MADDOG'S DOGHOUSE

Planning and community effort can help welcome Linux beginners online without precluding more advanced discussions.

- BY JON "MADDOG" HALL

I am on several Linux Facebook groups, and some groups continually deal with new users coming onto the group with questions like “What distribution of Linux should I use,” or “I am new to Linux, and I want to use this distribution which specializes in diagnosing malware in the kernel – how do I get it to boot?”

After the initial question comes the inevitable comments about “noobs” and questioning the new user’s intelligence and their inability to “read the f’n manual” (RTFM). Going down the list of comments, it is obvious that many of the people making new comments have not taken the time to read any of the previous comments and felt justified in restating the same thoughts that had already been applied. This makes it time consuming to determine whether or not your own thought has already been applied, particularly when 50-60 percent of the answering comments are small paragraphs basically stating that the original poster should use one of three or four more mainstream distributions or (as said previously) RTFM.