Has there been a decrease in super noob complaints?

[Agent-X]

Lately, I haven't seen many people rant about how hard Linux is to install. I suspect part of this has to do with more information being out there. When I was first starting, back in 2005, I remember one aspect people kept saying was that Linux wasn't too easy because there is a lack of information about how to manipulate it. That was very true. And I often see that true to this day. Sometimes I'm kind enough to write up an article about something I can't find with a search engine.

Sure, a person could always get a Red Hat Linux book, but manipulating multiple partitions wasn't too easy until more partition software became free. I remember that being one of my first problems.

The first OS I installed was Fedora 3. And using it didn't work too well, because I couldn't get the wireless to work. And why? Well, there was a lack of installation information for ndiswrapper. Albeit, I had a broadcom at the time. But now, I know how to get that sucker installed and working in less than 20 seconds.

I came back with Damn Small Linux. I only used it on computers that had an ethernet connection, since I wanted to simply experience the Linux interface and its network abilities. From there, I went to Ubuntu.

A problem with Ubuntu is that its forums are experiencing user over-load at the moment. I visited the newb section, and wow, so much bad information has been given out. I mean, sometimes it's really good, but other times it's really bad. I think thats why users have been dispersing to various Linux forums. And yet, I sometimes think they don't, which could lead to that helplessness feeling that comes with being new to something; and not to forget it misleads a person, thinking there isn't a way to do something.

So, what do you think has changed with Linux in the past few years to make it easier to use for complete newcomers?

More tutorials?
New features, such as Live-CDs?
Better hardware support?

Personally, I put my money on better hardware support.

[MikeTbob]

Hiya Agent-X,

I think all the above are true, more hardware support, better tutorials and I think most of all, LiveCD's with more robust installers. I think installing Linux used to be the hardest damn thing, now you just pop a CD in the drive and away you go. I sure wish it was like that when I started using Linux, I might have had more time to learn other things.

There does seem to be a smaller crowd of newbies complaining about Linux, although there does seem to be a lot more Linux users, the ones that do complain, I suspect they were just having a hard time grasping the whole Linux concept. But like many forum members, I believe Linux just wasn't made for everyone.

[bigvoo]

I'm new... I can't see any reason for any one to complain about these forums, people have been really nice and informative, and im running xubuntu on an old laptop ( but still havnt gotten it online ). I have to admit, I tried to install that red hat for dummies last year, and couldnt get it to work, but Ibought the linux format magazine with the disk in it and, Ive been running it from the live cd without any problems, so I installed it on the old comp, and will be installing it on the others soon. because of these forums, I learned how to burn the iso images onto cd, and now my options are mind boggling. I just got so sick of my windows machine booting up slowly because 20 to 30 windows apps would be in the task manager fighting to rush to their website and bog me down with UNWANTED downloads. I think linux is closer to what I want, for what i use computers for. Thanks again for all your help in here. B V

[techieMoe]

So, what do you think has changed with Linux in the past few years to make it easier to use for complete newcomers?

More tutorials?
New features, such as Live-CDs?
Better hardware support?

Personally, I put my money on better hardware support.

I'd agree with the "all of the above" comment. There's been a steadily growing base of Linux users, which contributes to everything you mentioned.

[ryokimball]

Hmm... I guess hardware support would be an underlying feature, though. I mean, liveCDs wouldn't work or would be quite useless if the hardware wasn't supported, and the tutorials wouldn't do much good if they just showed you how to use things that didn't work...
so I guess the biggest improvement is hardware support.