[geeks] are *BSD (and Linux) people "unhelpful"?

[Ethan]

> windows, for all of its annoyances, is an easy o/s to learn and to fix.
> you dont need to ask for help when it breaks.

Windows is not that easy of an OS to fix. Pre-XP DLL conflicts could
easily leave people scratching their heads, and since it is hard to really
learn what goes on underneath the GUI, there aren't that many people that
can fix a ton of problems. Add it to the horrible architecture and open
standards of the PC, Windows is pretty tough.

It is the Linux newbies that are always looking for help. And once you get
them squared away, they friggin' reinstall everything and start asking the
same questions over again.

> > (of course once anyone shows a bit of initiative and interest in unix
> > there'll be all kinds of geeks come out of the woodwork foaming at the
> > mouth and trying to tell them how to do all kinds of cool and wonderful
> > things that they might not really need to do! :-)
> 
> which will only confuse them further.

Agreed, locally here in Southeastern Virginia the local unix users group
tries to get people to convert from the evil Microsoft to Linux. I don't
quite understand it, because alot of the people probably don't really need
to convert and probably don't realize what they are getting into. It is
all fine and dandy if people want to tinker, but I wouldn't recommend
Linux as a replacement for Windows in many cases nor would I preach Linux 
as a be-all end-all solution. Both have strengths and weaknesses. 

(Of course, I preach FreeBSD over Linux for servers and IRIX over Solaris
for workstations... so maybe I'm a bit hypocritical).