Making Linux Look Harder Than It Is

drkich writes: "According to an article on The Register (by our very own roblimo). Many 'gurus' teaching new users about Linux make it look harder than it needs to be, and apparently fail to explain that yes, you can make PowerPoint-style presentations in Linux, you can view Web Pages that use Flash animation and other "glitz" features, and that you can manage all your files though simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces. Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?"

i'm new

[mabus]

I just installed red hat 7.2 and i'm having difficulty learning linux. I have read lots of stuff but maybe I'm not reading the right things. My samba says "unknown error... hmm..." when i try to access my windows machines, and I have no idea how to install programs.... I think the HOWTO's that i read are too complicated. They always mention things that I have no idea how to do. I barely know DOS so I don't know many commands for the shell. LINUX is difficult.

By Far, I agree with the claim

[Ieshan]

You know, there was a kid who sat at my lunchtable and babbled incessantly about Linux and his "Linux box". I think he sat home all day and hacked it, which, in laymans terms, means he tried to break into his own system and failed. Sounds poor, if you ask me.

No, but really. Anyone who's tried to teach me the larger part of linux commands has taught me in "code form". In other words, they've tried to teach me how to do everything through the console, and what's worse, they try to add their own, new "terms" for them. A "Flood Ping" is suddenly a "Hurricane River Overflowing of Packets", and you casually ask them what EITHER of them are, and the kid tells you that he's talking about sending large amounts of binary data through his umbilical cord into an unsuspecting system. Right.

I think that schools should consider hiring IT professionals who can teach as well as do IT. It might open up a whole new market of jobs. Open Source software would be a great class, if anyone ever got around to TEACHING it.

99% of what?

[huckamania]

I guess all the time I've been spending playing Civ III accounts for the last 1%. I remember when all I did on my computer was write and print letters, oh wait, that was a typewriter.

the core of the problem is...

[Sanity]

...that the skills required to be a "guru" in Linux or anything else, are not nescessary the skills required to explain that knowledge to others, and unfortunately, they are often mutually exclusive.

I know many people who are very smart, yet I cringe when I hear them try to explain things to non-experts in the field. It is not that they aren't trying, just that they lack the ability to put themselves in the shoes of someone who doesn't have their level of knowledge.

"Smart" it ain't

[Kope]

There are at least 2 problems with calling these instructors 'smart.'

First, it is stupid to think that a user wants to understand the inner workings of the system. The user wants to unlock functionality. They want a simple, easy way to accomplish a task. They want to have to learn as little as possible in order to accomplish that end.

The second is related, and that is in implying that those who are users and see computers as tools used to accomplish a goal rather than an object of study in and of themselves are not smart. Frankly, this is the sort of sub-cultural elitism that stops most "geeks" from actually having meaningfull career advancement. Until you can think of mere users as equals you'll always be working for someone else.

Linux is easier than Windows!

[mypalmike]

It's so true. People who know Linux scare others away! Linux is just so easy, I don't know why they do this.

For example, it only takes 2 steps under Linux to install the latest NVidia graphics drivers compared with Windows 3 steps!

Windows:
1. Download the installer for 1 of 2 potential OSes (9x or 2K/XP).
2. Run the installer.
3. Reboot.

Linux:
1. Make sure I have the right glibc (what's that asks a non-programmer? Oh, well, the c runtime library changed significantly between blah blah...)
1a. Figure out which of 15 distro-specific rpms is the right one for my installation. (or maybe it's easier to assume configure, gcc, and make are reasonable tools for the average user...)
1b. Download 2 rpm files and rpm -ivh them both from the command line. Maybe gnorpm can be used to get rid of the command line?
1c. Wrangle with XFConfig86 in emacs (or some more gui-oriented text editor).
1d. Oops, I have the wrong version of XFree86. Need to upgrade to 4.x to use the latest NVidia drivers. Download about 12 different files (some labeled "optional" without explanation). Run the install script from the command line. Only 1 warning... better than expected!
1e. Make it so that I boot in console mode. Otherwise, if X doesn't start, I have to figure out what linux boot arg does this. Must be some checkbox somewhere for this...
1f. Reboot, as recommended by XF86 installation notes.
1g. Run "startx"
1h. No gui. A long list of errors about .so files not being resolved.
1i. Maybe the libraries haven't been installed. Honestly, I forgot how this problem gets solved.
1j. "startx"... Yes, an "NVidia" spash screen! It will be soon!
1k. Back to console window. An error about there being no default font.
1l. Research linux fonts and how they work. Only takes an hour maybe. Well, my XFConfig86 file is set up to use xfs, and a simple "ps -A" from the command line (oh wait, there's certainly a gui tool that will spit out the same info!) shows that xfs is running.
1m. Various linux newsgroup searches reveal that others have encountered similar problems. Try various incorrect solutions until it turns out that the latest X doesn't work with my distro's version of xfs, and that xfs is really unnecessary now because type 1 fonts are now supported natively, blah blah... Rather than use xfs, we just enter the directory names of fonts into the XFConfig86 file. Easy! Everyone knows that it's /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi, etc.
1n. "startx"
2. Set it up again so Linux boots into X.

I can always do things in Linux in just 2 steps! Windows is so clunky!

Experts are the worst people to teach novices

[judd]

In any skill, there are stages of mastery, from novice to expert.

Novices know nothing.
Apprentices know some things by rote.
Competent people have mastered all the rules...
... and so on, until you hit experts, who no longer follow any easily described rules at all - they understand everything as it is, with no simplification.

In general, the best people to teach novices are the competent, whose knowledge is still at the "rule" stage, but whose abilities are broad ranging and well learnt. The worst people to teach novices are experts, who understand so much that they no longer think in the same way as the novice.

Hence the derision experts often express for teachers ("those who can't, teach"). The good teacher knows something the expert doesn't - what to leave out, how to convey broad principles memorably, what explanations to leave until later. Cranky experts knock Dummies books, which for all their cutesiness and condescension are models of clear technical writing.

The first wave of Linux documentation was written by experts for experts. I have no doubt that the simpler stuff will come along (there's a Linux for Dummies, perhaps it's coming already).

The point: don't assume that you can teach well because you are a subject expert. Conversely, don't think that you have nothing to teach because you're not.

Re:Too knowledgeable?? Hardly.

[dilger]

Yep. Someone above proposed "arrogant" instead of "smart" -- I think that's more like it. The desire to impress, showing off, flexing some sort of intellectual muscle is the real problem.

Machismo, maybe?

cbd.

Re:Too smart?

[Tachys]

It might not be too smart as much as too arrogant...

What!! a Linux user arrogant?!? No way

I've seen this problem in myself

[sellout]

I've been using Linux for maybe seven years now. I remember not even having X for the longest time. I edited all my text files and knew what every app and config file on my system did.

Within the past year or so, I've started discovering GUI config tools and such. I'm learning that Linux has gotten a lot easier to use in recent years.

When newbies ask me how to do stuff, I pretty much refuse to show them. I just explain that I can do it, but the way I know is pretty complex compared to the GUI tools that are floating around these days. I just poke around their desktop looking for a tool that looks like it does the right thing, then say, "that's probably what you want to look at."

I also try to keep a few recent newbie books around for lending purposes.

If you know the intracacies, it's hard to skim over them when you're teaching (at least, it has been for me).

Re:You can't convince anyone that it's hard.

[glwtta]

I've always felt uneasy using commands like "man mount" - just doesn't sound good.

Re:You can't convince anyone that it's hard.

[huberj]

wtf did you reboot for?

Re:YES

[nihilogos]

I consider myself an above average linux user, I can compile kernels, compile and use modules not in the standard source tree. I set up my own firewall/gateway for a home lan. I can get awesome framerates out of my gf2 playing quake.

But I'm fucked if I can set the clock on my VCR,

Re:If I could throw my two cents in....

[tempfile]

The menu layout in Windows is incredibly confusing. I don't want to memorize the vendor of each application, because that's how the program menu folder is called. And how is anybody supposed to remember that Excel is a spreadsheet or that Explorer is a web browser, file manager, bad ftp client and responsible for some GUI elements? The naming of Windows programs is very hard to understand, and while these names might work in the Linux world as "brand names", new users facing hundreds of unfamiliar programs deserve something more helpful. While we're doing the "keep the text and switch words" game, there's a lot of discussion going on in the Gnome project to remedy this situation in Gnome 2 (beta out in a couple of weeks), and last time I checked the solution of having the app menu split in topics (graphics, internet, etc.) and the entries themselves saying things to the like of "GIMP, image manipulator" was quite popular.