Linux Format forums

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

denham2010 — Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:16 am

Author: denham2010

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:16 am

I write applets for Awn (Avant Window Navigator), and have begun (where possible) to release the applets in another form for those that don't use Awn.

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

jamie_tickner — Tue Mar 02, 2010 8:38 am

Author: jamie_tickner

Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 8:38 am

in terms of the community I have managed to get around ten friends to use linux for around 75% of their computing and assisted mates who have attempted linux but got in to troubles (mostly with laptop's wifi drivers!)

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

nelz — Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:48 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:48 am

I did say relatively. There are broken packages and broken repositories out there, but with a well maintained distro this should happen rarely.

Even that example you posted was fairly easy to fix, requiring the forced installation of a couple of packages to deal with the breakage, although the consensus was to switch to a better distro.

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

Bazza — Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:35 am

Author: Bazza

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:35 am

Hi nelz...

> "relatively pain free experience"...

OK nuff said...

OK, LXF, take note of any users on here that have update/new
install packages that fail like this "relatively pain free" one...

http://www.linuxformat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11697

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

nelz — Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:02 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:02 am

Nothing always works, but if you stick to installing from packages for your distro, you should have a relatively pain free experience as someone else has to worry about dependencies.

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

Bazza — Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:21 pm

Author: Bazza

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:21 pm

Hi nelz...

> That's what package managers are for, users shouldn't
> have to worry about dependencies.

Do they ALWAYS work? ;oD

Nuff said...

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

nelz — Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:37 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:37 pm

Bazza wrote:

Anyone who can list dependencies for any one App`, versions,
where to find them, how to install them and create a line by
line childs level set of instructions to do so would be of great
use.

That's what package managers are for, users shouldn't have to worry about dependencies.

Bazza wrote:

(Why can`t these whizzkid coding experts create something
without resorting to "some_unknown_unwanted_library.so"?)

Like YAM depending on buggy MUI classes with gaping security holes?

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

Bazza — Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:28 pm

Author: Bazza

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:28 pm

My pet hate is the dependency issues.

I really hate anything that needs this, that and the other
of version(s) x.y.z before it will even start.

The amount of times that it occurs to people on this site
alone is staggering.

Anyone who can list dependencies for any one App`, versions,
where to find them, how to install them and create a line by
line childs level set of instructions to do so would be of great
use.

(Why can`t these whizzkid coding experts create something
without resorting to "some_unknown_unwanted_library.so"?)

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

guy — Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:58 pm

Author: guy

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:58 pm

nelz wrote:

My pet peeve is documentation that details all the options but gives no examples of how to use them. If you use such software already, it's not much work to send a few examples to the devs.

And mine is documentations that tells you how to use a tool but not where to find it.

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

guy — Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:56 pm

Author: guy

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:56 pm

I help promote the use and development of Free/Open Source at work - we are making slow but steady progress.

I contribute to various wikis (OK that's just the wider open information community, but I hate dividing lines)

And I lay slow plans to join a project developing software for my favourite hobby.

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

nelz — Tue Feb 23, 2010 1:23 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 1:23 pm

Yes, but if the man pages included examples I could paste those into my copy instead of working them out for myself... but keep that between you and me

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

Rhakios — Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:36 am

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:36 am

nelz wrote:

My pet peeve is documentation that details all the options but gives no examples of how to use them. If you use such software already, it's not much work to send a few examples to the devs.

Shhh! nelz, that's why people buy LXF.

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

nelz — Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:54 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:54 am

My pet peeve is documentation that details all the options but gives no examples of how to use them. If you use such software already, it's not much work to send a few examples to the devs.

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

M-Saunders — Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:30 am

Author: M-Saunders

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:30 am

Seconded for documentation. Free Software documentation ranges from brilliant to non-existent. Launch your most-used apps and see how much documentation you can find from within the app. If nothing, look on the app's website. If there's still nothing, offer to write some. Even if you don't have much time, any documentation is better than none at all!

M

Re: How do you get stated in the Linux community?

nelz — Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:33 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:33 am

Tell people about Linux
Jojn a LUG and help people there

One of the wonderful things about the Linux community is that there are so many people that are contributing without considering that they are doing so.