to newcomers: please try to solve the problem yourself before asking

[CB]

This topic has generated more heat than the initial post merited but I'd 
like to mildly counter with the suggestion that many of you (Marius 
included) are slightly out of touch with ordinary computer users.

A few specifics:

>* search on google (it includes mailing list archives)
>  
>
As others have suggested, this isn't always very helpful for a linux 
neophyte. At least don't assume that they haven't done this just because 
their question  seems ill-researched. Their search query in google may 
have been ill-conceived, and the search hits utterly opaque to them.

>* see the distribution release notes if something doesn't work
>anymore as it used to after upgrading
>  
>

I've just read the Fedora Core 2 x86 Release Notes. Believe me, there's 
almost nothing in there that most computer users would understand. Many 
people, perhaps most, would not get beyond the first few paragraphs.

>* if you're looking for an application, search on freshmeat.net and
>sourceforge.net
>  
>

I just went to freshmeat and clicked on the first app link I noticed 
(for mplayer). There's nothing there that would speak to a non-techy 
person. It would be utterly bewildering.

>In maximum 5 minutes of your time you could find the answer, probably
>learning more.
>  
>

I might just manage all this in 5 minutes. But, having had a lot of 
contact with non-techy types, please believe me when I say that many of 
them would not get through that list in 5 hours. It seems simple enough 
to 'us', but that's because we're largely unaware of the mountain of 
background knowledge we bring to bear on our computer use and 
troubleshooting.

If anyone's response is that someone as naive as I describe should be in 
charge of a computer, or shouldn't try fedora, or shouldn't post to this 
list, then that's when  Renee Lee's apparently oversensitive tone 
becomes justified in my view. No-one that I know of has any mandate to 
select the user-base of this list, fedora, or computers in general.

Cheers,

CB.