Kirk Wallace wrote:
There is a vast area of knowledge between getting started and having years of radius experience.
There's also a big difference between people who *try* and people who don't. The documentation isn't perfect, but text like "run the server in debugging mode" is scattered EVERYWHERE. Yet there's a continual stream of people who ask questions *without* doing this. Then there are the people who ask questions, and argue over the answers. I have no clue why people "ask the experts" for help, and then tell the experts that their answers are wrong. It's retarded.
I really do appreciate the effort people put into these free open-source projects ... what might help is a 2 x 4 to the head link on the main webpage taking beginners to content or links covering the very basics of what Freeradius is, why should we care,and in what situations it might be appropriate.
Great! Submit some documentation. I won't hold my breath. After 10 years of doing this, I can honestly tell you that pretty much everyone who suggests "better documentation" doesn't have the time or interest to do it themselves. The result is that the suggestion is a request for *us* to do more work.
With modern Linux distributions many users will never see a README or INSTALL file let alone wonder what they are.
The "man" page gets installed. It suggests what to do. All distributions install the README's in a documentation directory. Maybe people can try looking there.
With Freeradius able to run on many OS's, who knows what contexts a beginner will bring with them.
Context is almost irrelevant if people have the *methods* to be able to learn. I don't know anything about a lot of subjects. But I can go to a library and ask. I can search google for answers. I can read documentation, and ask questions saying "what does this mean?" That is the *minimal* ability we expect here. People who follow that behavior get polite responses. They get quick bug fixes. People who don't follow that behavior get told bluntly that they need to change their methods.
Some here may say "Well, I got myself through the gauntlet, others should too". The problem is that a gauntlet is a test. I believe more beginners will become users by taking a journey rather than a test. The more beginners can take themselves along the journey the fewer repeated questions will turn up here on the list.
I'd very much like to believe that. The problem is that there will *always* be a set of people who aren't interested in anything other than regurgitated documentation on the list. The *proper* response to them is to be blunt.
Newly successful users could be a good asset for creating a beginners starting point. Not that I expect to get a free ride, but I can get further along the journey, sooner, with a little self-help guidance.
Which is what's being done here, quite frankly. Some people make it clear that they haven't bothered to read any of the existing documentation, or that they haven't bothered to follow the instructions on this list. Why should we give "self-help guidance" in those situations? They've made it clear that they're not interested in helping themselves. Should we fight their laziness, and convince them that they need to do work to solve their problem, and *then* also help them with any technical issues? I think not. If someone can't be bothered to help themselves, we can't be bothered to help them, either. It's tough, but any other response is madness. Alan DeKok.