Using Ubuntu absolves the user of personal responsibility?

[Alexander Skwar]

· Jyrki Pulliainen <jyrki.pulliainen at gmail.com>:

> On 8/3/06, Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> wrote:
>> Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca>:
>>
>> > Todd Slater wrote:
>> >
>> >> I read, with some sadness, the thread on mounting an ISO as a virtual
>> >> cd-rom. It appears that pointing someone to a web search or man page
>> >> is no longer considered a helpful response.
>> >
>> > imo it was the phrase:
>> >
>> >> And you're telling us, that ALL of Google didn't have anything
>> >> wrt. this?
>>
>> So?
>>
> 
> Sentences with that kind of tone are never helpful. You get the
> picture that whoever posted that one thinks the person asking the
> original question is a helpless newbie not capable of searching stuff
> from google.
> 
>> > The actual reference given _was_ helpful, but how can anyone expect a newbie
>> > to understand that mounting an ISO requires a search for "loop"?
>>
>> I don't expect that. That's why a wrote what to search for in the
>> man page. On google, "mount a ISO file Linux" has the command
>> in the *FIRST* hit. Proof: http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=mount+a+ISO+file+linux&btnG=Suche&meta=
>> (Okay, that page is in German. The 3rd hit is in english. Or
>> use http://www.google.com/search?as_q=mount+a+ISO+file+linux&num=10&hl=de&btnG=Google-Suche&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=lang_en&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images
>> where the first hit also gives the command.)
>>
>> Now, where did this require knowing anything about "loop"?
>>
> 
> Nowhere, but it requires the knowing of 'mount'.

Yep. That knowledge exists in the OP. If you look carefully, I googled
for "mount a ISO file linux". "mount a ISO file" is from the OP. "linux"
is an addition I made.

> As you can see from 
> the original post, the topic isn't like "how to mount iso" but more
> about the fact, that the user wants to create a virtual cd-rom from
> iso file in linux. Searching 'iso file linux virtual cd-rom' doesn't
> give you so promising results.

Right. But searching for "mount a ISO file" gives promising results. That's
a (part of a) sentence which was used in the OP!

> And yes, I'm aware of the fact that the post itself talks about mount
> but you cannot take it as a solid fact that the user has used the
> correct words at the search or, in all the other cases, hasn't
> searched at all.

Uhm, well, the huge amount of hits which immediately give the
command imply that he didn't search. I don't know this, of course.

> And by the way, the 'man mount' talks about the loop, but doesn't
> really tell you that you should use iso9660 file system type with .iso
> images.

True. And the man page shouldn't even mention iso9660 specifically,
as there's nothing special about iso9660 fs or .iso files. What I
mean to say: "mount -o loop file.reiserfs /mnt" works equally fine;
in this example, file.reiserfs should be a file which contains a
reiserfs file system. Also, there's no reason to explicitly mention
that a plain file can be mounted as well, as everything is just
a file on Unix systems.

Alexander Skwar
-- 
Die wollen alle nur unser Bestes, aber das kriegen sie nicht!