my customers call because I graciously hold their hand - not because I belittle them. Does it irritate me that they don't ever Google or read? Yes. For my LinuxQuestions posts, I have already done both. However, the Linux documentation, for a newbie, is fairly difficult.

Under the LinuxQuestions.org logo, Jeremy has this defining line of type:
LinuxQuestions.org Forums - where Linux newbies come for help

Just as if I had posted this to you in Chinese, I doubt you would have understood any of it. The same holds true for most Linux newbies. We don't understand the language of most of the docs. (Did you bother to read my very first post, and the link I included, which would show you where I got the information we discussed?) I don't know whether or not you understand Chinese. If, as one of my customers, you replied as I did in my early replies to mrhyde, though, I may either leave you and not help; or as he did, humble myself and do whatever I could to rescue the newbie from M$.

In reading some of your other posts, two things are apparent:

(1) you have a fair amount of Linux knowledge,
(2) you had rather start an argument than offer simple help.

Why are you such an "angry young man"?

Ni kan de dong ma?

Please try to stay on topic and refrain from personal attacks. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.

--jeremy

You're ok chinaman, I'll keep an eye out for your posts and see if we can discuss administration techniques again, I will apologize for my remarks, to all who have read this thread and been offended ( That includes you striky baby!! ), I am with the lads from the computer science society at my Uni, we were watching the film " Full metal jacket " earlier, hence the quotation " ...steers and queers " I guess the beer loosened my tongue.
Oh yeah, chinaman, that kernel compilation error ed out, I'm taking some time out so I'll drop in some results in a day or so.

Sorry Jeremy.

Okay, so I said "wrong" but it wasn't meant in such a sense. From a Debian admin perspective, it's the wrong way to go about it simply because it mucks with things that don't need to be mucked with, but it's not wrong in the strict sense because it does get the job done. Sorry for the confusion.

So as you learn you should write new documentation I've done so myself and I've received a great deal of communication from people who have appreciated it. It's kinda fun too, I highly recommend it.

I understand that documentation is hard to wade through for newbies. And I did note your first post with the link in it. But, as I've stated countless times already in this thread, there are often easier ways of doing things so I try and let people know how to do that. I simply posted an alternative which is the canonical Debian way of doing it, since this is after all the Debian forum. If it's not what you choose to go with, fine, but that's the way it should be done in Debian since that's the way the tools for Debian were designed.

I'll admit that I don't back down from fights, but I definitely don't go looking for fights on linux newbie forums unless I clearly state so (the only thread I've done that on so far here is my perl rant which was actually requested - I wasn't going to post it but someone wanted to hear it). I'm not angry at all, I'm quite calm and composed. I think mrhyde is the angry one in this thread.

I'm not angry, I'm just laughing at you! There is a guy here with me tonight who is doing a master thesis in computer science, he is using HP-PA Debian Woody as a base operating system, we have had a great laugh at your rants, quotes and the amount of trouble you have gone to, good on you for not backing down! I will say thanks to the Debian team for porting Debian to HP-PA, we managed to rescue a few C360's from the dumpster, I am going to spend a bit of time on the machine over the weekend maybe we'll all rant some more on Monday

I just spent... I dunno, a while reading through this monster. I've been trying to figure out who picked what and why this little flamewar got started... and I really have no idea. Its not even really a flamewar yet either.

I just can't understand how two guys that obviously know what they're doing go into it over... nothing, two ways of doing the exact same thing, that both work.

I can't tell you how many times I've been contradicted in mid thread by somebody who's totally wrong, now that's a pain, and that's not even worth going off about like this.

I usually just ignore the thread and see what happens...

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks, mrhyde.

My apologies also to: Strike, Jeremy, and the LinuxQuestions community.

We are not the enemy, and fighting within will only destroy us. Thanks for all the help, guys! I see from email that there have been 2 more posts since I started writing this one, so if info is there I should have read - sorry!


My kernel compilation worked okay. I do have several issues, though. I had to get some sleep before I could start researching them, which I'm doing now.

On the issue of drives, I have an Asus 52X CD-ROM, and a Sony DRU500-AX DVD+/-RW. In the kernel I included ATAPI support for the CD-ROM and SCSI emulation for the DVD writer. In the new kernel I can mount the Asus at /cdrom but I hadn't found the Sony. I added append="hda=ide-scsi" to lilo and it wouldn't reboot. The old kernel had been renamed, so I thought I'd hosed it. I finally booted with the boot floppy disk and took the line out of lilo.conf and it's okay again. In the process I learned a few more things, but that's for another time. I think what I needed to add is append="hdd=ide-scsi" but I'll wait until I read some more to try it.

Previous to the new kernel compile, it was using my Realtek 8139 chipset nic. The mobo also has a Broadcom Gigabit LAN onboard, but my lappy (2nd comp on my network) doesn't have giga-lan, but firewire, so they're networked with fire. And RTL8139C is so common, I've been using it through my router. Since the new kernel was compiled, the Realtek nic doesn't work in Debian, but the Broadcom does. This is an inconvenience, for if I reboot to use XP (which I will need to do to for some PS work today) I will have to either physically change the cable or configure the giga lan in XP.

It found my M$ Intellimouse Explorer, Wacom pen tablet, and HP Deskjet printer, and Logitech Internet Navigator keyboard - all USB devices. I think it even found my Toshiba pda, but unfortunately, it has Pocket PC os, which won't do me any good in Debian.

It also properly identified my onboard sound ( i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0 supports AMAP, total channels = 6) though I've yet to find how to enable sounds.

Finegan! That's a good ould Irish name!! Hope you've had a good laugh at this, it has gone off the tracks a bit. I have tried to use an administration technique that I believe is distro portable, I use linux for the kernel's portability, I strictly don't see any distro as being superior over another, I do feel though, that some Debian admins see themselves as entirely different to other distros admins ( more advanced? ), maybe they are right to stay loyal, but from what I can gather the LPI only differentiate Debian by it's package management system. I personally would not stay loyal to a specific distro. To me distros are only operating environments for the kernel ...that is linux nothing else.
I am going to do a load of work over th next few days on a Debian box, hopefully strike and stiles ( I actually think they are the same person ) will go off on some interesting tangents with me on Monday maybe we would all be better off trying to help out some newbies in the process, your welcome to join in, I'm sure you'll have plenty of interesting stuff to add!!