This is a rant, and all and any responses are heartily encouraged, even if you will insult me, i'd really want to hear what you guys have to say, especially the veterans, if i may call them.
I've been using ubuntu as my prime os for about a year now, and i know i'm still a noob about it. I used to ask questions on the forums when i got stuck (and i still do), and generous people would show me how to do things, and I would be grateful.
Curiously, the solution was almost always something enclosed in <code>, involving running the terminal.
I am still afraid of the terminal.
I am 33, the first computer I had was a commodore 64, then came 128, and then I got an Amiga, and then a PC. Hell it was a 8088, and not a 8086 - woot!!
When windows 3.1 began to came out as the next big thing, it honestly seemed awkward to me. Finally a use for the mouse, good thing, but wtf? DOS is faster and more direct and more accurate.
We used to mock our friends who bought pcs with windows installed, because it was only a program, and in our wicked minds, if you couldn't install a program on a computer, you didn't deserve a computer. And to be fair, not everyone had a computer those days, at least not where I live.
Anyways, my apologies for going down memory lane. My point was, it took me a while to get accustomed to windows after dos.
Yet I'm still afraid of the terminal.
When a noob like meself asks a question on the forums, it will most likely get a response. The solution will most likely involve running some commands over the terminal. It will most likely solve the problem in hand. This is certainly a good thing.
But i keep recalling the old phrase - give a man a fish, you have fed him for today.. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.
Like i said, i been happily using ubuntu for about a year now, but every time i ask a question on the forums, and someone responds with "wget this and that" and "tar -xzwf" - i get the chills..
You are very welcome to point out that I haven't read the man pages about tar, but i am a lazy guy, and after a year of going solo on ubuntu, i still don't know what -xzfw means. I'm not even sure if i remember that right.
I do acknowledge the fact that guiding some helpless noob like me is far easier through a series of shell commands, compared to posting in screenshots- doing it the lame way.
It also ascertains a distinction among "classes" of ubuntu (or linux) users - if you know the shell, you're in.
If you are afraid of the shell (like meself, not because I now feel more comfortable with a graphic environment, but because I feel less comfortable with typing in commands i dont know what they mean) - well, dunno, you're afraid of the shell.
Basically what i mean to say is - when you provide a bunch of terminal commands to solve whatever the question is, you're not really helping, unless you explain what those commands do, and what the other options are.
Just me rant ..
Not sure if i could get my point through, but anyways, please do respond.. Ciao
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