Old computer hacker (but Linux newbie) seeks guru...

[OS Newbie]

I'd love to get up to speed on Linux (Gentoo in particular) and other Open Source stuff, especially things having to do with bringing up stable file servers for multiple client platforms, programming environments, and embedded systems design. The thing is, most sources of information aimed at newbies endeavor to make the experience of using Linux comfortable for casual users, and because of that, gloss over all the aspects that I care most about.

What would be wonderful for me would be to cross paths with some wise, benevolent, battle-scarred Linux/Open Source person who'd understand my plight, and be like Obi-Wan Kenobi, saying "These simplistic FAQs and intros are not the deep enlightening information sources that you've been looking for." and "Use the real stuff (like Gentoo) and don't fear the simple requirements of knowing how to compile from source code." and "I can see by the titles on your bookshelf (The Design of the Unix Operating System, Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science and Personalities, etc.) that you are not one to confine yourself to a GUI desktop or distros like Ubuntu.

Anybody want to come and hang out occasionally (I'm in the Portland, OR area), and speak wisdom to help guide me on my path toward GNU/Linux enlightenment, or even just talk by e-mail? I realize that this sounds a little bit like somebody who's new to hydraulics and mechanics, asking for help as he seeks to get up to speed on race car chassis design. But I have decades of experience in things like electronics, hacking computer-based projects, etc. And I've reached the end of my attention span for putting up with the likes of Microsoft and Apple endlessly churning the environment (not to mention, dumbing it down). I want to be able to more deeply understand and control the OS, compile it to its most optimal configuration, etc. I promise to spend a lot of my time figuring things out, etc. I'd just like to have a wise Gentoo-savvy person keep me on the path as I start out.

[NeddySeagoon]

OS Newbie,

Welcome to Gentoo.

One to one, the way you suggest, is not the Open Source way. You need to share you learning in public, so that others can learn by following your forums posts, which will hopefully end in success.
You will find the Gentoo documents, wiki and IRC to be excellent resources.

Its unlikely I'll get to "hang out" with you as I'm near Edinburgh, Scotland.

Anyway step one is to boot some Linux system and install Gentoo by following the Gentoo Handbook for your hardware.


The help on the forums will teach you to fish, not give you a fish.

Just jump in - we won't let you drown.

I have a similar background to yourself ... 50 years playing with computers, the only kid in a school of about 1100 to have computer programing as a hobby :)
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[OS Newbie]

[John R. Graham]

OS Newbie,

Don't give up without playing around a little bit. Take a look at the Gentoo Handbook: it's really quite readable, especially for a technically-minded person. I'd also recommend Linux in a Nutshell for some good familiarization reading.

I'm on the opposite corner of the US from you, I'm afraid, but I make it to the other corner occasionally. I'm planning a trip to Aurora (Van's Aircraft factory) via PDX in the fall.

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

[russK]

Perhaps a user group could provide what you are looking for. I see one in Portland: http://www.pdxlinux.org/

I also have to second the encouragement from the other posters - just jump in, boot a live CD, play around with some tutorials, and follow the handbook.

Cheers

[OS Newbie]

[OS Newbie]

[NeddySeagoon]

OS Newbie,

Everyone in the Gentoo community is a volunteer. That meas that Gentoo never gets further up their list of priorities than third.
People do vanish for prolonged periods from time to time, sometimes with no notice.
The forums and IRC go some way to address that as you get many to one help, as well as it being public.
It also helps with time zone issues. For example we are eight time zones apart. The forums and IRC never sleep.

As you have a problem solving background you won't have any problem with Gentoo.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[OS Newbie]

[1clue]

Strange as it may seem, I've never even heard of anyone who wanted to do it the way you want. I've been using Linux since 1996.

I've heard some people say they wanted to take a Linux class and go on from there, or get a certification, or whatever. But I've never heard of someone who wants an expert to spoon-feed them from the ground up.

Frankly I can't imagine someone who insists on this type of arrangement to have the drive to become an expert. I'm not saying that to be insulting. I'm just asking you to think about what you're requesting.

Linux is probably the best documented and best supported operating system I've been exposed to, and that includes my exposure to IBM's mainframe/mini/server systems as an employee. The documentation is not consistently in the same place, nor is the support. It's in continuous flux because the operating system is in continuous flux.

I can't imagine a real expert taking time away from his regular life (which almost has to be busy) to do a one-on-one tutorship. Are you expecting this person to stop his/her job during this time? Are you planning to pay this person?

[nativemad]

Hi OS Newbie,

a potentially wise man knows that he knows not enough to consider himself wise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing
I could teach you how to write some ebuilds and scripts and could certainly tell you much about the ins and outs of our beloved system. But on the other hand I would have to tell you almost on each topic that there is much more to know and that I just know things that I came across and that were interesting enough for me to really dive into it.
There is just no one guru who really knows everything.

Feel free to ask me anything you want, but also be prepared that my answers may be biased and probably not even close to a good answer.

If you really like to get good, verified, trustworthy answers, inputs, directions or something then you'll need to ask the whole crowd.
This is the whole essence of open source imho.

If you want to get experienced in linux then I'd recommend to read a good book that teaches the basics (like the one already mentioned or http://swift.siphos.be/linux_sea) and then just try to do something that is interesting enough for you to keep working on it. Like setting up a webserver with a wiki for keeping your own notes or something.
There is also quite much documentation available for almost anything at the gentoo wiki and/or the gentoo docs.
_________________
Power to the people!

[NeddySeagoon]

OS Newbie,

[OS Newbie]

[OS Newbie]

[1clue]

I think quite a few people are trying to help you, and you're not cooperating well enough to phrase a question properly.

I think we understand what you want quite well. You want the Linux community to change from the way it works now into the way you want it to work. You want to skip over things you already know, or that you don't think are important. The problem is, how is this guru going to know what you don't know, and how do you know what's not important? Some of that stuff you don't think is important is the ground work for something that's extremely important.

A lot of people have spent a lot of time on this documentation. A lot of people on this forum have a really good grasp of their own little area of interest, but nobody has an in-depth grasp of everything. With frequent changes to almost every software package on the system, no one human could possibly keep up with it all.

You keep saying things like:

[1clue]

And seriously. Look at NeddySeagoon's post count. He didn't get that post count by hanging around in "off the wall". He spends more time helping people than anyone else I see on the forum.

[miket]

I can certainly can understand why it would be great to be able to work around someone who's done it before. There is a lot we've lost by not having actual face-to-face contact. In so many ways the internet has been dehumanizing: we have community after a fashion, but not in a way where we could share good times and a laugh. We have lost a great deal by getting lost in little screens while being unaware of our surroundings. I really get what you mean by wanting to have that interaction. It is not so much a matter of being spoon-fed but being able to say "hey, look at this".

At my company there are a lot of programmers, and many of these are recently out of college. There is a good bit of interaction among us all. A lot of people have questions for me. They are not asking me to do things for them but to get an idea of why and how things go together like they do. The human interaction counts for a lot.

That said, the unfortunate fact is that we in the Gentoo community are fairly sparsely dispersed in the world. I live in Florida, which is more than 2000 miles from Oregon. I would have to think that there are Gentoo users in Oregon, but even then the distances matter.

So, if some Gentoo user in Oregon sees this thread and responds, that would be great. If someone in North Florida posted a message like yours, I'd certainly respond. Absent any response like that, you'll have to look to Plan B. That's essentially where the other people in this thread have been pointing. We do have great documentation, and we do have a nice community that is helpful for answering questions--even if we are not all here in person.

I thinik you'll find hat the normal way for people to get into Gentoo is for them to pick it up form themselves. That is the case for me too. Even though when I started at my company the head of network operations was a Gentoo developer, I pretty much worked out everything for myself.

Your kind of experience should take you a long way. Bear in mind also that in user groups you might run into people who have gone well past Ubuntu.

[NeddySeagoon]

OS Newbie,

I'm up for it your way.

Don't ask me about GNOME, systemd, KDE, (e)udev, pulseaudio, *kit or auto anything since I don't use any of that.
I don't use multilib either. Theres probably lots of other things I can't help you with too but we will come to those later.
Maybe I'm not your idea of a guru any more?

I'm good for KVM, hardened and the server stuff I use plus a little twm and Xfce .
Oh, it will need to be about noon your time for an hour or so only, as I'm in Scotland, so we are unlikely to meet over a beer.
Skype is out as it needs pulseaudio, google hangouts doesn't seem to work without multilib. I did have ekiga working once but that was two sets of hardware ago.

If you want to take me up on the offer, we will correspond in public, on these forums.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[Chiitoo]

Teegrins and welcome, OS Newbie!


First off, my apologies for replying since I feel it may be something what you don't want at this point, but this is, after all, a public forum, and I can't help but to wonder something out-loud. I hope you can help me with it.

If you feel your anger levels rising, you might as well follow your own advice and ignore this post, for I certainly wouldn't want to be annoying, frustrating, or anything towards the negative!


I understand that one might want a more personal relationship with someone who can guide them along, but what I don't understand is that how it seems like a better idea than having dozens, if not hundreds of guides with different kinds of expertise available to help around the clock.

The forums is what (in my opinion) makes a huge part of Gentoo what Gentoo is. I might understand the want for taking a part of that home, but that will only be a part of it. Here you have most of it!


I personally jumped to Gentoo as my first Linux experience. Aside from a quick peek on Ubuntu, which taught me virtually nothing, I had no idea what to do, or how things work internally, but all I needed was the Handbook to guide me. I didn't have any sort of programming experience or IT background before either, aside from simply messing with the hardware and software (mostly games) since Commodore 64.

Those Commodore-times probably are what I felt coming back to me with the command-line installation. That, and the times with my first MSDOS diskettes. The guides and mentors for me were the written documentation, and these forums, where I don't think I actually had to ask for help many times at all; usually the answers were already there, given to someone else. This is, I think, why what the others here are saying as well is important: the open-source way to have it in the public (everyone benefits from it, and things don't need to be repeated to each individual).

I'm not trying to tell you what you should do, nor how to do it; I'm simply sharing parts of my journey with Gentoo, and my thoughts about it. I started in 2010, so I'm definitely still new myself, and far from a guru, but I do my best to help wherever I can.

We are all different, of course. I think I never learned anything too well from a book, from tell, nor from look-see myself. I always learned the best by doing it.


I don't believe there is a one Obi-Wan, but several, and as mentioned by others, none of them will be the expert of everything. Some might even lead you astray, perhaps even towards the dark side (which one might actually prefer, but I digress!). They may be the expert at one time, but only until someone who knows more stumbles upon the thread and posts a reply.


Just some thoughts!

Take them as you will, or don't.
_________________
Kindest of regardses.

[OS Newbie]

[OS Newbie]

[OS Newbie]

[John R. Graham]

Hadn't you heard? Gentoo is dying. For evidence, I present the Why Gentoo Sucks, and Why it Will Ultimately Die thread, now in its 9th glorious year.

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

[desultory]

[Ant P.]

Looking for someone to devote time to teaching you GNU/Linux? Here you go: http://www.redhat.com/en/services/training