Hi
On Sun, Nov 9, 2014 at 6:59 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
This is a good case for using DevAssistant. And the professors
aren't
telling them what to install to get their assignments done? (?!) Do they
not have lab sessions where part of the first class is spent configuring
their laptops to complete assignments? Even some of my 400-level comp sci
classes had environment configuration stuff in the first lecture.
There were a lot of points in your mail and they are worth addressing but
since I was in college doing a Master's program not too long ago, I wanted
to reply to this quickly:
Typically professors are willing to help out or point you in the right
direction if you are using Windows or perhaps even a Mac depending on what
they use themselves but so far in all the classes I have attended, I am the
only person using Linux on my laptop and therefore when I get struck, I got
to figure out the equivalent tools myself. Sometimes I give up and just
use a VM but most often than not, the tools were already in the repository
but I didn't know the names of the packages and yum was returning too much
while GNOME Software was returning too little or nothing.
Our tools rock if you know exactly what you are looking for but are fairly
unhelpful if you don't. GNOME Software in Fedora 21 is good enough for me
to put it in front of someone who doesn't know Linux and expect them to
find *desktop* apps but if it is not too selfish to ask, I would want the
same for command line apps too.
Btw, the usability on devassistant when I tried it out was pretty bad. I
know you blogged about the problems you ran into and I will file bug
reports when I have time as well. It certainly has potential but it's
nothing something I would advertise heavily at this point.
Rahul