On Tue, 23 Dec 2008, 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.


In case anyone thought that "noob" was an insulting term, I would like to 
apologize to those people and explain that in my view the word "noob" is 
shorthand for "new user of (in this case) Ubuntu".  I consider myself to 
be a noob and I referred to myself as "newbie" in an earlier message.

But I'm not a GNU/Linux noob nor am I a UNIX noob.  After 20 years of 
using UNIX and GNU/Linux systems, almost always via SSH or telnet, I have 
learned many useful things that the average Ubuntu noob would not know. 
So if I came across as condescending to anyone, sorry.

Like the respondent whose message is recapped below, I believe that people 
can quickly figure out how to use lynx.  My point was that almost no noob 
would even consider the possibility that a command-line browser exists. 
Why would they?  If that's condescending, too bad.  It's just the way it 
is, or the way I think it is.  I happened to know about it (not 
surprisingly after 20 years of experience that other Ubuntu noobs wouldn't 
have) and if saying so makes me seem smug and superior, OK, but I don't 
see why it should.

I'm writing this now because I received this email note this morning in 
response to my earlier message (above):

"This seems rather condescending to me. While they may not be aware of 
lynx, I think the vast majority of 'noobs' would be more than capable of 
using it.  You're not the only one out there who's used lynx;  you're 
nothing special.

[snip other parts of exchange]

"In short, the point of my email, and you'll note that it was to *you* and 
not the list, was to offer you the point of view that your email came 
across as condescending, or otherwise unflattering.  That is all."


Mike