Today's newbies to Linux vs. Five years ago (say)
 

When you first installed or looked at Linux did you feel excited about using it and if so why?

It is an observation I have made that many newbies here are excited about using Linux and it is also an amazing fact that many of them are bubbling with enthusiasm even when they have problems with getting hardware to work in Linux or just having a tough time installing or working with it.

Personally I wasn't excited about Linux the first time. When I first installed Linux, it was RedHat 6.2 on a Windows partition on an "image" file (since I didn't have free space at that time) and booted using a boot floppy, which used to get corrupt after every few boots. Then I discovered LOADLIN.EXE which made my life a lot easier :D but I still remember those days when I quickly junked Linux after seeing KDE 1.x and how it virtually crawled ran on my computer because of the image partition.

Things have changed a lot since then.

From RedHat 6.0 (could not get it to install) --> RedHat 6.2 --> ( no Linux for a couple of years inbetween ) RedHat 7.3 --> RedHat 8.0 --> Fedora Core 1 --> (now) Debian, Slackware (removed now) and (latest) Gentoo. :D

What is your experience and what do you feel about today's newbies in Linux? Do they all feel that today's Linux newbie will be a lot more keen and excited than say a newbie of (say) five years ago).

Sorry if this has been posted before, but a quick search didn't reveal any similar topics ;)

When I first loaded linux I thought fvwm was pretty cool with the panning windows and multi desktops... That was a while back :)

My first distro was Mandrake 9.0
I thought it was pretty cool at the time
I even set up a dual boot with Win 98

I didnt really think it was anything special
to do that
I just wanted away from Windows

floppy

I am a newbie, and have only been running GNU/Linux for a few months. And i must say i am extremely excited about it. I have always wanted to try it, but i never had my own computer (Well, now i have actually installed VectorLinux on my parrents computer too, and forced them to use it).

The first time i tried GNU/Linux was november last year. I installed VectorLinux and Ubuntu and used them for about two months. In january i installed Slackware and Debian, and these are the distros i am using now.

I am never going back to windows.

My first Linux distros was Redhat 5.x & Mandrake 6.x. I didn't find them particularly interesting and none lasted more than a few days on my PC. Anyway later on, I decided to give Liux a shot again and not expect it to be like Windows and I then enjoyed using it, though there were times when I wanted to give up. Most distros these days are a breeze to install and run compared to about 5 years ago.

Not to mention GRUB which is a real boon. Do you still remember the days of old boot floppies, LOADLIN.EXE and LILO which wouldn't boot a partition that is > 1024 cylinder limit? I had nightmares in those times!

The 1024 limit imposed by LILO was my worst nightmare followed by corrupted boot floppies. :o:eek:

My first linux
 

My first linux was Caldera that came with a linux for dummies book which got for a pound in 2001. I actually felt a sense of achievement when i got that to work.
Linux is exciting because you are in control and i think thats the appeal to newer members of the team.

I first used Mandrake 9 and only tried linux for the 1337 factor. Was big into gaming then and while using linux was something people had heard of but nobody really had done, it wouldn't run any of my games so that was the end of that. have played on and off but I first got really into it when I was into web dev and installed Gentoo on an old computer to use as a staging server. I really had to learn then which was the plan and then I moved on to installing Gentoo on my shiny new desktop and I've since turfed that and I use Arch now :)

Was kind of excited but I just learned it via SSH on a server, saw how logical everything was and how it just made sense and started using it as my desktop. Now I've been 100% Windows free for about 6 months,maybe a little more and I'm happy :)

Actually I've noticed the opposite - that newbies are seemingly less willing to RTFM and instead need to be spoon-fed each and every step.

Examples:

"Which distro is right for me?"
"How do I install Mandrake?"
"what is compiling a kernel?"

And so on. Five years ago or more, if you'd have asked such questions, you'd be told
"man foo" or "RTFM" - harshly at that. Sometimes someone would be kind enough to post a link to the actual FAQ or HowTo.

I mean, questions which are answered by a zillion FAQs and not to mention stickies in the forums, PLUS preexisting threads which have been repeated ad nauseum.

Admittedly, those types of newbies are in the minority, but they tend to be the noisiest, and what's worse, when they start threads, it's generally something nondescriptive like "Help meeeeeeee" or "plz hlp" or "Linux problem" - with no indication as to whether or not a) you'd be interested in the topic or b) know if you'd be able to help.

Most newbies are willing to RTFM. I've had a few users from here IM me to ask for help, but they generally have done their homework first. Some people just can't grasp the basics like "what is a partition" or "why do I have to format my disk?" - that's understandable, however I do believe that if they're going to post, they should observe some semblence of netiquette and actually use the Search.

And then, there are the "pretend newbies" who post just to troll and provoke a Windows vs. Linux flamewar.

What brought me to Linux? We're developing more and more PHP applications, and it's easier to do in the native environment (I *HATE* Cygwin, and I *HATE* PHP on Windows, plus testing on Windows when an app is being deployed on *nix is not proper QA methodology).

Not only that, Linux has finally matured to the point where it can serve as my primary OS for 99% of tasks, so I can probably avoid laying out yet MORE cash on Windows licenses and I can forgo upgrading to Exchange 2K3, because I expect a true Exchange replacement will be available for Linux soon, and will be cheaper than Exchange. Once I find such a beast I am punting Windows from the mail server and either selling or giving away the licenses.

Well for a start, mandrake is eaiser to install than a rpm.
2nd, your kind of implying that mandrake users are newbs. Not True.
Ive ran Debian Sarge, Red Hat Enterprise and Fedora Core 3.

I've been in the line of helping people for a long time (various gaming forums and whatnot), and this will never go away. As linux gets more popular, you can be sure you will see more of it.

Mandrake is widely known as one of the many newbie distros along with Ubuntu, Fedora (although it's super bloated, not worth the space required to install) and Lycoris and Xandros. One thing that really annoys me is when people get all high and mighty when they don't ge the answer they wanted to hear. I'm no expert by a long shot but when people want my help it'd be nice if they got off their soapbox first..

well said KimVette

There are probably only a few more steps to go when I can finally ditch Windows permanently.

I'd like to see a decent front end in OpenOffice for MySQL that can import MS Access files with no probs.

Better support in Mozilla & Firefox for prop file formats like windows media files, flash etc

As you can see these aren't Linux probs as such, just issues with non-microsoft programmes that sit on top of the OS.

I get annoyed when I hear threads that say Linux isnt ready etc etc, Linux isn't the problem, its the other programmes constantly forced to walking one step behind the big corporations in bed with MS and their proprietry formats.

floppy

I started with RH 9 when that came out. I liked it but without any games running it didn't last. Now I'm using Mandrake 10.1 and love the darn thing. Ive had some trouble along the way, and have come here for (very useful) answers. Honestly when I ran into trouble 6 months ago I thought "crap, this sucks". Now its "Google! I need Google!". I dont like it when things go wrong, but its more of an opportunity to learn than anything else these days. With crossover for those few M$ apps I might use, and cedega for the games, Windows is now banished to a mere 12 gig partition. Mandrake gets the other 270.

I can't help you in a direct way with that, but indirectly here is what you can do:

1. Open the Access database (mdb file) with MDB Viewer
2. Export the data to a CSV
3. Import that CSV into MySQL using MySQL Admin, mysqlcc, or even webmin

The problem is not lack of windows media or flash support in Linux. The problem is that instead of embedding content into pages using mimetypes, they're embedding content into pages using Windows ActiveX component GUIDs to drive MSIE - and of course Firefox is not going to understand that. (It'd be a neat Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape extension though! Translate the GUID to a mimetype, pass that on to the browser, and then the browser will load the correct AND PREFERRED plugin for the content)

my first install was yellowdog champion server (1.3?)
I new nothing about linux, except that i was excited about trying something new
now I have 7 linux boxes running rh9, rh7.2, FC3, ydl3.0, ydl4.0

Here's a picture of the first distro I bought, Red Hat 5.1. Gave up on it because I couldn't get my Microsoft mouse working in X. :cry:

I first started linux when i was 10 on an old dell. I used some version of Red Hat, and being 10 i managed to completely screw over the whole system. 2 years later i decided to try again and now i have 4 computers running linux....idk about u all, but i was pretty enthused when i first started, the original failure was a big downer though

I started with Slack 2.x back in the day. I was more curious than excited at the time. I got it going, then after a while fiddling around I got x running, with fvwm. Tinkered with it on an off a bit. As far as big distros, played with RH 5.x... MAJOR dll hell, found Caldera and bought that, then bought the upgrade when it came out, thought I was in Linux heaven because stuff actually worked decently.. though still had dll hell going on during app installs. Went to Mandrake in the 7.x versions through the 8.x upgrades. Messed with Suse.

Then I found Debian, and it was good... and the gods said "Let us bring ye unto apt, and let the dll hell be ended. The sources ye shall have, as well as binaries, they shall fall unto the lands as softly as the moonlight, and all goodness bringeth unto ye. So say we all."

Mandrake was my first distro and somehow I worked through all the problems, modem, printer, gcc. (with LQ's help of course) I guess I was just ready for something new and stuck with it. If I can make it work anyone can.

My views are in line with KimVette's.
Newbs don't seem nearly as willing to do anything to resolve problems now-a-days. There's a ton of newbs who are just plain happy to stay newbs and'll follow whatever directions you give them... Linux is a learning process, and I'm a firm believer in keeping it that way. Along with newb issue, I've noticed that the whole unix philosophy is being ignored more and more. And instead of small, resuable, and pluggable tools we have single large programs that encompass an entire subject...

It's all a result of this "desktop ideal". Who really gives a **** if linux is made more like windows (easier), I'm more concerned with the quality. Ease-of-use is a fortunate side effect of good development, it should never be the main focus. Frankly if you aren't willing to learn and experiment, I think you're using the wrong operating system. Linux shouldn't accomodate newbs, newbs should accomodate it. It's forums like these were I see the massacre of linux in full swing...

rh 7.3 mine ;) My video card wasn't supported well at the time, I spent much time in the console, then a month or two later xfree 4.3.0 came out with a much improved driver.

Wow, amazing. I have to admit, when I read that, I got a good laugh. Only because I realize how big of a nerd I have become (but honestly, is that a bad thing?)

I'll be honest, I am a recent convert. About a year ago I came into Linux, my friend kept raving about it and told me to install it. So, I installed Fedora Core 2. I wasn't that impressed. Lack of mp3 support, ntfs support, and the complete inability to get my softmodem working drove me away in about a day. Honestly, I didn't give it enough time. I googled things, but it was a pain in the bum to get my how-to's from windows to linux, I got sick of having to edit config files and this crazy thing called an fstab to add my USB flash drive. What? You mean it doesn't support automagically like windows. What crap, I thought.

A few months ago I decided to give Linux another try, and after a few distros I fell in love with mandrake. Then tried Mepis and love apt.

Installed gentoo on a spare partition cause i want to mess with my system, and love it as well. Moving to arch.

Even though I am a "noob" I notice a lot of people ask simple questions looking for one answer, and I can say I have been guilty of it. After about a week of using Linux full time I discovered the man pages (something no one had told me about!!!! They are priceless), and this Forum. I was realy used to my windows where I could fix things very quickly, but as I get more and more comfortable in Linux (i've gotten rid of Windows completely), I realize now that I prefer the way Linux works over windows, by a great amount. Linux is a bit daunting at first because it is something completely different. I hadn't really used a command line of any sort since DOS 4.0 (or 5.0, I forget). I now realize how powerful the BASH is, and while I am still learning a lot (gentoo has taught me tons, and I wish I would have started with it, and stuck with it) I like the forum here to help.

I do have to admit though, when looking for an answer the first thing I do is search! I have learned a lot more from looking for answers to my own problems than by someone giving them to me. While I can't say to the state of Newbies from five years ago, I can promise you that I am really excited about using Linux (or GNU/Linux). The choice is amazing to me. And honestly, if a High School English Teacher can figure out how to use Linux, anyone can.

Hopefully, as there are a lot of people asking simple questions that I have noticed asked millions of times within the past six months, As someone said. As Linux gets more popluar we are going to see far more of them.

Here are a few of my thoughts.

* For newbs, switching to Linux now is a lot more exciting than five years ago because it's easier to get a workstation up and running. The interface and driver support is far better than it was and in some distros you never even need to touch the CLI.
* We all know that people want choices. People are starting to realize that Linux is a choice they can actually make and participate in. And the result for them is a better product, better experience - you'll help make it a better community.
* Newbs will tell other newbs about Linux and not all of them will be easy to deal with.
* There will always be people who don't RTFM. Maybe they're lazy. Maybe they process things differently. But sometimes newbs just need a starting point and the FM is not always a good one. Annoying? Yeah, but lots of people are annoying.
* It might not always come across in text, but newbs are grateful to those who help them. If they aren't, you can always pretend they are.
* Pay attention to those newbs who aren't annoying and teach them how to develop/admin/donate to the linux community. They probably want to.
* Linux should not be easy and people should learn by working at it. Linux should be totally newb-friendly and the learning curve should be minimal. And with a little research you'll probably find a distro that does either. If you don't, you can make one. How beautiful is that?!
* I am a newb. If my post count ever says something different, I'm still a newb. :jawa:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against newbs. Everyone was a newb at one point ;)

I'm against moving away from the things that make unix unix for the sake of including people with this "desktop ideal". It's absolutely heinous.

And actually I am running my own distro.

edit: sorry double post :|

While I appreciate the idea of preserving a philosophy, I was under the impression that linux is not unix. :p

it's not unix... it's a unix workalike

When I started using Linux there was no real community I knew of that I could turn to. There was one out there but it wasn't something I could just surf on over and find. I did have some contact but I recognized that the best thing to do was to avoid the purely "newbie" questions -- which would just infuriate people. I learned this through observation, thankfully, and avoided asking questions likely to get me noticed.

The best way to avoid asking the wrong questions was to research. Most newbie questions can be answered with 5-15 minutes of reading in obvious places. I had a Linux book which took care of almost all of them and when I used the web I hit the rest. Of course, by learning to look for my answers first, I developed the habit of searching first.

The vast majority of my questions have had answers I was able to find only by looking for them. I did have one issue with ppp which I never found a solution for (it would not connect until the third attempt or more... and took forever). I asked for help but never really resolved it. Which is okay because it gave me a reason to upgrade my connection.

Anyway, I do think there are a larger number of people these days who ask first before looking. But there were people like that 5 years ago... even eight years ago. The difference is that there are more people starting to use Linux now... which makes it seem like such a big thing compared to before. And the community is working on integrating these people in and has developed a stigma against telling people what to do with their easily found answer... so there is less opportunity to vent off the frustration of hearing the same question 6 billion times.

I don't think the newbies have changed... just more of them and a more accepting community which permits greater social misteps without slapping the offender down.

@ploosh; all technicalities aside, linux functions as a unix does. And a majority of the base programs were designed with the philosophy in mind. Perhaps you are simply not aware of the brilliance of it, or what it always the informed / creative user to accomplish in a short amount of time. Pike's "Note's on C Programming" are a must read, and time permitting I also recommend Raymond's "Art of Unix Programming", thought AoUP comes in book form, it's available free online... The philosophy is not something to be scoffed at, do not take the pipe for granted, it's a wonder in interapplication design.
Once again, I'm not against newbies, I just against how they've managed to cause development to shift away from the philosophy which allows a simple user to get so much done and truely *use* the machine.

@frob; I guess that's another problem I have :| I get frustrated when I see that a very tiny minority is even attempting to keep the masses of new users in line. The solution obviously isn't to hold people's hands and give them everything they to be cozy, but neither is rtfm! or getting harsh. Everyone was a newb at one point, somewhere in the middle of those to extremes must be the proper method for dealing with what seems to be, the "untrained" majority of the community.

Don't get me wrong, I have complete respect for what Unix is and how Gnu/Linux was inspired by it [and other posix nix's]. I think at the heart of linux is the ability to create a fantastic (dare I say intimate) relationship between man/machine despite level of ability, should one desire it. My point was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, responding to "I'm against moving away from the things that make unix unix" when you're talking about linux - surely you find the comedy in that given the brilliance behind the letters Gnu. It's this philosophy that is worth noting since in it's soul lies the freedom for a system to become whatever is most desired. The development efforts will reflect that and I suspect they shall remain diverse - it is us that risk making them polar. :)

Yep, Mandrake 6.5 Linux for Windows here. It did not support my video chipset. Wound up needing to reboot into safe mode to run linux.bat.
Suse 6.4 did not support my Winmodem or onboard sound. Otherwise it was great.

it's interesting to think back on that, turbo linux was the first successful install i had, i think it was 1998. before then i heard of it but didn't pay much attention. then for some reason i wanted to try it out. i did try red hat at the same time and ended up nailing my hard disk partition and didn't recover... oh well. what i liked about turbo is that it successfully detected my internet and logged me in. had to give up on it do to weaknesses i seen in it's graphical interface and ofcourse it was like bgi quality (as in borland graphical interface).

so a few years later, i became curious again and went looking for a turbo linux install and came across mandrake 9.0. said to hell with it and tried that. not bad, very nice improvement all around, especially in the graphics department (hello gnome, kde), then came 9.1 and i wanted in on that... 9.2 sucked so i tried 10.0, that SUCKED even more so i said to hell with it, lets go slackware 9.1 and yeah ha, i'm slackware 10.0 today.

got tired of mandrake trying to hold my hand all the time. gave vector linux a whirl and redhat 9.0 and was very impressed but really liked the closeness that slackware gave me... something about an entire distro being done by one person brought back some of the magic that only linus torvalds could provide...

in any event, linux makes for a very very nice experience....

best kept secret on the internet

- perry

I still feel like a newbie to Linux but I remember when I probably asked questions like "what distro is right for me?". It's hard when you're starting out because I really had no idea where to start. There aren't really any "classes" out there for people to learn the basics of linux. Plus I think it can be daunting for people to erase an entire OS (usually windows) and start from scratch. It takes a lot of guts and can be frustrating in the beginning if you really have no idea what is going on. :)

??? there probably aren't that many classes, but my community college offers an into unix/linux class.

You also don't really have to erase your entire HD. Mandrake, along with most "User-Friendly" distros come with wonderful hard-drive partitioning tools so that you can dual boot...

Also, I was thinking about offering a Linux/Operating Systems class at my High School, but first, the Administration must approve it, and I don't think enough of the kids would sign up for it.

I remember when I first used Linux back in early 2001, it was SuSe 8.2 (notice the old way to spell it?) It worked like a champ!!! I had a Compaq computer, and broadband, so a cheap NIC was all I needed to get online, After installing Linux, I gave up after a while, problems convincing the wife. About a year later I tryed again, but this time on my own computer. I installed Mandrake 9.2 along side Win XP, and I fell in love!!! Everything worked like a champ. But later on I soon fell out of love for mandrake, and went searching for another distro, tt wasn't untill last year when I found that other distro I was searching for; thats when I installed Debian Sarge, and I'll tell you what, I LOVE IT. I have also got Damn Small .4.10 on my crapy old computer, and I just installed Mandrake 10.1CE on the wifes computer, slowly truning here from the dark side.

But yes I was very excited to use Linux for the first time.

^^Hehehe my 100th post :)

I just switched, cause I needed something an OS that was fast + would not crash. (for some reason.. windows was REALLY slow)
I would + wanted to try osx instead of linux... but linux is free... + i dont have a mac
So after about 2 months of "struggling", i configured mandrake and now everything works perfectly

i think now, a lot more users like me r switching over simply because they r tired with windows

I'll have to check it out some more. Maybe there are some classes around that I could take. The college I go to doesn't have any though which kind of surprised me.

my first linux is a redhat 7 with X,
the only thing that shock me was the taskbar,it was really BIG during that time.
Now,i'm using redhat 9
but still using ipchains instead of iptables,i couldn't find "back" that kind of energy to reconfigure anything unless the enhancement is dramatic.
good thing about linux is that when it works,it stays.
as for which OS is better,i'm still using DOS.

Not trying to start a flame war or anything (i've used and loved Mandrake...) but I recently convereted to Arch, and it is tons faster than Mandrake was (but Arch kinda throws you into the deep end with configin things yourself and is i686 optimized). But yeah.. I switched cause a friend kept bugging me to switch.... and now, no more windows.

I half agree with that.

One of the things I've found "exciting" as a Linux newbie is precisely the ability to choose between GUI and CLI approaches, rather than being forced to do everything through the GUI like in Windows. I'd say I do 90% of file handling, configuration etc via bash - barely if ever use Nautilus - but there are times when having GUI tools available is really handy.

eg you can't beat "apt-get" on the command line for installing individual packages or doing a dist-upgrade. But Synaptic is better for searching and browsing for packages.

Another great discovery for me (without wishing to start a War of Religion on the subject of text editors!) has been Emacs. Quite apart from using it at home, I now have Emacs for Windows permanently open on my desktop at work and use it incessantly as a DOS shell, calculator, notepad, text editor etc.

What is less exciting is some of the pain in the neck stuff like getting multimedia things working. But that provides intellectual challenge and a sense of achievement that you never get using Window$.