“We are all ignorant, just in different areas.”

Just applicable today, as the day it was uttered.

My Linux experience started with a dual boot of the then-current version of Ubuntu, because it was free as in beer. After some time, I discovered that I could do things faster from the command line, and one thing lead to another. These days, I’m a vocal FLOSS advocate playing with all sorts of stuff. Also, I’m much much better with computers that I ever thought I’d be, or would care to be. This happened via Ubuntu, on my own terms, taking the time it needed to. I sincerely don’t think it would have happened if the hypothetical “default Linux” would need advanced skills like kmandla seems to suggest. Let’s play with the stuff we like *and* welcome the newcomers!

@RedPenguins – if you like wmii, try i3 – it’s aimed as a wmii replacement and is in active development. It also has a sane default configuration.

@everyone else….I’m disappointed in you all! Quit moaning that the world is dumb please. Sure, TV is controlled by coporate greed – don’t watch it. Sure, the music industry is too – don’t listen to it. The internet is mostly full of shit – don’t use it, buy real, physical books for reference and learning. But how far do you go? Personally, I believe even things like soap, hot water and socks are unnecessary luxuries foisted on us by corporations, but I don’t imagine many of you do. (no, I don’t smell by the way, I do wash). However, I would never assume that the rest of the world is “dumb” for blindly buying soap and socks (though I’ll try and educate them if I have the chance).

What I think most of you don’t get (and I’m just as guilty of this at times – I’m not preaching) is that you’re only harming yourselves by bitching about it. It achieves nothing except to make you angry. You’re never going to move Ubuntu back to what it was, so just deal with it and move to Arch. If Arch ever dumbs down, move on. If someone wants to post crap to twitter all day using a fancy phone that has buttons that fly all over the place, ignore them. That’s the whole point about foss is that we get the choice, and we can change our minds at any time and move on. The people who don’t want that choice use Apple products, and are happy to pay the premium. So what? What is so painful about that, apart from that niggling little voice in your head that wants the whole world to be the way you think it should be? That little voice (we all get it) is the cause of most of the worlds problems: people with ideologies trying to force them onto others.

I’ll give a final example, I like my cars to “just work” – to go from a to b (though automatic gearboxes scare me). Hence I’ve never learned the mechanics of it and can do no more except check the oil and water and change a tire. What’s so wrong with that? If people want a computer that “just works” so they can post to twitter and play games on facebook, what’s the harm?

I agree that it’s a very special kind of crowd but I really urge you to try and read on their mailing list for a while. It might be strange at times but there’s a lot of knowledge there. I even met Anselm in person the other day…

For the topic at hand: Yeah, that’s why I’m using Linux. Although I’m using a well-known distribution at the moment, there’s literally nothing stopping me from rolling my own or using LFS (Linux from scratch) as a base once we run out of options.

Back in 2006 when I finally made the switch to Linux, there was this warm and fuzzy feeling that I’m now in complete control over my hardware. I like that thought…

[1] http://lists.suckless.org/dev/

I totally agree with you, but I’d like to point out something. I’m not familiar with the wmii or dwm communities myself, but from what you said, it seems the dwm community is a perfect example of the pseudo-rebel syndrome I mentioned in my comment. The main reason they join the club is the elitism, so they can enjoy ridiculing the outsiders once they’re inside, not because it’s less dumbed down, and this ends up ruining it for everyone (old-timers and newcomers alike). This is exactly why I think the problem can’t be solved; the obvious solution just adds to the problem.