On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 06:59:54PM -0600, Mike Miller wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Dec 2008, Florin Iucha wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 03:25:32PM -0600, Mike Miller wrote:
> >
> >>> A newbie who goes around uninstalling things will get his comeuppance.
> >>
> >> In my case, the sound card didn't work until I uninstalled pulse audio. 
> >> So the newbie on my system would have had a comeuppance either way.
> >
> > Hopefully the newbie with your system/hardware problem will read a few 
> > threads on the forums, or ask in the IRC, and hopefully whomever 
> > suggests a newbie to do X, has done it already and knows the pitfalls 
> > and how to recover from them.
> 
> In my case, I was able to use Lynx from the text-based command line, but I 
> think most noobs would have to borrow someone elses computer to look 
> things up -- when Gnome fails, you can't open your web browser.  It would 
> be huge hassle for most people.

Mike,

My point was that the instructions that the newbie will receive will
look like this:

   1. (dpkg -P|rpm -e) $bad_package
   2. rm /path/to/first/forgotten/file
   3. rm /path/to/second/forgotten/file
   4. logout|reboot

So, if a newbie follows a _tested_ recipe he should be OK.
The recipe can be the uninstall script included in the package, or a
detailed set of steps in the forums or bug report.

florin

-- 
Bruce Schneier expects the Spanish Inquisition.
      http://geekz.co.uk/schneierfacts/fact/163
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