[gentoo-user] Re: Abut smb:// aware tools

[Harry Putnam]

Neil Walker <neil@×××××××.nu> writes:

>> Linux is much older than 1997...

>> Not at all. [...]

I really meant unix... where most of linux cmds and base tools comes
from.  But as people do unix/linux is often thought of as one kind of
thing.

[...]

> Hmm. Most of the people who used (actually, played with because it
> wasn't a usable operating
> system until much later) Linux in the early days came from Minix.
> Remember that? Newbies
> to Linux were not newbies to computers and operating systems. Far from
> it, most were pretty
> adept DOS hackers.

[...]

> You seem to have entirely forgotten what Linux actually was in the
> 1990s. It was actually a hacker's
> paradise. There were NO newbies in the sense of people who were new to
> computers using Linux. The
> very nature of Linux users in those days was that they were
> experimental, had some (if not considerable)
> knowledge and were keen to try any new gizmo that came along and, if
> there wasn't one, develop their
>  own. Indeed, that's exactly how and why Linux is where it is now.

No I didn't forget...

I knew nothing whatever about a computer in the 90s you are talking
about. My only knowledge of a computer came from things like seeing
the girl at the unemployment office bring up my records.  And not even
all unemployment offices had computers yet.

My first encounter with a computer or home computing started in
1996. Right from scratch.

I think you've got this a little back assward.. lots of commentary
with `quite honestly, `definitely not' and other sorts of comments
indicating a deep knowledge are a bunch of hooey. 

You may remember some things... but you do not have a good picture of
what the lower echelons was like.  

That hardcore of experimenters that are the folks who really put linux
on the map was growing rapidly..  Just as the new user base was. 

In the yrs I mentioned (96 upward) newbies were flocking to linux.
Some old timers complained about it bitterly on linux News/Mail
groups.  How the linux network was getting watered down with a bunch
of numbskulls and etc.

> FWIW, I have been involved with computers one way or another since 1969
> (a few months before Man
> set foot upon the moon).

Then you would have had quite a different view of the lower levels of
the linux movement.  And it was a movement then...

Yes there were a hard core of quite adept hackers... many of them were
very willing to offer help to newcomers back then.  All the main mail
groups or newsgroups had a cadre of true experts... much like today. 

That core of experienced grew quickly too.

There were lots of meetings around the country of the `lugs' where newer
people brought machines and more experienced users helped them get an
OS on it and running.  You don't hear that anymore, the OSs are much
easier to install and configure.

One guy from Alaska... whos name I have forgotten... took me in hand
for several wks... walked me thru lots of stuff off the lists. and
even by phone with me in California, It's really a shame I've
forgotten his name... kind of embarrassing, because he spent a good
bit of time coaching me for a while.

But the influx was already growing quickly as can be seen from the
huge user base that happened in those 10-12 yrs.  So at least from 96
on your picture ain't cutting it.  I'd guess the user base expanded
several hundred percent from say 95 to 2005.

To say there weren't linux newbies is silly. Not to mention wrong.