[clue-tech] To dumb down or not to dumb down

[June Tate-Gans]

Erm... correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as though your definition of a
"normal user" has a couple of problems. You assume the user won't try to
look up via Google what Jim said to try to better understand it. Using the
same logic, doesn't it then follow that this "normal user" wouldn't have a
need for eth-tool/mii-tool in the first place?

I think you underestimate his abilities. He's using ethtool, which means
he's savvy enough to have learned about that tool is the first place, and
he's mentioning that it is "lying" from which we can glean that he has at
least some technical strengths to deduce that much with. Would it not
follow, then, that he also has the ability to learn more about the ioctl
calls that Jim referred to?

Besides, simply dumbing down the information is less helpful to all involved
as it clouds the root cause of the problem. Jim did, after all, provide
context in his reply as to what those ioctls were for.

On Jul 8, 2010 4:02 AM, "Nate Duehr" <nate at natetech.com> wrote:


On Jul 7, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Jim Ockers wrote:

> Does your NIC driver support SIOCGMIIPHY ioctls or...
Yeah, 'cause that's something a normal user of an OS is supposed to know...
LOL!

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com


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