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List:       gentoo-desktop
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-desktop]  Re: USB hard drive mounting problem
From:       Lindsay Haisley <fmouse-gentoo () fmp ! com>
Date:       2007-10-20 21:58:57
Message-ID: 1192917537.10036.153.camel () vishnu ! fmp ! com
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On Sat, 2007-10-20 at 20:24 +0000, Duncan wrote:
> Lindsay Haisley <fmouse-gentoo@fmp.com> posted
> 1192899794.10036.59.camel@vishnu.fmp.com, excerpted below, on  Sat, 20 Oct
> 2007 12:03:14 -0500:
> 
> > On Sat, 2007-10-20 at 04:32 +0000, Duncan wrote:
> >> > It would be a Good Thing if new local accounts could be added to
> >> > group plugdev when they're created.
> 
> For a moment there, I was rather confused, as I knew I certainly didn't 
> write what plainly looked to be attributed to me...

Yes, it can be confusing ;-)

> I'll admit there are certainly ways to make the management thereof 
> easier.  OTOH, Gentoo is very deliberately not aimed toward those who 
> need a huge amount of hand-holding, and users are expected to take 
> responsibility for sysadmining their own system -- with guidance where it 
> may be found necessary, of course, and this is arguably one such place.

Gentoo has excellent online documentation, as you point out, but there
are times when the organization of it can be an issue.  Those of us with
sysadmin experience don't need our hands held, generally, but OTOH we
don't like to have to waste time digging for facts we need under
multiple rocks.  Over time, we learn where to look, but people keep
moving the rocks and adding more of them :-/

Unix at the gitgo was never aimed at beginners, but almost all the
documentation you needed was in man pages, and one's skill had to be in
reading and understanding the technical terms is said docs.  These days,
necessary documentation is in a dozen different places - HTML help
files, online, traditional man page, etc.

> The question was a reasonable one to ask, and it was quickly and 
> reasonably answered (if by the original poster, but answered in any case) 
> and confirmed.

As the "original poster" I'll have to admit that I will very often post
to a forum such as this, then do the research an answer the question,
and then post the answer if I find one.  There's method in this, in that
I feel that the original question is one that others may well have, and
even if I'm the one who posts the answer I'm exposing the solution to a
problem that is probably more common than just me.  If I don't find an
answer, I'll often get one on this forum.

> Gentoo can be rightly proud of the helpful environment it 
> has fostered in this regard, and the fact that the original poster was 
> resourceful enough to independently find and post the answer as well (and 
> in such a short time) supports just how resourceful our users are. =8^)

Gentoo is not for the faint of heart!
 
> I know I've found the automatic repeat of messages at the end of 
> the emerge session extremely helpful, here, and they are still logged for 
> reference should I need to go back and look again.

I'm sure it is.  My usual procedure is:

1.  Wait far to long to do an emerge --update world on my desktop
2.  Start an emerge of 150 packages or so
3.  Go take a nap and see a movie while OpenOffice builds
4.  Come back an restart, with env settings, when the emerge crashes
5.  Go take another nap and see another movie
6.  Come back and read what hasn't scrolled out of my scrollback buffer

If I get an error on something 2 weeks later, _maybe_ I can find a
reference to it in the info, but I'd have to know where to look.  I
don't need hand-holding, but I don't like to have to waste time, either.

I do need to revisit enotice and see if I can't build it into something
that provides a search facility.

> However, to be fair, it's quite likely the hal merge in question was back 
> before portage got so good at replaying its messages, and back then, it's 
> understandable that they may have been lost in the noise, many many 
> screens of info up from the ultimate emerge termination, so it's unfair 
> to be too hard on someone missing the message... for a /little/ while 
> longer, anyway. =8^)

I had to do substantial research to discover that the problem was even
related to Hal, so it's unlikely that I would have known to review the
Hal upgrade notes until I was close to a solution anyway.

A far more productive approach, and the one I used to solve this and
many other problems was to take a signature portion of the error message
and submit it on google.  Generally I'm pretty good at separating
problems that lots of people may be having from those caused by my own
idiosyncratic sysadmining of my desktop box!

> OK.  I just get paranoid sometimes, that people are bringing their bad 
> habits with them, and not being properly encouraged to learn good habits 
> in their place.

I _love_ my bad habits!

> I expect you'll agree that the last thing anyone wants 
> is for Linux to end up the virus and malware wasteland its most popular 
> competition has tended to be, and perhaps I get too worked up when I see 
> what I take as hints that someone wants Linux to head the same direction.

It would be nice to have a concise table somewhere summarizing the
function of various modern group memberships.

plugdev		->	Allows plugging devices admin'd by udev
cdrom		->	Allows manipulation of CDROM functions
video		->	Provides access to .....
etc.

Call it hand-holding if you will, or you can call it simply a concise
organization of important information.  I just checked, and I'm in 16
different groups on my desktop system, some of which I have no idea why,
but I do know that I put my account into them at some point because it
was necessary for something that I needed to do.  Wouldn't it be nice
for Gentoo to have an online doc section with a simple chart of this
nature?  Yeah, I'm a competent sysadmin, and I can find all the
information, but there are times when I need to find something out
quickly so I can get on to more interesting things! 

-- 
Lindsay Haisley       | "In an open world,    |     PGP public key
FMP Computer Services |    who needs Windows  |      available at
512-259-1190          |      or Gates"        | http://pubkeys.fmp.com
http://www.fmp.com    |                       |

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