On 09/08/2012 11:59 PM, Eddie G. O'Connor Jr. wrote:
On 09/08/2012 11:40 PM, Roger wrote:
This demonstrates one of the problems Linux generically suffers in
the Desktop world. It demands too much knowledge of the internal part
of the operating system.
Well, yes and no.
Rather it demands sufficient knowledge to work on problems as they
occur.
This was discussed many years ago and I have found that the knowledge
and ability to get under the hood and fix things, by far outweighs
the learning one must do to use/control ones computer.
In proprietary systems, the user, sheltered from everything, must
rely on other more knowledgeable folk to fix or create endless
varieties of apps to fix things for a fee.
In the nixes much can be generally fixed from the terminal, and the
fee for this is learning and asking on list.
Let me give you an example of a potential catastrophe that happened
to me on Saturday morning.
In Fedora 16 I run VirtualBox, In VBox I have xp and LinuxMint,
Fedora 17 will not install for me.
Anyway Linux Mint would not shut down, it locked, nothing would shut
it off, so in a terminal I did ps aux |grep VirtualBox to find the
process of VirtualBox and kill -9 processnumber to kill it. It would
not kill.
I waited an hour in case the computer was processing something then I
switched off the pc, tried a restart but errors galore during boot,
faulty sectors and a whole lot of other faults.
The message at the end of the list of errors said <ctrl D> to
continue or enter root password and run fsck to repair, I chose this
option, logged in as root, fsck fixed everything and Fedora came up
and operates perfectly.
Had this been exclusively GUI or a Windows machine it would have, for
me, meant reformatting and reinstalling. Hours of misery, dozens of
applications to reinstall and a dozen reboots.
If I could recommend anything in Linux it would be "Learn to use the
terminal and text commands" They are tools of the trade.
Roger
Sound advice indeed....and slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of
it....but like......what you just described would have been for
me?.....a TOTAL re-installation of EVERYTHING!......I wonder if
there's a "manual" with all the commands one might need? And then
another question would be: Are the commands different dependent on the
distro you use?...will the same commands work in
Ubuntu.....Fedora.....Linux Mint......Mandriva etc? And I guess THIS
is the reason a lot of people won't live Windows....because there's
just TOO much information to absorb....at times I almost feel like
crawling back into my "Regedit" / "Task Manager" hole and staying
there, but after being exposed to Linux I don't think I could EVER
allow myself to fall back into that ignorant......close-minded state.
Soooo......If it means hours upon hours of studying Linux commands
then so be it. Eventually I think I'm going to pursue a "cert" in
Linux...nothing major just a general cert that can allow me to get my
foot in the door,....and in doing so I'm almost 100% certain that I'll
need "terminal skills' in order to pass the exams....
EGO II
Congratualtions! For an excellent book on Linux commands: Linux in a
Nutshell from O'Reilly. It was $50 when I bought it, and I use it at
least once a week.
--doug
--
Blessed are the peacekeepers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A.M. Greeley
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