Sometimes you never get there

[tinyjo]

Just recently, I came to a realisation. I'm never going to be a proper geek. This flash of self knowledge came to me when, after spending an evening trying to find out about how to get my wireless card working under Linux, I just gave up in despair. Every website I came to engendered a fresh set of Google queries as I tried to find out exactly how you could perform each of the steps. I had to get Archie to install Linux on the laptop in the first place because I couldn't get the display to work. He set up the network card and if I physically plug in I can use it for email and so on but I never physically plug in any more and a computer is practically useless if it's not connected.

In the end, I don't have the time or the patience to struggle up from being a new user to being a power user again, particularly as even to get into the user position I need my wireless card to work, which means that I need to be a power user and be able to install it. In the end, Debian is too difficult for me. I'm sure that Windows is a much inferior operating system, but I've been using it for years and I quite like it these days. Most problems that come up in Windows (except that of getting my home computers to talk to each other) I can solve or find a livable workaround. To proper geeks, I probably sound like a prisoner who's forgotton what it feels like to be free and so doesn't miss it but there you are. Sure there are things about it that bug me, but that's par for the course with computers - there are no systems which don't have their irritating quirks. They're all designed by people, that's what you get.

I still consider the idea of buying a Mac one of these days, but I'm shy of that too. What if I find MacOS as difficult to come to grips with? It would have the advantage I suppose of being widely supported at the non-geek level, which Debian, in my opinion, isn't but still. What I really want is to be able to have a trial period on a Mac to see if I could get used to it but I don't think that's exactly feasible. I like the idea of moving but only if I don't have to re-learn. I just don't have time.

Yikes! That gave me a shock! I just ran Windows update and got a new display driver. Which reset my screen res to 800 * 600 from 1600 * 1200. Still, once switched back, all seems fine.

Comments

Macs?

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

Macs that now run an OS which is based on, er, UNIX?
Those Macs?

Recently I stayed with a friend who is a die-hard Mac-hugger (and Unix geek). Was his Mac pretty? Yep. Did he need a G5 for what he did with it? (Not that I could see). Was I horrified by how much the kit cost? Hell yeah! And did he have problems because the latest versions of various bits of software (e.g. Y! with vid+audio chat) don't have Mac versions out yet? Yep.

Your money is your own. I seek only to promote fully informed decisions :)

Re: Macs?

[badasstronaut.livejournal.com]

Ah, but they're beautiful. Nothing else seems to be designed with any aesthetic consideration at all.

[diffrentcolours]

I think you've just been unlucky. Most of my dealings with Debian these days are pretty much of the plug-and-play variety, except when I'm doing something hardcore and sysadmin which would be a PITA under any OS.

Still, at the end of the day, what matters is your enjoyment of your computing experience.

Macs

[art-geek.livejournal.com]

I've been a mac user for (omg) 8 years now. I got to bang my head against the wall with frustration when -nothing- was compatible with my computer. I now get to ooh and ah at the amazing things OS10(X) can do - it truly is incredible, the diversity of software to be found. Open source rocks teh kazbah.

Some things: I don't have the newest macs. My desktop machine is a 2001 G4, and I still do fairly high-end graphics on it. Sure, I can't really handle 1200 dpi files at large sizes, but I don't need to. It is a good, reliable machine. I've never had a serious crash on a mac, never lost data.

Even my 2001 G3 laptop handles everything I throw at it. (Which is all my internet stuff, as well as watching .avi and divx files on a very regular basis.)

Any program built by Apple for the Mac integrates absolutely -seamlessly- with the OS and any other programs you might have.

And hey - you can still access the command line. Chouette.

Some cons: Certain things are less well developed for mac. Macs don't handle flash animation very well - it's always just a little choppy for me, although that may partially be processor speed. Yes, they're expensive, but they tend to hold up their end of the deal - they last, and hold their value. Thus, buying a used mac, you're still getting a very nice computer. You can't get as many games, if that's your thing.

I'm sure I've got more stuffed up in my skull, if you're interested.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

I would not necessarily equate geekiness with the desire / willingness to struggle with crap technology. As time goes on I crave (but rarely find) simplicity and elegance.

Funnily enough I was thinking about this on a long drive yesterday. On the way back I was more sensible and bought a 'best of Pet Shop Boys' CD and played selected tracks over and over again very loudly which took my mind off the 'what draws people to awful bizarre technologies?' question.

I have reached the stage where I do not really think very much of Windows or Linux and I have an irrational hatred of Macs (though the rational hatred that underlies the irrational is more than adequate).

My position is essentially 'I hate the 3 /4 main things (depending on whether you count Linux and BSD as two choices!) and I am not a big enough masochist to try anything more obscure'. I think that this position is a perfectly defensible one, I have always felt that hatred of all available alternatives without supporting or presenting any rational alternative is perfectly valid.

I did actually get Linux running on a spare PC, I think I ended up with Suse, and for email, web-browsing, watching downloaded stuff and DVDs, downloading pictures from digital cameras etc. It was fine in its way and actually better than I was expecting - my main exposure to Unix was in the early to mid 90s, the last time it was fashionable in other words. The OS and applications reminded me a lot of MacOS and MacOS shareware circa 1992 in terms of both utility and feel. Once the novelty wore off I found it was taking up valuable lounge space and so it was junked.

I saw MacOS X at the same time as t__m__i and I thought that the kit looked fairly pretty but I got the sense of a seething morass bubbling away under the surface. I recommend you spend the money on cheese and hats instead (you are not a vegan IIRC otherwise I would have to suggest something other than cheese, possibly chocolate).

(2nd attempt at posting with bizarre word substitution removed)

t'cheh, not geeky enough

[vinaigrettegirl.livejournal.com]

The Mac is easy for me - I'm a card-carrying nongeek - but I suspect, based on what 'Im Indoors says about Linux, that you just haven't had a compatible set of tutes or experiences with Linux which have given you an "aHA!" moment with it.

But it's all horses for courses. Don't believe fanatics on either side of the Mac/Windows divide; me, I use Windows front end at the mo because 'Im Indoors runs it on what is now our joint computer, but the underlying software which runs our crazy system is all Linux and a few Perls of Wisdom. I grew up on Macs, though.

My feel is that you give yourself a bit more time and space with Linux et alia. You're probably still a bit grieving and this weather is not conducive to learning ANYTHING requiring more than half a brain. Be Nice To Tinyjo Day starts NOW. :-)

[mr-snips.livejournal.com]

I keep failing to get around to posting the story of my endless fortnight of the soul while installing Linux, but the summary is:

I installed Mandrake, not Debian, because Mandrake's intended to be easy to use (whereas Debian is, err, technologically impressive. Or something.)

The end result (Mandrake 10.0) was a bit like running XP, but buggier. On the other hand, it was free:-)

(And, to be fair, the "endless search through fifteen million web sites to discover how to install the mouse driver" problem (which I certainly remember from my previous encounter with Linux, in 1994) was very much reduced with Mandrake 10, though not eliminated.)

[mr-snips.livejournal.com]

PS: I certainly sympathise with the "I could work out how to do this, but I could also spend my life doing something more productive like, well, almost anything" point of view, by the way.

The only computer in the house with an operating system I actually like is the Tivo (admittedly also Linux based. But this is "Linux for normal people":-))

[archie.livejournal.com]

> Just recently, I came to a realisation. I'm never going to be
> a proper geek.

I think you might be being a little hard on yourself. Geekyness springs from many things, and I don't think that giving up on one thing because it isn't working out disqualifies anyone from being a Proper Geek. If we all slogged fruitlessly away at traditionally geeky things we didn't enjoy that would a) be kind of foolish, and b) leave far less time for the geeky things we do find enjoyable.

Bear in mind that I switched to Debian after my long and disappointing struggle with Red Hat, which actually left my confidence kind of knocked.

I suppose the most important factor is what would actually motivate you to move from an operating system you're already comfortable with. I was happy with Windows (and even now I don't think it's too bad), but Linux's major appeal for me was the command-line interface (CLI). That took me all the way back to childhood and all the non-GUI computers I tinkered with for days on end. Of course, it took a reading of Neal Stephenson's "In The Beginning Was The Command Line" to convince me that it could still be a good thing. That naturally led me on to the whole UNIX philosophy, the elegance of stringing small and simple tools together to create more complex tools, and I saw that this could be done all the more easily using a GNU environment.

Most of the time you spend getting a Linux system to work involves failure. It can be quite depressing if you're new to it, but speaking as someone who's been at this for a few years now, I can assure you that the bulk of my knowledge was accrued from failed attempts to get something working. Not just factual knowledge, but a logistical knowledge of how best to track down problems and seek out solutions on the web. You end up picking up a lot of little facts that you really don't care about or want to know at the time, but it's surprising how a few months, or even years, later it can pop out of your head to save you when you're in a bit of a pickle.

So yes, one certainly learns through failure, but one is unlikely to notice through the haze of disappointment. :)

It just occurred to me, you could actually stick with Windows but install Cygwin. You'd have the advanced command line interface of GNU/Linux, plus most of the other packages available in Linux distributions. Cygwin is surprisingly non-invasive as well. It sits in a single directory and doesn't stray outside of that directory. It doesn't even register itself in the Windows registry.

I'd also be quite happy to come round at some point, hang out with you and Alex for an evening and see if I can get it to behave.

> I still consider the idea of buying a Mac one of these days,
> but I'm shy of that too. What if I find MacOS as difficult to come
> to grips with?

I got to use Mac OS X exclusively for 6 weeks while I was in Seattle. I liked it. It was pretty with a well-designed and consistent interface, and it all made perfect sense after a while. It was even quite GNU/Linuxy once I'd found the CLI. After returning, I had a bit of trouble re-adjusting to my "normal" 3-buttoned mouse.