[PLUG] Screwed

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Mon Jun 19 20:08:41 UTC 2006


On Mon, 19 Jun 2006, Carla Schroder wrote:

> An operating system upgrade is not trivial. Only in the Linux world is this
> a routine task requiring just a little bit of knowledge to perform
> successfully.

   I discovered that upgrading Slackware to be much simpler and easier than
was upgrading Red Hat. It now takes about a half-hour per machine, and most
of that time it's running upgradepkg on everthing installed. Even the kernel
is upgraded for me; a reboot and there we are with a shiny new kernel.

> Pretty amazing piece of engineering, it is. Don't blame the devs for your
> lack of preparation.

   It is a tribute to the folks who built on 35 years of UNIX to make linux
what it is.

   Regarding preparation, there are so many books, on-line resources, and
other sources of information readily available there is no valid excuse to
not learn the basics.

    People need training and licenses before they can drive, fly an airplane,
or drive a boat (in most states). In most professions, basic preparation via
college degrees is also mandatory, and some (lawyering and engineering come
to mind) require continuing education to maintain one's license. So, why
should learning something about an inherently multi-taking, multi-user OS not
be expected by new users? If the answer is, "I don't want to make the
effort," then use what Microsoft offers and let them do your thinking.

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |    The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM)    |            Accelerator
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863



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