Hardcore Linux rambling

comradexavier was telling me yesterday, as he was installing Slackware 9.1 for me, that I should figure out all this stuff myself, so he doesn't have to do it all for me. I reminded him that it was his idea for me to be a Linux user in the first place, and I'd told him I was going to hold him responsible. He's usually pretty patient with my questions, but he also wants me to be self-sufficient.

I told him that it's silly of him to not tell me things he has figured out that I could use, and he says why should I? I had to learn them myself, you could too. The documentation is all there, you have to be able to find, decipher, and apply it. I agree, but I wouldn't mind a little help. Still, I see the point he's making, the philosophy that makes people think as he does. They didn't learn the things they know so they could fix other people's computers. They were not born with this knowledge, they had to figure everything out and they think anyone else could do what they did.

It seems a lot of the "anyone else" types don't think that, though. My parents, for instance, think my brother and I and our generation are so "good at computers" because we've been using them since we were in kindergarten. Pointing out that, in kindergarten, we used an Apple IIe to play Word Munchers and that bears almost no resemblance to the computing world of today has no effect, they insist that the details are unimportant and it's all about the familiarity of computers. They have a point, but I think they're exaggerating. Plenty of people my age are totally dumb about computers. Exposure is nice, but it's not the only thing.

What they really want to say is that computers are one of those things that only "other people" are good at, they never will be, and that's just how it is. They'll go along buying decent OEM machines and the newest version of Windows and they'll expect computers to be mysterious and crappy forever.

Some people don't want anything better. I don't understand that at all. Asking everyone to use Linux might be a bit extreme, but no one even wants to hear that there may be a better web browser out there than IE. Even if they admit that such a thing exists, they don't want to go to the trouble of obtaining it, even if you tell them it's almost no trouble at all and will make them happier.

I'm reminded of the GMC commercials that end with "It's not more than you need. Just more than you're used to." I think they're talking about an SUV or something that is in fact more than most people need, but the idea is nonetheless intriguing. People can get used to crappiness, and then not even want good things when they see them, perhaps only because they're not what they're used to. If people who understand their own computers are technocrats, these would be the serfs, bound not to the land they worked as the feudal serfs were, but to the computers they use but don't understand.

What all this has to do with my cluelessness when it comes to Linux, I am not sure.