@williambishop
>I guess we have left the generation of RTFM, now everyone expects everything to be perfect and easily understood by the lowest common denominator out of the box.
No that's the whole point. There is no single page - forget manual - to RTF for this appliance! I don't expect perfect, I expect usable by an average linux user - meaning some kind of minimal doc! It is not a lot to ask for! Welcome to the 21st century.
If an appliance in a given area is aimed at experts in that area who can cope with no doc then it should clearly say so - then Novices will avoid it.
>If you want microsoft, go get windows. Appliances are a lot of work, they are a gift of time and sweat to you, the people who are too lazy to build the thing yourself. That is why I use appliances, to save time and energy, but I can at least do a little research and look for the answers before I sit down for a good cry.
That's pathetic - and insulting to the Linux world! There are plenty of decent well- or even partially-documented linux apps out there. If an appliance builder can't be bothered to provide minimal docs then he shouldn't bother with the appliance at all. It's not laziness on my part, its trying to avoid wheel reinvention - my time is important to me. That's the whole point of appliances I think!!!! Or is it an ego trip for appliance writers: look at me I wrote an appliance ..... what you're too stupid to use it... why can't you read my brilliant mind and spend days scouring the internet????
>Post a question if you are unsure of something, but bitching without TRYING seems a bit babyish to me. People are just too lazy.
Don't indiscriminately call people lazy! It strikes me that your assumptions are lazy. Try doing what? I'm not psychic!!!!
Post a question where!!!!! If the wiki is alive and well and has some doc its a recent thing and should be directly pointed to from the appliance. This is the only place I can post a comment on it! Have you tried emailing rPath? Tried to find a relevant forum? Have they (the developer) bothered visiting these forums to see concern about the doc?
>For what it's worth, to the author, good work man, I'm using it, and while I wouldn't give it a 5 out of 5, I would certainly give it 4.5
Great you like it - thats cool,- you are in a tiny minority from what I have seen on this particular appliance. Don't slag off those who don't like it now (but might if it had some doc)! It's a big internet.
@RDPetruska
Absolutely correct!
Now can you please put a pointer on the LAMP appliance page to point to this thread?!
@williambishop again
>But did you try the appliance? It was like 10 minutes to set up! How hard is that? If it was something difficult I would understand, but this is no different than a dozen other appliances, a first step, something to help ease the burden of administering networks by giving us more time NOT building servers.
Well I did! 10 minutes IF you have LAMP experience and have done it all before. Proves nothing - there should be doc! If there are a dozen other appliances out there with zero doc then then hopefully there are pointers from them to this forum with comments to that effect.
>The appliance is good, it's fairly straightforward, yes a short sheet would be helpful, but I get so tired of people who don't even bother looking. Perhaps they could have PM'd or emailed the author?
I did!!!!!!!!! At the time I was trying it there was no email address, there was a web page where you could ask a question. It was never answered. I even asked him/them to look in theese vmware forums!!!!!! Still wanna call me lazy?!!
>I'm in the process of dumbing down what to me is a simple appliance that I built. I had to do videos because of some of the recipients, because reading was a bit complicated for them. Most of them wouldn't need anything, even a note, but some are so daft they need hand holding. This isn't the middle or even the end of an age, it's the fresh beginning. Lets give the authors some support while they learn and spread the technology out.
Let's not confuse your appliance with the rPath LAMP one. I'm sure there are some good appliances out there, possibly even yours - you don't bother to mention what it is. I think the attitude to users you display here suggests you should give up building appliances and leave it to people with more respect for the end user - even if they do need a little hand holding.
Maybe applicance builders should not waste other people's time by gifting zero- or badly- documented appliances to a vmware commununity that actually lives in the 21st Century not the dark ages when basic documentation was optional.
I'm not new to Linux or vmware. I am new to LAMP and this appliance isn't worth looking at from my point of view. A simple newbie warning on the LAMP appliance page would help.
@brett_adam
If you are from rpath, please force a link from the vmware LAMP rpath page to that wiki as well as to here.