Been trying to learn Linux for a long time
I can competently navigate in the KDE interface - I can run and use Linux apps. But my last real experience with Linux was as follows:
Have a spare laptop - Pentium III with 512 MB RAM (IIRC, maybe 1 GB). Had a copy of SUSE 10 Pro a friend had given me (commercial package, manuals, and all). Should work fine on the hardware (Toshiba Portege 7200). Slapped in a PCMCIA WiFi card and installed everything. Everything works great EXCEPT WiFi, which I realistically need to make the machine usable.
So, after working with it for a while without success, I go online to a Linux forum to ask advice. The advice I get back is:
Use newer version of SUSE (probably not going to work on the older hardware)
Get newer laptop AND newer version of SUSE (not going to happen for money reasons)
The one that floored me: You don't have enough RAM to run a GUI. Say WHAT?!! I'd already provided a LOT of detail, including what I saw in KDE (which is, last time I checked, a GUI), so WTH?!
It's hard to ask advice and then dis the free advice you get, but if the community wants to grow Linux, there has to be more than that. After that last 'you can't run a GUI' response, I saw no more responses to my queries, leading me to believe that the frankly stupid and superficial advice made everyone think, 'Well, that guy's question has been answered.' Yeah, with a stupid and irrelevant response, but how much help you gonna get if you complain about the poor quality of the again, FREE, advice?
That pretty much made me give up. I'd been fooling with Linux off and on for about 7 years or so, but that experience finally pushed me off the cliff with Linux. Maybe someday I'll try again, but I can't help feeling like my experience was PROBABLY not that unique.
