Noobs and hacking

[Rubberman]

[flame]It never ceases to amaze me when I read postings from folks that are basically clueless to even basic system programming, yet want help in the most advanced hacking situations. I think it's great that these people are interested in doing this, but I shake my head and want to give them a whack to go back and study the subject they are being so cavalier about.
[/flame]
Comments, counter-flames are welcome!

[oz]

There are definitely a lot of users that appear to feel a very strong urge to run before they can even crawl, or walk. Not sure what causes this behavior, but it seems that it might be something that's destined to continue.

[GNU-Fan]

Don't be mad with us.
I know I wasn't supposed to mess with CRTC timings. But it was so hilarious when the monitor started whistling.

It's just been more fun than dealing with traveling salesmen.

[reed9]

The main one that gets to me is the clueless folks asking for help with Backtrack Linux. Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't believe most of them are really just looking to test if their home network is secure.

[Bemk]

I think I do know why people want to run before they can even crawl. This is just because the things one can do while running, are far more fun to do, than the things you can do while crawling.

(Don't look at me, I'm only trying to design and build my own OS, having scheduled 8 years for it, and 6 of those will be spent learning).

[TaylanUB]

I just wiped my flash stick operating system thinking that ''mke2fs -L label /dev/sdxn'' just adds a label to the volume, but at least i don't claim to be professional!

(True story. (I have backups and all though, not too fatal.) I must be ... blind or something? I just now realize that the documentation tells me that it'll reformat the drive at the same time... Sorry for off-topic.)

[Rubberman]

I think I do know why people want to run before they can even crawl. This is just because the things one can do while running, are far more fun to do, than the things you can do while crawling.

(Don't look at me, I'm only trying to design and build my own OS, having scheduled 8 years for it, and 6 of those will be spent learning).

Well, in large system design & development, you need to be aware of the 90/10 rule. 90% of the schedule time should be spent in design, so you only need 10% of the time for the actual coding and testing. So, if you correctly figured on 8 years to design+build your own OS, then I think you have another year or so before you are ready for serious coding...

[Bemk]

Well, in large system design & development, you need to be aware of the 90/10 rule. 90% of the schedule time should be spent in design, so you only need 10% of the time for the actual coding and testing. So, if you correctly figured on 8 years to design+build your own OS, then I think you have another year or so before you are ready for serious coding...

Let me just study how the x86 CPU works in detail, then I can go onto designing proper algorithms, then I will be building, everything in its own pace. Maybe it will be longer, I just don't see the time period getting shorter, but hey, I'm doing this all on my own, and am only 17 years old! What do you expect?

[Rubberman]

Let me just study how the x86 CPU works in detail, then I can go onto designing proper algorithms, then I will be building, everything in its own pace. Maybe it will be longer, I just don't see the time period getting shorter, but hey, I'm doing this all on my own, and am only 17 years old! What do you expect?

So, you started this project when you were 11? Cool!

[Rubberman]

Anyway, my grandson is kind of like that, but he is more mechanically/aeronautically inclined, but with a real genius for hands-on electronics hacking. He has more flying frankentoys than I can fathom. He attached a remote-controlled video camera to a model airplane that he built from bits and pieces and then sent me the video it produced, from takeoff to 20 minutes airtime to landing, even zooming in on himself at the controls! I sent him my old Dell D600 laptop with edubuntu installed for his birthday a year and a half ago with two hard drives - one with XP the other with edubuntu 8.04 (Ubuntu w/ lots of educational software). He was running XP to do his aircraft design and modeling when he let the smoke out by spilling a soda on the keyboard. Fortunately, it only toasted the XP hard drive, so he switched in the Linux drive and has never looked back.

Anyhoo, I don't think he'll be building operating systems, but he may well get into device drivers over time for stuff he builds.