On Thu, Apr 30, 1998 at 10:44:21AM -0400, Stephen Carpenter wrote: [Debian for the clueless users] > > If there are a group of people interested in doing this still, I am very > > much interested in seeing this done and contributing what I can to the > > project. > > I find this idea interesting and would like to see it... Then I suppose if you're not the only one, something might get done with it.. => Anyone else interested is free to email me and we can see about actually getting a mailing list for the job and start DOING something about it. It's one thing to say "oh that'd be nice" but another all around to get off our tails and make it happen. Some of what I can imagine doing already is not suited for Debian's official CD really, but I suppose that would be the kind of thing to want and see what the Debian developers and users think. One thing I would like see (if there are any mildly compitent programmers interested) is more tools like apt that are able to be used in console or X. > > editor is as easy (read: mindless) as pico and pine is a user favorite. And > > the most > > config qmail requires after package installation is control/me, which I'd > > have a script edit for you.. =p > > I dunno...I think ee and ae are both pretty damned easy and mindless :)(ae is > sooo mindless I have noticed it is putting CR in my text documents) I found pico to have more features than ae, and I know that's not true. ae was just harder to use. > > I agree. Debian is a great dist on technical merit, even though it doesn't > > have some of the niceties needed for a home-user who wants to try Linux on > > their machine and is willing to learn--but can't really afford a lot of time > > to figure out how to handle the common tasks we take for granted. > > This is very true... I know a number of people who just want to"Point and click > and have it work" Most of them would settle for a DOS-looking configuration, but you can only do so much with dialog and most people DON'T write even that much. Most of the enhancements to usability I can think of would be fine with sh scripts and whiptail (or dialog which I despise--it should be an alternatives thing with whiptail having higher priority IMO) and in places that's not suitable perl scripts would be fine. There's not MUCH we would actually NEED programming done for---but I can think of a small number of Make Linux Easier For Everyone programming tasks (better XF86Setup!) > > See Crystal's horror story once she got everything installed. rpm is a > > file-based dependancy, not a package based. She knew she needed a file, not > > where to get it. This is the kind of thing dpkg does well IMO.. > > I have used both Debian and RedHat and I agree... dpkg is MUCH easierto > use than RPM is....and it works much better...at this point in the short > few months I have used debian I have installed and uninstalled and > generally used dpkg hundreds of times... [ Side note to self: I can't believe joe just formatted that paragraph with the >'s in the right spot, it's never done that before... <shrug> ] Oh yeah, rpm is the one thing Redhat should have ignored. dpkg is really a better program, though it may not have been quite what they wanted at the time. > on my past RedHat systems I alwasy had a lengthy read of the man page... > it took forever to get it to work! The thing is this....RedHat is a GREAT > 1st system....by that I mean the firsttime you ever install linux...as > much as I love debian and think it is greatly superiour in many ways... I > still recommend RedHat for the first time. > > This is just because it installs a nice useable system so nice and easy... > and has graphical admin tools....the learning curve to linux is sharp > (unless you are comming from another Unix) but RedHat makes the first few > days/weeks easier > > remember: "There are only 2 kinds of system admins, those who have screwed > their computer up while logged on as root, and those who havn't YET" after > they are at the level of having done that..(I have personally done that Whelp, if I get my way (and I'm stubborn) you'd also be able to show them a Debian CD and they would at least have the OPTION of having an installation that was easy for the kind of system they would need at home. > um... > lets see...at least 3-5 times) ..that is when I suggest debian :) RedHat > is a very good system to get started on...but hard to grow with Debian on > the other hand makes a great 4th system (yes 4th...I messed it up once > after I switched too..probably will again someday) I was the one who sat down one day and finally dove in, using a multiboot with OS/2 and WFW (I won't run 95, WFW is the most stable Windoze ever) on my system. I just Partition Magic'd myself a new pair of partitions and installed Debian. Life as I know it changed that cold December night.. => Installation was a snap. I knew basic shell commands from working on a SunOS (and later the buggiest Slowaris you ever saw when they "upgraded") machine, so once I was installed I was fine. I installed the tools I used, joe, procmail, epic, pine, sendmail (even though I don't still use it, I owe Johnie BIG TIME for helping with configuring that monster) I decided to upgrade to hamm (my first WEEK!) and promptly found myself wiping the partition and reinstalling bo.. But not to be discouraged I did it AGAIN, this time manually for the first dozen packages to have perl and bash upgraded by hand. Then I let dselect (yes I use dselect--even now (though I use the apt method)) upgrade the rest. That was my only severe screwup and I made it my first week. Not every newbie can be expected to catch on as quick as I did (if I screwed up the upgrade today I would probably be able to fix it with the rescue disk.) Perhaps most of them not. I had some idea how to get around a shell and I had been reading Running Linux (good book) and I learn fast. But I do believe that anyone should be able to sit down with a Linux CD and give it a few hours effort and be able to use the result (that includes X which I didn't get working for WEEKS after that time..) It can be done if people want to take the time to make it happen.
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