On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:19:17 -0400, <
shadex@cox.net> wrote:
> As an instructor for the last 8 years the single biggest complaint I get
> from new computer users is what I call, "The Computer Guy Syndrome"
[...]
> This is why I cancelled my original plans to attend Install Fest.
I'm sorry you decided that an Installfest doesn't provide any solutions
for you without attending one. I think that CompUSA and the volunteer
Linux community of Phoenix can bennefit greatly from a relationship.
Every business relationship I've seen starts with a meeting of the heads
of both organizations where they talk about what each business does and
then talk about what kind of relationship they'd like to prusue, and ends
with a contract outlining the details of that relationship. I think the
same should happen with the local CompUSA's and PLUG. Only the details in
the end would be different, especially when it comes to accountability, as
PLUG is completely voluteer (not non-profit).
Just like the previous repliers have explained, the Installfests are
trying to substitute for the role of CompUSA's assemblers and software
installers. Your customers usually never see who assembles their computer
or installs WinXP. They then take it home, and either learn it by
themselves or have a paid reciept and a date for their first CompUSA
class. No such assembler/installer thing exists in the Linux world. LUG
Installfests try to accomplish this in a strictly volunteer basis.
Right now, PLUG's Installfests are a bit rough around the edges. Five
months ago, we had them once every six months, with lots of lectures and
prizes, but lots of dissapointed "customers". Many thought it would
better serve the community to have monthly, smaller installfests, to have
a reliable place in addition to the mailing list to come for help. It's
worked, but it's not very gentle for people completely new to Linux or
computers in general, and that's our highest priority right now. We want
to broadcast Installfests to every corporation and have them believe PLUG
Installfests are a reliable place to get a new install for a person to
play with. We're not quite ready for that, but we want to be very soon.
Could Installfest be a free class / training ground as well? Perhaps. I
think it's a very good venue and time slot. We have the rooms, we have
the people, just not the planning or system to provide it. It's been
discussed, but this will come after we have a good reliable Installfest
process.
> I have purchased enough books on various versions of Linux to rebuild
> the Berlin Wall.
Remember where Linux comes from. Pre '93, you only got what was
considered the best OS for real computing needs if you paid five figures
or more for hardware and software from proprietary UNIXen. From '93 to
'95, You only got Linux if you were helping to build the kernel. From '95
to '99, you may have needed to write your own kernel patch, device drivers
for cards found in your system that the hardware vendors (almost always)
didn't supply or another volunteer coder hadn't yet reverse-engineered and
coded, and barring that you still needed advanded knowledge so you knew
what to do if your window manager didn't work or your hard drive didn't
partition correctly. Today, we're actually having debates over whether
Linux is ready for Aunt Tillie's desktop, and I believe that now since the
debates on both sides of the fence are valid, it's just about ready. But
the only big vendor that is commercially supplying free Unix desktops to
the general public is Apple. LUG Installfests have always tried to bridge
that gap between a mess of computer parts and a working system for those
who don't know how to do so themselves, and it's a big one, so forgive us
if right now it's only full of advanced computer users.
Books just don't work with something like what Linux was pre-2001.
Nothing can substitute for burrowing into the system with your own bare
hands and seeing what it does.
> As I am face to face with thousands of students each year and a rapidly
> growing number of them are inquiring about the Linux world I must ask,
> where do I send these people?
I say, if you can answer the question with, "go to CompUSA's Linux
series", and actually make it happen profitably, then you'd be on the
board of directors at CompUSA corporate in about six months. No body is
doing it. Frustrated computer geeks have been trying to figure out how to
do it, and used blog pulpits, legal research and sabatoge of the patent
system, barking into the ear of their bosses and boss's bosses, to no
avail, all the while paranoically watching every patent wondering when
M$ will patent atomic bonding of all materials and lobby congress to
collect royalties on movement of all electrons. I think it finally took a
superbowl commercial to turn the tide, and believe me every "average" geek
was surprised to see that ad.
> I had hoped to offer courses to get them started yet even I am hitting
> obstacles that my years of computer background are not affording me
> passage to.
My "years" of computer experience (from 1992, my freshman year at UNLV)
started with an Athena-project type programming environment, with Spark,
DEC, NeXT, and Silicon Graphics computers, all running UNIX, all networked
together with a network file system for all user's home directories. The
teacher didn't even explain to me any of this stuff, he just said log in,
start your editor by typing "emacs helloworld.f77 &", then when you're
done writing compile with "f77 helloworld.f77" and run your program with
"./a.out". I could hop from computer to computer, didn't matter which one
or even which brand, and this just worked. Later that semester I
discovered e-mail, usenet groups, and the instant messaging system on my
campus, Zephyr. I started my day by picking any one of those computers in
the room, logging in, typing "rwho" at the prompt to see who else was on,
Zephyring hellos, checking e-mail, then listing my home directory to
remember what I was supposed to be doing that day, and starting
programming. For me to let go of this and go to the public Mac lab or the
engineer's PC lab was extremely alien. I couldn't do anything, not
because I didn't know how, but because the machines _couldn't_. So I
ignored the toys in those other labs, and did my real work in UNIX.
When Visual Basic came out, I had four years of serious computer science
and programming experience behind me. I tried VB, and got fed up
quickly. A thing which did not consist of a bunch of text files, that you
could not tarball and give to your friends to compile, that you could not
execute over a network just wasn't a real computer thing. I ignored it.
I worked at the Mirage Hotel taking room reservations, and even got calls
there to be transfered to IT responding to job req's for VB programmers.
I dismissed the lot as misguided. I'm still doing so today.
Point being, Shadex, your experience set and our experience set is
radically different. You personally can not make up for that in a
reasonable time, but you can find other like-minded people with Linux
experience who can do the job. Find people with years of UNIX system
administration experience who can assemble Linux systems, train them until
they are assembling systems for Aunt Tillie, and sell them. Then find
people who can teach Linux effectively, train them to teach to Aunt
Tillie, and offer the classes. Make sure the lot is doing things
effectively, and doing so flawlessly. Do this, and not only will there
not be a need for Installfests, but everyone volunteering as installers at
Installfests will be elated beyond any narcotic's capabilities.
--
--Alexander
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