<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 6:29 PM, Michael Mol <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mikemol@gmail.com">mikemol@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On 2/11/2010 6:25 PM, john-thomas richards wrote:<br>
> Ah, the pragmatism that comes with age. I've been using Linux for about<br>
> thirteen years now and only once have I reinstalled from scratch in<br>
> order to solve a problem, and that was about a year ago when Debian<br>
> Testing got really, really messed up (modules wouldn't load, etc.). I<br>
> realized life was too short for me to go through the long, arduous<br>
> process of fixing it so I reinstalled.<br>
><br>
> There's wisdom in that.<br>
<br>
</div>One of the valuable things that arises from the time spent is learning<br>
why it broke in the first place. Not "why" as "this file was removed",<br>
but "why" as in "oh, this subsystem needs to talk to that subsystem, and<br>
that thing needs to be configured so that that part over there works."<br>
<br>
If that's outside one's area of interest, then yeah, reinstall.<br>
Otherwise, by all means, be stubborn and learn!<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"> </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>All true. Or cave, and learn about </div><div>something else. I suspect that for</div><div>most of us here it's a matter of what</div><div>
one learns about, not whether they</div><div>will learn about something. </div><div><br></div><div>It's usually not particularly instructive</div><div>to spend too much time on something</div><div>unless you have the background to at</div>
<div>least have a shot at a solution. There's</div><div>also the monkey at a typewriter, cranking</div><div>out Shakespeare. Possible, just not very</div><div>likely.</div><div><br></div><div> -- Bob</div><div><br>
</div></div>