[Pan-users] Re: compile ?

[Duncan]

"Travis" <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sun, 14
Dec 2008 15:29:28 -0800:

> I appreciate everyone trying to help but with several people responding
> with slightly different instructions I'm finding it difficult to follow.

Here's something to save for later -- it's not going to be much help 
right now for this particular project, but it'll be a LOT of help overall.

You mention elsewhere that you want to keep to the command line for this, 
which is I think a good decision since it's both directions and feedback 
are easier (given it's a mailing list we're using) on the command line.

The below is a suggestion only.  Feel free to disregard it, but I'll tell 
you one thing, it saved me literally hundreds of hours (I figure at least 
three months worth of full-time 40 hour week equivilent, 500 hours worth, 
and it could easily have been a thousand hours worth) of screwing around 
ineffectively trying to learn stuff on my own.

Get the books Running Linux, and preferably Linux in a Nutshell, as 
well.  They're both O'Reilly Publishing.  Running Linux is several 
hundred pages (the old edition I used was 600+) arranged pretty much like 
a textbook or tutorial, easy/basic stuff at the front, harder stuff at 
the back.  I read it almost cover to cover, tho I did only skim or speed-
read some chapters.  It emphasizes the command line for probably 2/3s of 
the book, teaching, for the most part, tools that are on all 
distributions.  If you read thru most of it, you'll have a very good 
understanding of the basics, including being able to compile stuff 
yourself and something about how it works and configuration, so you can 
fix some of the simplest problems.  Not only will you have a very good 
understanding of the basics, but you'll be on your way to being a Linux 
power user!

While Running Linux is structured like a textbook, so is good for 
learning stuff as a newbie, Linux in a Nutshell is structured as a good 
reference manual.  You won't use it so much learning the basics, but 
after you do, you'll find yourself reaching for Linux in a Nutshell time 
and again, just to refresh yourself on command line options.  To this day 
(something like seven years later), I keep a copy within reach when I'm 
working at the computer, with bookmarks in a couple spots (the bash test 
command parameters, bash substitution, and the regex reference), and use 
it for other lookups reasonably frequently as well.  I wore out my first 
copy, got a second, updated version, and have now rather worn it out as 
well and need to get a third copy!

Together these books will probably cost you around $100 US; they cost me 
$70 at Fry's Electronics some years ago, but what is your time worth to 
you?  Even at near minimum wage, say $7 an hour, that 500 hours I figure 
they EASILY saved me mean they'd be worth $3500!!  Obviously you'd not 
pay that for them, but that's about the conservative best estimate I can 
give of what I consider the knowledge they gave me worth to me.  If 
you're serious about learning Linux to the point where you are actually 
comfortable with it and effective using it, those books are worth the 
money many many times over!  I consider the recommendation I got for them 
and the decision to follow it very near to the best in my life, with the 
decision to actually switch to Linux being very close.  But I'd have been 
lost had I tried to switch without something like those books, and 
honestly, I'm not sure I would have stuck with it.  After all, I was 
already a Windows power user with over a decade of experience there, and 
I was finding it VERY frustrating how impotent I felt on Linux -- I 
couldn't do /anything/!  Those books changed all that, and did so in a 
matter of months!

As I said, it's your choice, but that's one choice I'm very glad I made, 
and I really hate to think how difficult it would have been or how long 
it would have taken to come to the same level, without them.  If you're 
serious about learning Linux, there's no better investment you can make, 
than the purchase and time necessary to read those books!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman