The Ubuntu Chronicles: The Saga of Amber and Ubuntu

Part 10

I have found it sad that there are some in the Open Source Community that instead of helping the new Linux user want to learn more, only serve to confuse people. Regardless of which flavor of Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse etc), the communities, and the overall missions are the same. Sure different code, and the presentation of the projects are different. I would like to think that regardless of the flavor of Linux one chooses each person of the Open Source Community would welcome them (new users) and want to help them understand and not potentially scare new people away from trying any flavor of Linux. Some of the comments I have gotten would be enough to scare me away and send me back to Mac and say forget it, if I hadn’t been brave enough to just try. I am not by nature a confrontational person, but I sense some undercurrent of hostility toward Ubuntu vs. Fedora. Having said that I am still curious about Fedora but the them vs. us mentality is making me less inclined to even go there. The Ubuntu Community seems nice and helpful. The comments I am getting from some (but not all) in the Fedora community seem very hostile and not at all what this Blog is about.

I find it by comparison to those traveling to a city. The mode of transportation and the route may be different, but in the end they wind up at the same place. If someone gets lost along the way then regardless of how they choose to reach their destination then someone can help them along. Either they call and say I’m here how do I get there. They put a better address in a GPS system, or they just stay where they are at and let someone find them, but eventually they get there. (the sad part is that there is always someone saying let them just find they’re way they didn’t fly or, they didn’t drive, they took a bus etc so I’m not helping and end up giving them the wrong or conflicting directions.) Hope you can follow that.

So, I would ask please keep in mind I am “average user mom” here. Trying to let other non techie people know that Linux is not a scary place to go. It is actually pretty comfortable. If your comments are purely for the sake of helping me and others new to Linux then by all means please help, If however you are just using my Blog and the ability to grandstand against Ubuntu or any other flavor of Linux then I would question the motive behind your post before you post it.

Please understand that I am not discouraging comments I welcome them. I understand too “That everything is personality driven, and I should not take everything personally.” Please remember that “average user mom” does not want to know about the politics behind the flavors of Linux as they all have their issues, because *nothing* in this world is perfect.

OK, now I have that off my mind I can talk about what else I am learning. 🙂

Tried out the games that come with Ubuntu…they are fun and I am not really a game playing person. However, I thought I just had to try them out. At least Ubuntu comes with more than Solitaire.:) (see how long it’s been since I used windows 😛 )

OK, so I’m logged into IRC watching a couple Ubuntu channels; before now I thought IRC was like a social networking area. I had *NO* idea that people worked in IRC and actually accomplished things. Pgraner would say, “I have an IRC meeting” I didn’t get it. SO I watched the Ubuntu Release meeting and was in amazement at all the things that were accomplished. You don’t have to have a huge conference room, white boards, someone taking minutes etc. Everyone involved logs in, there is link to the agenda and bam then meeting starts. Bots record the meeting and then spit out the minutes. How cool is that.

Played around with Drivel it was easy to sign in and once I picked what format I was using it just knew where to go to put my stuff. That was awesome too It seems to have the ability to do more that BloGTK, but that could only be my perception because I haven’t read a lot about it either, I am just kinda’ learning as I go. It’s fun!

OK, so I wanted to learn to download the daily image, and it took a while to figure out. Some of the instructions weren’t what I needed. So this time just to make sure I got what I needed I asked pgraner, “is this what I need?”. Once I was at the right page I bookmarked it. I learned how to download the daily/current images. It was timing out on me, I think because so many people were getting the image to test that my download was slowing to a crawl. So I will try it again tomorrow. I still think it the whole process is AWESOME. [things above average user level I don’t mind asking one or two questions, I stick to the Ubuntu IRC channels as much as possible but again this was above average user mom stuff so I’m still sticking to my rule of not asking for help for the regular user stuff]

Today, I will be working on my newsletter using Scribus. I’ll let you know how it goes. I kept thinking I would work on it before now,however, like anything priorities get rearranged and family will always come first.

Hope everyone is still enjoy this saga…:) I am still enjoying learning…:)