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On 7/4/07, Grant <emailgrant@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> In December 2006 I started a thread titled "Is Gentoo Healthy?" in |
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> which I was roundly put down for raising the possibility that the |
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> decline in the number of Gentoo users could possibly affect the |
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> remaining Gentoo users in a negative way. |
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|
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<blatant bias> |
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I see people leaving gentoo as some sort of self voluntary step in the |
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natural progression of a distro. People moving from Gentoo to |
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$OTHERDISTRO raises the average intelligence of both distros ;) |
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|
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> Is everyone still toeing that line? The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter |
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> hasn't been published in almost two months. Is Gentoo destined to be |
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> just another distro starved for contributors and struggling to stay up |
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> to date? If so, I really misjudged it. The meta approach of Gentoo |
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> is superior to any other in my mind, and I think it's growth and |
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> potential are being stunted by the "we don't need them" attitude which |
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> perpetuates Gentoo's lack of usability features for beginners. |
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|
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The problem is if you focus on usability for newbies, you'll focus |
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less on features and customization, or you'll have to find a way to |
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hide this customizability because customization confuses newbies, and |
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spending time dancing around the lesser populace is time wasted on |
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doing practical stuff ( While I'll admit theres got to be a half-way, |
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or gentoo will never get any fresh blood, but I'd prefer to entice |
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fresh blood from people who have some potential to improve the distro |
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) |
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|
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And if your introducing a newbie to Linux, maybe gentoos not the right |
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thing to teach them. Thats why we have distros out there like linspire |
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( .... ) . |
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|
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IMO, gentoo is already user-friendly enough, if you take it from the |
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perspective Gentoo is LFS + Userfriendlyness. |
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|
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> Gentoo needs as many users as possible to reach its potential. It's a |
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> short-sighted mistake to think that non-contributing users do Gentoo |
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|
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And theres no point in targeting a distro at an audience who still |
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don't know what a power button is, and are confused about downloading |
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attachments from hotmail. Some usuability is good, but you need some |
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boundaries of sanity, and I think gentoo is currently hitting the |
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perfect target audience for people who want control and customization, |
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and are willing to experiment with things to get things done. |
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|
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( and if you really want to introduce a total noob to gentoo and don't |
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mind wasting some time... your best option is to set up for them, and |
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show them it just works, and then show them information on a strictly |
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'need-to-know' basis when they come asking ) |
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|
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> no good. Non-contributing users become contributors as time passes. |
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> Car mechanics all start as car drivers. |
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> |
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> - Grant |
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> -- |
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> gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |
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> |
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> |
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|
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|
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-- |
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Kent |
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ruby -e '[1, 2, 4, 7, 0, 9, 5, 8, 3, 10, 11, 6, 12, 13].each{|x| |
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print "enNOSPicAMreil kdrtf@×××.com"[(2*x)..(2*x+1)]}' |
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-- |
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gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |
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