[zmatt]

Originally Posted by kmote

1) What? There is so much documentation both installed and all over the internet I find it a little difficult to believe you are saying that.
2) I'll take your word on that one.
3) Linux doesn't have anything like the kind of gaming experience you can easily get from Windows.
4) Personally I use the command line a lot, on many of my machines it's the only option. However, if you do have a graphical environment installed obligatory use of the command line is quite rare and it is much better than the windows one.
5) I can't see how this is a downside. It's there if you need/want it but using it isn't compulsory.

It's pretty easy on the documentation thing. All of it is out of date and/or incomplete. Go to the Ubuntu site and try to find information on anything. You will find that save for the most obvious things there isn't an article for the newest release and the older documentation doesn't work because some important command has changed, or the repository server has changed, or the packages they used aren't compatible or some other reason.

As for package management I've have already gone over this. In short, dependency **** is easy to get, there are no manual .exe's so if the program fails to start you can't manually start it like in windows, you have to rely on one program to manage them whether you like it or not, and they always require dependencies. Short of video games and .net programs i don't know of many windows applications that require me to download or use another program or library to run. Windows .exe's are fully encased programs and don't need any outside help to work. That solution is beautiful and elegant. packages are a throwback to 1970's technology and are just a pain.

[kmote]

Originally Posted by zmatt

It's pretty easy on the documentation thing. All of it is out of date and/or incomplete. Go to the Ubuntu site and try to find information on anything. You will find that save for the most obvious things there isn't an article for the newest release and the older documentation doesn't work because some important command has changed, or the repository server has changed, or the packages they used aren't compatible or some other reason.

As for package management I've have already gone over this. In short, dependency **** is easy to get, there are no manual .exe's so if the program fails to start you can't manually start it like in windows, you have to rely on one program to manage them whether you like it or not, and they always require dependencies. Short of video games and .net programs i don't know of many windows applications that require me to download or use another program or library to run. Windows .exe's are fully encased programs and don't need any outside help to work. That solution is beautiful and elegant. packages are a throwback to 1970's technology and are just a pain.

I just had a look on ubuntu.com and the documentation even for 9.04 seems fairly comprehensive. If you are looking for information about a specific progam/package then you should go to the man pages/website specifically for that. What would be an example of something for which you can't find documentation?
In the unlikely event that you cannot start an application from the menu you can start the program manually. exe is not there as a file extension but that does not mean the executable file isn't there. You do not have to rely on one program to manage your other programs, like I said before, use of a package manager is entirely optional.
All programs could be written without any use of dynamic linking but this would be a great shame as there are many good reasons to do so.

[Saxon]

Kmote the Linux documentation is spotty improving yes but still bad, compare it to the documentation for Windows or FreeBSD (or any of the BSD's) you will honestly see a huge gap an that's because quite frankly too many chefs are spoiling the broth an the broth was prity much crippled to begin with.

[Jayce]

It's also kind of hard to rely on Linux documentation in itself. Individual distributions are beginning to gain so much momentum and popularity that forks of the documentation are starting to appear.

At one point I had quit Ubuntu and tried out Fedora, but I found that waiting a week for 5 people to view my thread on the Fedora forums was ridiculous. In turn, I came back to Ubuntu, where it may take an hour to get 5 responses to my problem, depending upon what it is. I find the support for certain distros to be lacking so much to the point I wonder how they even exist, whereas other distros are supported so heavily that I know questions can be answered in a short fragment of time.

I'm also not surprised to see something mentioned about users whining and quitting. I often will just sit in the Ubuntu IRC channel and often times people will come in and be extremly rude and demanding about their issues, only to express in vulgarities their frustrations with something that ultimately is very simple... that if they had just been patient and asked the question like an adult, more than a dozen people would have been able to help. This isn't isolated to Linux, either... I see it with Windows in general every day at work, mostly because some users that I have to train on certain applications with Windows don't seem to grasp certain ways things are done. Ultimately, that's why there's people in IT, people who are truck drivers, people who are mechanics, etc... Not everything is everybody's cup of tea. My dad wouldn't expect me to back a 53' big rig up a 1 way alley in Baltimore, for the same reason I wouldn't expect him to configure a router.

[Saxon]

I can see your point Jayce but in Linux documentation has been missing or spotty since day one. When Linuxs wrote the kernel it wasn't designed or intended to be so widely used the minimal levels of documentation from the ground up have lead to a mad dash to get any done but most of it is conflicting or patchy at best little or non of it checks out lets take CentOS and Red Hat cent OS is just a free version of read hat the source is nearly identical in every practical way but the documentation is conflicting.

But let's take a look at the levels that the FreeBSD project has gone to to make documentation not only complete but through:
FreeBSD Network Administrators Guide <-- mostly the work of one man, not the whole text but getting it together in a structured and above all ordily way.

The Hand book FreeBSD Handbook it separates the differing documentation clearly from say 6.0 to 7.0 (just random releases) this has been compiled since day one of the project when it was partly funded by AT&T an Bell.

The application developers hand book FreeBSD Developers' Handbook (try finding a concise guide like that for any linux distro)

The application porters hand book FreeBSD Porter's Handbook

Documentation on Writing the documentation FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors

Documentation of the linux binary emulation layer Linux emulation in FreeBSD

That is just a selection from there main site if you look in the people section you will find all kinds of specialist information available right down to in some cases the reason for writing one line of code etc.
The only other places i have seen that level of documentation is in Windows and Solaris back before the bubble burst and even then the SUN documentation was not even close to what has always been developed by the FreeBSD community.

[Jayce]

Every issue that I've ran into I typically look in the man pages for answers, and majority of the time I find them.

If not, the forums have been there too. I've never felt "left out in the cold" with an ongoing problem in Linux. *shrug*

[Saxon]

Thing is lots have and they have looked for the documentation an it's not there in the first place.

[Jayce]

Originally Posted by Saxon

Thing is lots have and they have looked for the documentation an it's not there in the first place.

In the man pages?? Or in general? I've never once tried to find external documentation on Linux because it's always been IN the man pages...

[Saxon]

In general some people are not aware of the man pages.

[kmote]

I find it difficult to think of an example of something where I have looked for documentation and it hasn't been there.

EDIT: just because some people who look for documentation do not know about the man pages that does not mean you can criticise linux for a lack of docs.