Clams.....

[Eddie G. O'Connor Jr.]

On 09/08/2012 11:40 PM, Roger wrote:
> This demonstrates one of the problems Linux generically suffers in the 
> Desktop world. It demands too much knowledge of the internal part of 
> the operating system.
>
> Well, yes and no.
> Rather it demands  sufficient knowledge to work on problems as they 
> occur.
> This was discussed many years ago and I have found that the knowledge 
> and ability to get under the hood and fix things, by far outweighs the 
> learning one must do to use/control ones computer.
>
> In proprietary systems, the user, sheltered from everything, must rely 
> on other more knowledgeable folk to fix or create endless varieties of 
> apps to fix things for a fee.
> In the nixes much can be generally fixed from the terminal, and the 
> fee for this is learning and asking on list.
>
> Let me give you an example of a potential catastrophe that happened to 
> me on Saturday morning.
> In Fedora 16 I run VirtualBox, In VBox I have xp and LinuxMint, Fedora 
> 17 will not install for me.
> Anyway Linux Mint would not shut down, it locked, nothing would shut 
> it off, so in a terminal I did ps aux |grep VirtualBox to find the 
> process of VirtualBox and kill -9 processnumber to kill it. It would 
> not kill.
>
> I waited an hour in case the computer was processing something then I 
> switched off the pc, tried a restart but errors galore during boot, 
> faulty sectors and a whole lot of other faults.
> The message at the end of the list of errors said <ctrl D> to continue 
> or enter root password and run fsck to repair, I chose this option, 
> logged in as root, fsck fixed everything and Fedora came up and 
> operates perfectly.
>
> Had this been exclusively GUI or a Windows machine it would have, for 
> me, meant reformatting and reinstalling. Hours of misery, dozens of 
> applications to reinstall and a dozen reboots.
>
> If I could recommend anything in Linux it would be "Learn to use the 
> terminal and text commands" They are tools of the trade.
> Roger
Sound advice indeed....and slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of 
it....but like......what you just described would have been for 
me?.....a TOTAL re-installation of EVERYTHING!......I wonder if there's 
a "manual" with all the commands one might need? And then another 
question would be: Are the commands different dependent on the distro 
you use?...will the same commands work in Ubuntu.....Fedora.....Linux 
Mint......Mandriva etc? And I guess THIS is the reason a lot of people 
won't live Windows....because there's just TOO much information to 
absorb....at times I almost feel like crawling back into my "Regedit" / 
"Task Manager" hole and staying there, but after being exposed to Linux 
I don't think I could EVER allow myself to fall back into that 
ignorant......close-minded state. Soooo......If it means hours upon 
hours of studying Linux commands then so be it. Eventually I think I'm 
going to pursue a "cert" in Linux...nothing major just a general cert 
that can allow me to get my foot in the door,....and in doing so I'm 
almost 100% certain that I'll need "terminal skills' in order to pass 
the exams....


EGO II