I use to question knowledge a lot. Life could be simpler. But, comercial stuff uses to complicate it all a lot. I also regret wasting such a long time with Windows and their obscurantism.

I also recognize that perl is still taught in a 'Gothic Cathedral' way. In Middle Ages, the gothic masons kept their style for their own guild. Yet, today, the perldoc is not very much recommended during the AP's installation. I started using it in Linux before finding it in Windows.

What I envision with Linux is a more natural way of getting introduced in the technical use of PCs. When I first installed Mandrake, I thought of a nice way of starting learning things by trying to make the normal stuff do better things. You were not forced to learn a lot to have it all working as in Windows. But to have a better performance, you would rather start reading the man docs, and visiting some newsgroups, and asking some difficult questions.

There is still a lot to do in this learning issue. But, I wouldn't expect of the comercial software to do a lot to make us learn more.

Perl is a 'must know' if you are working with a Linux environment.